CLEP History of the United States I study guide
CLEP History of the United States I · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The CLEP History of the United States I exam is one of the College-Level Examination Program subject tests offered through the College Board. It is designed for students who have already acquired college-level knowledge of early and nineteenth-century American history and who want to demonstrate that knowledge in order to earn college credit rather than repeat a survey course. The CLEP History of the United States I study guide has 5 sections and about 1,389 words.
01Political Institutions and Public Policy
The exam treats institutions as a system of competing authorities. Know colonial legacies (charters, town meetings, colonial assemblies, royal governors), the Articles of Confederation (unicameral Congress, no taxing or commerce power, requisitions, unanimity for amendment), and the Constitutional Convention's compromises: Virginia Plan (population-based), New Jersey Plan (state equality), Connecticut Compromise (bicameral), Three-Fifths Compromise, and the slave-trade clause.
298 words, about 1 min02Social Developments
Social history questions focus on who came, how they lived, and how reform movements organized. Know colonial demography: Native American displacement, indentured servitude (especially in the Chesapeake), the transatlantic slave trade, and regional labor systems-tobacco in the Chesapeake, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and family-based slavery in the Upper South.
301 words, about 2 min03Economic Developments
Economic questions link policy choices to regional development. Know mercantilism and the Navigation Acts, colonial staple economies, and the early national debate between Hamilton's program (assumption of state debts, a national bank, excise taxes, tariffs, internal improvements) and Jeffersonian agrarian republicanism.
267 words, about 1 min04Cultural and Intellectual Developments
Cultural and intellectual history asks how Americans explained their world. Know Puritanism (covenant theology, "city upon a hill," congregational governance, dissenters Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson), the Enlightenment (natural rights, reason, Locke's influence on the Declaration), and the Great Awakening (emotional revivalism, itinerant preachers, new denominations, congregational splits).
242 words, about 1 min05Diplomacy and International Relations
Diplomacy questions test treaties, doctrines, and the pressure of domestic politics. Know the colonial wars and the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Proclamation of 1763, the Revolution's French alliance (1778), and the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
281 words, about 1 min