CLEP Western Civilization II study plan

Build a timeline of 1648–1763 key treaties and rulers, placing at least 20 events in correct order

Explain in writing how Louis XIV's intendants, Versailles court, and revocation of the Edict of Nantes each strengthened or weakened royal control

Compare English constitutionalism after 1688 with French absolutism across taxation, religion, and law, in a two-column table

Map the major colonial empires (British, French, Spanish, Dutch) in 1715 and 1763 and label the territorial shifts

Sequence the major scientific figures from Copernicus to Newton and state each one's central contribution in a single sentence

Distinguish the methods of Bacon and Descartes and give one historical example of each approach in practice

Trace how Enlightenment thinkers applied scientific reasoning to politics, religion, and economics, naming at least six thinkers and their core ideas

Identify three ways Enlightenment ideas circulated (salons, print, encyclopedias) and explain who was excluded from this public sphere

Order the phases of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1815 and attach one cause and one consequence to each phase

Explain how Napoleon's reforms (Code, Concordat, administration) both consolidated and undermined revolutionary gains

Describe the mechanization of textiles and the shift to coal and iron, linking each change to a specific region or inventor

List five social consequences of industrialization and match each to evidence such as urban growth, child labor, or new class identities

Evaluate the Congress of Vienna's settlement by testing it against three later revolutions or nationalist movements

Distinguish liberalism, nationalism, and romanticism with a definition and one representative example each

Trace Italian and German unification as sequences of events, noting the role of Cavour, Garibaldi, and Bismarck

Explain the causes of New Imperialism and connect at least three of them to specific African or Asian episodes

Build a cause-and-effect chain from the alliance system and Balkan crises to the outbreak of war in 1914

Compare the war's home fronts on mobilization, rationing, and propaganda, using at least two countries

Explain how the Treaty of Versailles and reparations shaped Weimar Germany's instability

Connect the Russian Revolutions of 1917 to the creation of the Soviet state and its early policies

Sequence the steps of Axis aggression and Allied response from 1935 to 1941 and identify the turning point in each theater

Explain the Holocaust's stages and the conditions that enabled it, using precise terminology

Summarize the wartime conferences and how they set the shape of the postwar order

Describe the origins of the Cold War in Europe by contrasting Soviet and American positions on at least three issues

Trace European integration from the Schuman Plan to the Maastricht Treaty, naming each treaty and what it created

Explain Cold War crises and detente in Europe, including the Berlin Blockade, Hungarian and Prague uprisings, and the fall of the Berlin Wall

Analyze decolonization's effects on European economies and identities, using two former empires as cases

Identify three contemporary issues (migration, populism, eurozone tensions, or enlargement) and explain their historical roots

Diagnose remaining gaps by scoring at least 60 practice questions across all ten domains and ranking them by error rate

Re-study the three weakest domains using your own notes, timelines, and charts

Practice timed question sets under exam conditions and review every wrong answer

Recite from memory the dates, treaties, and figures most likely to be tested