Cuba 12th Grade History Final Exam study plan
Cuba 12th Grade History Final Exam · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 6 hours per week
Precolonial and Colonial Cuba (indigenous societies through the wars of independence)
Build a dated timeline from pre-Columbian Guanahatabey, Ciboney, and Taíno societies through the Spanish conquest, marking at least 12 key dates with one-line significance notes.
Explain in writing how encomienda, repartimiento, and the transatlantic slave economy reshaped Cuban demography and labor by 1800, citing at least three causal links.
Identify on a blank outline map the six original jurisdictions of 1878 and the regions where the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) and the Little War (1879–1880) were concentrated, and state one reason each region mattered strategically.
Define in your own words the differences among reformism, annexationism, and separatism in the 19th-century Cuban independence movement, with one named representative for each tendency.
Your checkpoint
A one-page annotated chronology (12+ dated entries) plus a 300-word causal paragraph on slavery and the plantation economy, self-graded against a checklist.
Precolonial and Colonial Cuba (indigenous societies through the wars of independence)
Narrate the arc from the Pact of Zanjón through José Martí's founding of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (1892) to the War of Independence of 1895, listing at least six turning points in order.
Compare the social bases and military strategies of the mambises with Spanish counterinsurgency policy, including reconcentración under Weyler, in a structured two-column comparison.
Assess the impact of the United States intervention of 1898 and the Platt Amendment on the outcome of Cuban independence, writing at least three distinct arguments.
Answer five practice multiple-choice items on Domain 1 under timed conditions and explain each wrong option you chose.
Your checkpoint
A timed 20-question Domain 1 practice set scored and corrected, with a written error log naming the cause of each miss (date confusion, causal reversal, vocabulary).
Neocolonial Republic and the national question (1902–1958)
Trace the political sequence from the 1901 Constitutional Convention and the Platt Amendment through the 1933 Revolution and the 1940 Constitution, dating at least eight milestones.
Explain the structural features of the neocolonial republic - sugar dependency, foreign capital, political corruption, and US influence - and connect each to a concrete event or policy.
Profile three key figures of the period (for example Gerardo Machado, Antonio Guiteras, and Eduardo Chibás) and state each one's program and historical significance in three sentences or fewer.
Analyze how the 1933 Revolution and the 1940 Constitution changed labor rights and national sovereignty, citing specific provisions.
Your checkpoint
A comparative table of the 1901, 1933, and 1940 constitutional settlements with three rows of substantive comparison and a 150-word synthesis.
Revolutionary process: triumph, radicalization, and institutionalization (1959–1980s)
Construct a timeline of 1959–1961 covering the provisional government, the Agrarian Reform Law, the Bay of Pigs, and the declaration of the socialist character of the revolution, with at least ten entries.
Explain the causes and consequences of the nationalizations and the US embargo, distinguishing economic, political, and ideological factors.
Summarize the main debates of the 1960s (for example the Great Debate on economic strategy and the 1962 Missile Crisis) and state the outcome of each.
Describe the institutionalization of the 1970s - the First Congress of the Communist Party, the 1976 Constitution, and the Organs of People's Power - in a coherent paragraph.
Your checkpoint
A two-page causal map of the 1959–1961 radicalization linking at least six events with arrows labeled as cause, consequence, or both, submitted for self-review.
Revolutionary process: triumph, radicalization, and institutionalization (1959–1980s) & Cuban national identity, culture, and historiography
Evaluate the 1970s–1980s record on education, health, and internationalism (for example Angola and Ethiopia) using at least four concrete data points or named policies.
Identify the causes behind the 1980 Mariel exodus and the 1986 Rectification Campaign, and explain how each reflected tensions in the revolutionary model.
Analyze how revolutionary cultural institutions (for example the Casa de las Américas, ICAIC, and the 1961 literacy campaign) shaped national identity, with one example per institution.
Distinguish among at least three historiographical approaches to the Cuban Revolution (for example official, exile, and academic social-history perspectives) and state one strength and one limitation of each.
Your checkpoint
A 400-word essay comparing two historiographical interpretations of a single revolutionary episode, with footnote-style citations to the sources you used.
Cuba in the Special Period and the 21st century (economic crisis, reforms, and current affairs)
Explain the onset and dimensions of the Special Period after 1991 - the loss of Soviet trade, the energy and food crisis, and the response measures - using at least five specific policies or events.
Trace the sequence of economic reforms from the 1990s through the 2010s (for example the opening to self-employment, the 2011 Party guidelines, and the 2019 Constitution) and date each accurately.
Analyze current affairs topics such as emigration, remittances, the dual currency unification of 2021, and US–Cuba relations, separating verified facts from contested claims.
Compare the social costs and adaptive strategies of the Special Period across generations and regions, citing at least three concrete examples.
Your checkpoint
A current-affairs briefing of 500 words on one post-2019 reform, with at least four dated facts and a clearly labeled section of open questions.
Historical thinking skills: chronology, causation, source analysis, and argumentation & Precolonial and Colonial Cuba (indigenous societies through the wars of independence) & Neocolonial Republic and the national question (1902–1958)
Classify ten historical statements as fact, inference, or opinion, and justify each classification in one sentence.
Practice primary-source analysis on two short document excerpts (a political speech and a legal text), identifying author, audience, purpose, and bias for each.
Construct a full essay outline answering a causation prompt on Cuban independence, with a thesis, three body arguments, and counterargument addressed.
Complete a 25-question mixed practice exam covering Domains 1, 2, and 5 under timed conditions and review every error.
Your checkpoint
A written essay outline plus a scored mixed practice set, with a revised thesis statement that survived review against the evidence.
Cuba in the Special Period and the 21st century (economic crisis, reforms, and current affairs) & Historical thinking skills: chronology, causation, source analysis, and argumentation & Cuban national identity, culture, and historiography
Take two full-length timed mock exams and record your score by domain to identify remaining weak areas.
Re-teach your three weakest subtopics to yourself in writing, using a one-page summary for each without consulting notes.
Assemble a final one-page synthesis connecting colonial legacies, the neocolonial republic, the revolution, and the Special Period into a single causal narrative.
Review your error logs from all previous weeks and confirm that every recurring mistake type has a written corrective rule.
Your checkpoint
Two completed mock exams with domain-level score breakdowns and a one-page final synthesis sheet.
Milestones
Week 2: You can narrate the 1868–1898 independence arc from memory in under five minutes and score at least 70% on a Domain 1 practice set.
Week 3: You can explain the Platt Amendment's effects and the 1940 Constitution's innovations without notes, and your comparative table has no factual gaps.
Week 4: Your causal map correctly orders the 1959–1961 events and labels at least three relationships as reciprocal rather than one-directional.
Week 6: You can date the major post-1991 reforms within a year or two and distinguish verified facts from contested claims in your briefing.
Week 8: Both mock exams are complete, every domain scores at or above your target threshold, and each recurring error type has a written corrective rule.