FTCE Social Science 6-12 cheat sheet

Latitude lines run east-west and measure distance north or south of the equator (0° to 90°); longitude lines run north-south and measure distance east or west of the prime meridian (0° to 180°).

Climate zones by latitude: tropical (0°–23.5°), temperate (23.5°–66.5°), and polar (66.5°–90°); the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn mark 23.5° N and S.

Plate boundaries: divergent (plates separate, mid-ocean ridges), convergent (plates collide, mountains and subduction zones), and transform (plates slide past, faults such as San Andreas).

Population density equals total population divided by land area; arithmetic density uses total area, physiological density uses arable land only.

The demographic transition model has four stages: high birth/death (Stage 1), falling death rates (Stage 2), falling birth rates (Stage 3), and low stable rates (Stage 4).

Push factors drive migration away from a place (war, famine, unemployment); pull factors attract migrants (jobs, safety, freedom).

The three-sector model divides economies into primary (extraction), secondary (manufacturing), and tertiary (services); development shifts employment from primary toward tertiary.

Von Thünen's model places intensive farming (dairy, produce) near markets and extensive farming (grazing, grain) farther out because transport costs rise with distance.

Law of demand: as price rises, quantity demanded falls, all else equal; law of supply: as price rises, quantity supplied rises. Equilibrium occurs where the curves intersect.

Elasticity of demand equals percentage change in quantity demanded divided by percentage change in price; demand is elastic when the absolute value exceeds 1.

GDP equals consumption plus investment plus government spending plus net exports (C + I + G + (X − M)); it counts final goods only, not intermediate goods.

A country has comparative advantage in a good when its opportunity cost of producing it is lower than another country's, which is the basis for specialization and trade.

The money multiplier equals 1 divided by the reserve requirement ratio; an increase in the reserve ratio shrinks the money supply.

Central banks use open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements; buying bonds and lowering rates are expansionary policies.

Fiscal policy is government taxation and spending; deficits raise national debt, and automatic stabilizers (unemployment insurance, progressive taxes) dampen cycles.

Inflation is a sustained rise in the general price level; it erodes purchasing power and hurts lenders and fixed-income earners, while unanticipated inflation helps borrowers.

Market structures: perfect competition (many firms, identical goods), monopolistic competition (differentiated goods), oligopoly (few firms), and monopoly (single seller, high barriers).

The U.S. Constitution separates powers among legislative (Article I), executive (Article II), and judicial (Article III) branches, with checks and balances among them.

Federalism divides authority between national and state governments; the Supremacy Clause (Article VI) makes federal law supreme, and the Tenth Amendment reserves powers to the states.

The Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments; the First Amendment protects speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion (establishment and free exercise clauses).

The Electoral College awards electors equal to a state's total congressional delegation; a candidate needs 270 of 538 electoral votes to win the presidency.

A bill becomes law by passing both chambers and being signed by the president; a presidential veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote of each chamber.

Judicial review is the power of courts to declare laws unconstitutional, established in Marbury v. Madison (1803).

Political socialization is the process by which individuals acquire political attitudes, chiefly through family, schools, peers, and media.

Realignment shifts the dominant party coalition over a period (e.g., 1932 New Deal coalition); dealignment is weakening party identification among voters.

The Neolithic Revolution (c. 10,000 BCE) marked the shift from hunting-gathering to settled agriculture, enabling surplus, specialization, and cities.

River valley civilizations: Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates), Egypt (Nile), Indus (Indus), and China (Yellow River); each depended on floodplain agriculture and irrigation.

The Silk Roads, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan routes spread goods, religions (Buddhism, Islam), technologies, and disease (the Black Death) across Afro-Eurasia.

The Renaissance (14th–17th centuries) revived classical learning in Italy, emphasizing humanism, perspective in art, and printing (Gutenberg, c. 1450).

The Columbian Exchange transferred crops, animals, and diseases between hemispheres; Old World diseases devastated Indigenous populations of the Americas.

The Industrial Revolution began in late 18th-century Britain with mechanized textiles, steam power, and urbanization, spreading to Europe and North America in the 19th century.

World War I causes: militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism; the 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed reparations and territorial losses on Germany.

Decolonization after 1945 dismantled European empires in Asia and Africa; newly independent states often faced artificial borders and Cold War alignment pressures.

The Declaration of Independence (1776) drew on Locke's natural rights; the Articles of Confederation (1781) created a weak central government replaced by the Constitution (1787).

The Great Compromise created a bicameral Congress (population-based House, equal-state Senate); the Three-Fifths Compromise counted enslaved persons as three-fifths for representation.

The Missouri Compromise (1820) paired Missouri's admission as a slave state with Maine as free and banned slavery north of 36°30' in the Louisiana Territory.

Reconstruction (1865–1877) added the Thirteenth (abolition), Fourteenth (citizenship, equal protection), and Fifteenth (voting rights) Amendments.

Progressive Era reforms included the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators (Seventeenth Amendment), and antitrust action.

The New Deal (1933–1939) expanded federal economic regulation and created Social Security, the FDIC, and labor protections.

Key Cold War policies: containment (Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan), NATO (1949), and the domino theory underlying U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Landmark civil rights milestones: Brown v. Board of Education (1954, desegregation), Civil Rights Act (1964), and Voting Rights Act (1965).

The Great Depression began with the 1929 stock market crash and was worsened by bank failures and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff; unemployment peaked near 25%.

Tectonic plate boundaries: divergent (plates separate, mid-ocean ridges), convergent (plates collide, mountains and subduction zones), and transform (plates slide past, faults such as San Andreas).

Population density equals total population divided by land area; arithmetic density uses total area, physiological density uses arable land only.

The demographic transition model has four stages: high birth/death (Stage 1), falling death rates (Stage 2), falling birth rates (Stage 3), and low stable rates (Stage 4).

Push factors drive migration away from a place (war, famine, unemployment); pull factors attract migrants (jobs, safety, freedom).

The three-sector model divides economies into primary (extraction), secondary (manufacturing), and tertiary (services); development shifts employment from primary toward tertiary.

Von Thünen's model places intensive farming (dairy, produce) near markets and extensive farming (grazing, grain) farther out because transport costs rise with distance.

Latitude lines run east-west and measure distance north or south of the equator (0° to 90°); longitude lines run north-south and measure distance east or west of the prime meridian (0° to 180°).

Climate zones by latitude: tropical (0°–23.5°), temperate (23.5°–66.5°), and polar (66.5°–90°); the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn mark 23.5° N and S.

Law of demand: as price rises, quantity demanded falls, all else equal; law of supply: as price rises, quantity supplied rises. Equilibrium occurs where the curves intersect.

Elasticity of demand equals percentage change in quantity demanded divided by percentage change in price; demand is elastic when the absolute value exceeds 1.

GDP equals consumption plus investment plus government spending plus net exports (C + I + G + (X − M)); it counts final goods only, not intermediate goods.

A country has comparative advantage in a good when its opportunity cost of producing it is lower than another country's, which is the basis for specialization and trade.

The money multiplier equals 1 divided by the reserve requirement ratio; an increase in the reserve ratio shrinks the money supply.

Central banks use open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements; buying bonds and lowering rates are expansionary policies.

Fiscal policy is government taxation and spending; deficits raise national debt, and automatic stabilizers (unemployment insurance, progressive taxes) dampen cycles.

Inflation is a sustained rise in the general price level; it erodes purchasing power and hurts lenders and fixed-income earners, while unanticipated inflation helps borrowers.

Market structures: perfect competition (many firms, identical goods), monopolistic competition (differentiated goods), oligopoly (few firms), and monopoly (single seller, high barriers).

The U.S. Constitution separates powers among legislative (Article I), executive (Article II), and judicial (Article III) branches, with checks and balances among them.

Federalism divides authority between national and state governments; the Supremacy Clause (Article VI) makes federal law supreme, and the Tenth Amendment reserves powers to the states.

The Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments; the First Amendment protects speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion (establishment and free exercise clauses).

The Electoral College awards electors equal to a state's total congressional delegation; a candidate needs 270 of 538 electoral votes to win the presidency.

A bill becomes law by passing both chambers and being signed by the president; a presidential veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote of each chamber.

Judicial review is the power of courts to declare laws unconstitutional, established in Marbury v. Madison (1803).

Political socialization is the process by which individuals acquire political attitudes, chiefly through family, schools, peers, and media.

Realignment shifts the dominant party coalition over a period (e.g., 1932 New Deal coalition); dealignment is weakening party identification among voters.

The Neolithic Revolution (c. 10,000 BCE) marked the shift from hunting-gathering to settled agriculture, enabling surplus, specialization, and cities.

River valley civilizations: Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates), Egypt (Nile), Indus (Indus), and China (Yellow River); each depended on floodplain agriculture and irrigation.

The Silk Roads, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan routes spread goods, religions (Buddhism, Islam), technologies, and disease (the Black Death) across Afro-Eurasia.

The Renaissance (14th–17th centuries) revived classical learning in Italy, emphasizing humanism, perspective in art, and printing (Gutenberg, c. 1450).

The Columbian Exchange transferred crops, animals, and diseases between hemispheres; Old World diseases devastated Indigenous populations of the Americas.

The Industrial Revolution began in late 18th-century Britain with mechanized textiles, steam power, and urbanization, spreading to Europe and North America in the 19th century.

World War I causes: militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism; the 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed reparations and territorial losses on Germany.

Decolonization after 1945 dismantled European empires in Asia and Africa; newly independent states often faced artificial borders and Cold War alignment pressures.

The Declaration of Independence (1776) drew on Locke's natural rights; the Articles of Confederation (1781) created a weak central government replaced by the Constitution (1787).

The Great Compromise created a bicameral Congress (population-based House, equal-state Senate); the Three-Fifths Compromise counted enslaved persons as three-fifths for representation.

The Missouri Compromise (1820) paired Missouri's admission as a slave state with Maine as free and banned slavery north of 36°30' in the Louisiana Territory.

Reconstruction (1865–1877) added the Thirteenth (abolition), Fourteenth (citizenship, equal protection), and Fifteenth (voting rights) Amendments.

Progressive Era reforms included the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators (Seventeenth Amendment), and antitrust action.

The New Deal (1933–1939) expanded federal economic regulation and created Social Security, the FDIC, and labor protections.

Key Cold War policies: containment (Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan), NATO (1949), and the domino theory underlying U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Landmark civil rights milestones: Brown v. Board of Education (1954, desegregation), Civil Rights Act (1964), and Voting Rights Act (1965).

The Great Depression began with the 1929 stock market crash and was worsened by bank failures and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff; unemployment peaked near 25%.