FTCE Social Science 6-12 flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Latitude

Angular distance north or south of the equator, measured in degrees from 0° at the equator to 90° at the poles; lines run east-west and determine climate zones.

Demographic transition model

A four-stage model tracking birth and death rates as societies industrialize, moving from high-high to low-low rates, with rapid growth during Stage 2.

Push and pull factors

Conditions that drive people away from a location (war, famine, unemployment) versus conditions that attract them to a new location (jobs, safety, freedom).

Von Thünen model

An agricultural land-use model showing that intensive, perishable farming occurs near markets and extensive farming farther away because transport costs increase with distance.

Comparative advantage

The principle that a country should specialize in goods it produces at the lowest opportunity cost, increasing total output and gains from trade between nations.

Gross domestic product

The total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period, calculated as consumption plus investment plus government spending plus net exports.

Price elasticity of demand

The percentage change in quantity demanded divided by the percentage change in price; demand is elastic when the absolute value of the ratio exceeds one.

Money multiplier

The maximum amount the money supply can expand from each dollar of reserves, equal to one divided by the required reserve ratio.

Opportunity cost

The value of the next best alternative forgone when a choice is made; it underlies production possibilities curves and comparative advantage calculations.

Market equilibrium

The price and quantity at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded; surpluses push price down and shortages push price up toward this point.

Inflation effects

A sustained rise in the general price level that erodes purchasing power, hurting lenders and fixed-income earners while benefiting borrowers who repay in cheaper dollars.

Judicial review

The power of courts to declare legislative or executive acts unconstitutional, established in Marbury v. Madison (1803) and central to checks and balances.

Federalism

A system dividing power between a national government and state governments, with the Supremacy Clause making federal law supreme and the Tenth Amendment reserving other powers.

Electoral College

The body that formally elects the president; each state gets electors equal to its congressional delegation, and 270 of 538 votes are needed to win.

Checks and balances

Constitutional mechanisms letting each branch limit the others, such as vetoes, Senate confirmation, judicial review, and congressional override of vetoes.

Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution, protecting individual liberties including speech, religion, assembly, due process, and protections for the accused.

Political socialization

The lifelong process through which people acquire political beliefs and values, primarily influenced by family, schools, peers, religious institutions, and media.

Veto override

The congressional power to enact a bill despite presidential disapproval, requiring a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.

Neolithic Revolution

The transition around 10,000 BCE from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture, which enabled food surpluses, specialization, and the rise of cities.

River valley civilizations

Early complex societies that arose along floodplains such as the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, Indus, and Yellow River, relying on irrigation and producing centralized states.

Columbian Exchange

The transatlantic transfer of crops, animals, people, and diseases after 1492; Old World diseases devastated Indigenous populations while new crops reshaped diets.

Silk Roads

Overland trade networks linking China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean that spread goods, Buddhism and Islam, technologies, and epidemic disease across Afro-Eurasia.

Industrial Revolution

The late eighteenth-century shift beginning in Britain to mechanized production, steam power, and factory urbanization, transforming economies and societies worldwide.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 agreement ending World War I, imposing reparations and territorial losses on Germany; its terms are often linked to later political instability.

Decolonization

The post-1945 dissolution of European empires in Asia and Africa, creating new states that often faced artificial borders and Cold War pressures.

Renaissance humanism

A fourteenth- to seventeenth-century intellectual movement centered in Italy that emphasized classical learning, individual potential, and secular subjects alongside religious themes.

Great Compromise

The 1787 agreement creating a bicameral Congress with representation by population in the House and equal representation for each state in the Senate.

Missouri Compromise

The 1820 law admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as free, and prohibiting slavery north of 36°30' in the Louisiana Territory.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth (abolishing slavery), Fourteenth (citizenship and equal protection), and Fifteenth (voting rights regardless of race) Amendments adopted after the Civil War.

New Deal

The 1930s federal program expanding government's economic role, creating Social Security, the FDIC, and labor protections in response to the Great Depression.

Containment

The Cold War policy of limiting Soviet expansion, implemented through the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, and U.S. involvement in Korea and Vietnam.

Brown v. Board of Education

The 1954 Supreme Court decision holding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and energizing the civil rights movement.