GACE Middle Grades Social Science (707) study plan

Build a one-page timeline of U.S. history from 1607 to 1877, placing at least 25 events and labeling each with its era (colonial, revolutionary, early republic, antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction).

Explain in writing how three founding documents (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights) reflect competing views on federal power, using at least two primary-source quotations per document.

Distinguish cause from correlation by writing two paragraphs on whether the cotton gin caused the expansion of slavery or accelerated an existing trend, citing specific evidence.

Define six historical-thinking terms (chronology, causality, contingency, change over time, periodization, perspective) and give one U.S. history example of each.

Compare the Reconstruction, Progressive, New Deal, and Civil Rights eras by listing for each the federal actions taken, the opposition encountered, and the long-term outcome.

Analyze at least four primary sources (a speech, a law or amendment, a political cartoon description, and a letter) and write a paragraph identifying each author's purpose, audience, and bias.

Trace how voting rights expanded from 1789 to 1965, naming the constitutional amendment or statute behind each expansion.

Summarize three major U.S. foreign-policy turning points (Spanish-American War, World War II, Cold War containment) and state the domestic consequence of each.

Sequence at least 20 events in world history from the Neolithic Revolution through the Age of Exploration and justify each placement with a one-sentence rationale.

Compare the political and religious structures of three classical civilizations (for example, Han China, Gupta India, and imperial Rome) in a written comparison.

Explain the Columbian Exchange by listing five goods, two diseases, and two demographic consequences, and describe how they reshaped at least three continents.

Evaluate two competing interpretations of one revolution (French, Haitian, or Industrial) and state which interpretation the evidence better supports.

Explain the causes and global consequences of at least three twentieth-century conflicts (World War I, World War II, decolonization) with dates, alliances, and outcomes.

Read a physical map and a thematic map and write out five inferences each about settlement, climate, or resources, citing map features as evidence.

Define and apply 15 geographic terms (latitude, longitude, scale, region, biome, plate tectonics, prevailing winds, and others) to real places.

Describe how human-environment interaction shapes agriculture in three different climate zones.

Compare push and pull migration factors for three historical and three contemporary migrations, naming origin and destination regions.

Analyze population pyramids and demographic transition models for three countries at different development stages and predict one policy implication for each.

Explain how urbanization, transportation, and resource distribution interact in at least two world regions.

Identify the five themes of geography in a case study of one U.S. region and one world region, giving concrete examples for each theme.

Diagram the structure of U.S. government (legislative, executive, judicial) and label checks and balances with at least eight specific examples.

Explain federalism by contrasting enumerated, reserved, concurrent, and implied powers with one Supreme Court case per category.

Summarize the protections in the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment and apply them to three hypothetical scenarios.

Describe the election process, the role of political parties, and the function of interest groups and media in at least 300 words.

Explain scarcity, opportunity cost, supply and demand, and elasticity by working through five numerical or scenario problems and showing the reasoning.

Compare economic systems (market, command, mixed) and identify the roles of government, consumers, and producers in each.

Interpret a source set of four short texts on one economic policy and write a claim supported by evidence from at least three of them.

Distinguish primary from secondary sources and evaluate two sources for reliability using author, date, purpose, and corroboration.

Complete two timed full-length practice sets and score each by domain, recording accuracy percentages.

Re-teach the two lowest-scoring domains by writing a one-page summary of each from memory, then checking against notes.

Practice 15 constructed-response prompts by outlining thesis, evidence, and conclusion in under five minutes each.

Build a one-page error log of missed items and state the underlying concept behind each error.