OSAT Middle Level Social Studies (127) cheat sheet

Colonial regions: New England (rocky soil, fishing, shipbuilding, town meetings), Middle Colonies (fertile land, grain, ethnic diversity), Southern Colonies (plantation cash crops, indentured servitude then slavery, Anglican gentry).

Constitutional compromises: Great Compromise created a bicameral Congress (population in the House, equal state representation in the Senate); Three-Fifths Compromise counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation.

Federalists supported ratification and a strong central government (Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison, Jay); Anti-Federalists demanded a bill of rights and feared centralized power.

Key amendments: 13th abolished slavery, 14th granted citizenship and equal protection, 15th protected voting rights by race; 19th gave women suffrage; 26th set voting age at 18.

Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877, which withdrew federal troops from the South and enabled Jim Crow segregation, poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.

Progressive Era reforms: 16th (income tax), 17th (direct election of senators), 18th (Prohibition), 19th (women's suffrage); muckrakers exposed corruption in business and government.

New Deal programs: Social Security Act (1935) created old-age pensions and unemployment insurance; the Tennessee Valley Authority and Works Progress Administration provided regional development and jobs.

Civil Rights milestones: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ended school segregation; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests.

River valley civilizations: Mesopotamia (Tigris-Euphrates, cuneiform, Hammurabi's Code), Egypt (Nile, hieroglyphics, pharaohs), Indus Valley (planned cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro), China (Yellow River, oracle bones, Shang dynasty).

Classical Greece: Athens developed direct democracy and philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle); Sparta emphasized military discipline; Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic culture across the Mediterranean and Near East.

Roman legacy: republic and Senate, Twelve Tables of law, Latin, roads, aqueducts, and the spread of Christianity; the Western Empire fell in 476 CE while the Byzantine Empire endured.

Islam spread rapidly after 622 CE from Mecca and Medina; the Abbasid Golden Age produced algebra (al-Khwarizmi), hospitals, and preservation of Greek texts in Baghdad's House of Wisdom.

The Black Death (1347-1351) killed roughly one-third of Europe's population, reduced labor supply, weakened feudalism, and raised wages for surviving peasants.

Renaissance humanism shifted focus to classical learning and individual achievement; the printing press (Gutenberg, c. 1450) accelerated literacy and the Protestant Reformation.

Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late 18th century, driven by coal, iron, the steam engine, and textile factories; urbanization and child labor prompted reform laws.

Decolonization after World War II: Indian independence (1947) under Gandhi's nonviolent resistance, Ghana (1957), and the 1960 Year of Africa; the Cold War split newly independent states into rival blocs.

Latitude measures distance north or south of the equator (0 degrees) and largely determines climate; longitude measures east or west of the prime meridian and sets time zones.

Map projections distort shape, area, distance, or direction: Mercator preserves direction but exaggerates polar area; Robinson and Winkel Tripel balance distortions; Peters emphasizes equal area.

Climate controls include latitude, altitude, ocean currents, prevailing winds, and proximity to water; rain shadows occur when moist air rises over mountains and dries on the leeward side.

Plate tectonics: divergent boundaries create rifts and mid-ocean ridges, convergent boundaries create mountains and volcanoes, and transform boundaries create faults and earthquakes.

Push factors drive migration away from a place (war, famine, persecution); pull factors attract migrants (jobs, safety, freedom); intervening obstacles can block movement.

Cultural diffusion spreads ideas and practices through trade, migration, and conquest; acculturation is adopting traits of another culture while retaining one's own.

Demographic transition model stages: high birth and death rates, then falling death rates, then falling birth rates, then low birth and death rates with an aging population.

Population density divides population by land area; arable land, water access, and economic opportunity explain uneven global distribution.

Scarcity forces choices; opportunity cost is the value of the next-best alternative forgone when a decision is made.

Supply and demand: a price above equilibrium creates a surplus; a price below equilibrium creates a shortage; equilibrium clears the market.

Elasticity measures responsiveness; demand for necessities tends to be inelastic, while demand for goods with close substitutes tends to be elastic.

GDP measures the market value of final goods and services produced within a country in a year; real GDP adjusts for inflation using a base year.

Inflation is a sustained rise in the general price level, eroding purchasing power; central banks raise interest rates to slow inflation and lower them to stimulate growth.

Fiscal policy uses government spending and taxation (Congress and the president); monetary policy uses interest rates and money supply (the Federal Reserve).

Comparative advantage explains trade gains: countries specialize where their opportunity cost is lowest, even if one country is more productive in everything.

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

Separation of powers: Congress legislates, the president executes, and the judiciary interprets; checks and balances let each branch limit the others.

Federalism divides power between national and state governments; delegated powers are federal, reserved powers belong to states, and concurrent powers are shared.

The Bill of Rights protects speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition (1st); protects against unreasonable searches (4th); and guarantees due process (5th, 14th).

Selective incorporation applies most Bill of Rights protections to the states through the 14th Amendment's due process clause.

Judicial review, established in Marbury v. Madison (1803), lets courts strike down laws that violate the Constitution.

Elections: the Electoral College elects the president; House terms are two years, Senate six years, presidential four years, with a two-term limit set by the 22nd Amendment.

Civic participation includes voting, jury service, petitioning officials, campaigning, and paying taxes; political parties organize coalitions and nominate candidates.

Landmark cases: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld separate but equal; Brown (1954) overturned it; Miranda v. Arizona (1966) required warnings before custodial interrogation.

Primary sources are created by participants or witnesses at the time (letters, diaries, artifacts); secondary sources interpret and analyze primary evidence.

Historical thinking skills: sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, and close reading of evidence to assess reliability and point of view.

Bias and point of view: consider the author's purpose, audience, and position; a source can be accurate yet selective.

Chronology and periodization organize history; cause-and-effect analysis distinguishes immediate triggers from underlying causes.

Reading maps and graphs: interpret legend, scale, compass rose, latitude/longitude, and axis labels before drawing conclusions.

Compare and contrast continuity and change over time; evaluate multiple perspectives and avoid presentism when judging past actors.

Inquiry process: form a question, gather and evaluate sources, develop a claim, and support it with cited evidence.

Interpreting data: correlation does not prove causation; check sample size, units, and whether the graph's scale exaggerates change.