Praxis Elem CKT Social Studies cheat sheet

Five themes of geography: location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, regions; use them to organize map and region questions.

Absolute location uses coordinates (latitude/longitude); relative location describes position compared with other places.

Primary source: created at the time by a participant or witness (letters, diaries, laws, artifacts). Secondary source: later interpretation (textbooks, documentaries, journal articles).

Chronology skills: identify cause vs. effect, distinguish long-term underlying causes from short-term triggers, and sequence events on a timeline.

Economic systems spectrum: traditional, command, market, mixed; most real economies are mixed, differing in degree of government control.

Push factors drive people away from a place (famine, war, persecution); pull factors attract them (jobs, safety, freedom).

Cultural diffusion is the spread of ideas, goods, or practices between societies; acculturation is adopting traits of another culture while retaining one's own.

Bias analysis: identify the author, audience, purpose, and date of a source; a source can be reliable for one question and biased for another.

Map essentials: title, legend/key, scale, compass rose, and grid; a large-scale map shows small areas in more detail than a small-scale map.

Colonial era: New England economies centered on fishing and trade; the Chesapeake and Southern colonies centered on cash crops (tobacco, rice) and relied on indentured servants, then enslaved labor.

Declaration of Independence (1776) draws on Locke's natural rights: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; the Constitution (1787) replaced the weak Articles of Confederation.

Constitutional compromises: Great Compromise (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.

Bill of Rights (1791): first ten amendments; key protections include speech, press, religion, assembly (1st), due process (5th, 14th), and equal protection (14th).

Civil War causes: sectional conflict over slavery's expansion, states' rights claims, and economic differences; Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments followed.

Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877; Jim Crow laws and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) entrenched segregation until Brown v. Board (1954).

Progressive Era: muckrakers, antitrust action, 16th (income tax), 17th (direct Senate election), 18th (Prohibition), and 19th (women's suffrage) Amendments.

New Deal (1933 onward) expanded federal economic regulation and created Social Security; WWII and the Cold War made the U.S. a global superpower.

Civil Rights Movement milestones: Brown v. Board (1954), Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965).

Neolithic Revolution: shift from hunting-gathering to settled agriculture around 10,000 BCE, enabling surplus, specialization, and cities.

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

Classical empires: Greece contributed democracy and philosophy; Rome contributed law and republicanism; Han China and Maurya/Gupta India built centralized bureaucracies.

Major world religions' origins: Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Judaism in the Near East, Christianity in Judea, Islam in Arabia (7th century CE).

Silk Roads, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan routes spread goods, technologies, and religions; the Black Death traveled the same trade networks in the 1300s.

Renaissance (14th-17th centuries) revived classical learning in Italy; the printing press (c. 1450) accelerated literacy and Reformation ideas.

Age of Exploration (15th-17th centuries) linked hemispheres; Columbian Exchange moved crops, animals, and diseases, devastating Indigenous populations.

Industrial Revolution began in Britain (c. 1750) with coal, steam, and textiles; it drove urbanization, labor movements, and imperialism.

20th century: World War I (1914-18), World War II (1939-45), decolonization after 1945, and the Cold War rivalry between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

Three branches: legislative (Congress makes laws), executive (President enforces laws), judicial (courts interpret laws); checks and balances let each limit the others.

Federalism divides power between national and state governments; the 10th Amendment reserves undelegated powers to the states or the people.

Separation of powers examples: presidential veto, congressional override by two-thirds, judicial review (Marbury v. Madison, 1803), Senate confirmation of judges.

Constitutional amendment process: two-thirds of both houses propose, then three-fourths of state legislatures (or conventions) ratify.

Elections: Electoral College chooses the President; House members serve 2-year terms, the President 4, Senators 6, and federal judges serve lifetime terms.

Civil liberties limit government power (Bill of Rights); civil rights guarantee equal treatment under law (14th Amendment, Civil Rights Act of 1964).

Political parties and interest groups: parties organize elections and government; interest groups seek to influence policy without nominating candidates.

Citizenship duties include obeying laws, paying taxes, jury service, and voting; the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971.

Public policy cycle: agenda setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation; federal budget authority rests with Congress.