Praxis Fundamental Subjects cheat sheet

Main idea = the central claim the whole passage supports; a supporting detail explains or illustrates it but does not cover the entire text.

Text structures: chronological (time order), cause-effect, compare-contrast, problem-solution, and description/list; transition words signal which structure is in use.

First-person point of view uses I/we and limits knowledge to the narrator; third-person limited stays inside one character's mind; third-person omniscient knows all characters.

Figurative language: simile uses like/as; metaphor states one thing is another; personification gives human traits to nonhuman things; hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration.

Persuasive appeals: ethos (credibility of the speaker), pathos (emotion of the audience), logos (logic and evidence).

Phonics terms: phoneme is the smallest unit of sound; grapheme is the written letter or letter group that represents it; a digraph is two letters making one sound (sh, ch, th).

Writing process order: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing/proofreading, publishing; revising changes content, editing corrects conventions.

A clause contains a subject and a verb; an independent clause stands alone, a dependent clause does not; a phrase lacks a subject-verb pair.

Order of operations: parentheses/brackets, exponents, multiplication and division left to right, addition and subtraction left to right.

Slope of a line through (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) is m = (y2 - y1)/(x2 - x1); slope-intercept form is y = mx + b.

Area formulas: rectangle A = lw; triangle A = ½bh; circle A = πr² with circumference C = 2πr.

Volume: rectangular prism V = lwh; cylinder V = πr²h; cone V = ⅓πr²h; sphere V = (4/3)πr³.

Percent change = (new - old)/old × 100; a percent increase of p is equivalent to multiplying by (1 + p/100).

Mean is the sum divided by the count; median is the middle value of ordered data; mode is the most frequent value; range is maximum minus minimum.

Probability of an event = favorable outcomes / total equally likely outcomes; independent events multiply: P(A and B) = P(A) × P(B).

Pythagorean theorem a² + b² = c² applies to right triangles with c the hypotenuse; the sum of interior angles of a triangle is 180°.

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

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments; the First Amendment protects speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition.

Federalism divides power between a national government and state governments; the Supremacy Clause makes federal law supreme over conflicting state law.

Major eras in order: Exploration, Colonial, Revolutionary, Constitutional, Westward Expansion, Civil War and Reconstruction, Industrialization, Progressive, World Wars, Cold War, modern.

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

Economic systems: traditional (custom-based), command (government decides), market (supply and demand decide), mixed (elements of both).

Latitude lines run east-west and measure distance north or south of the equator; longitude lines run north-south and measure distance east or west of the prime meridian.

Primary sources are created by participants or witnesses (letters, diaries, artifacts); secondary sources interpret or summarize primary sources (textbooks, encyclopedias).

Cell theory: all living things are made of cells, the cell is the basic unit of life, and cells arise from existing cells.

Photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen using light energy in chloroplasts; cellular respiration releases energy from glucose in mitochondria.

Newton's laws: inertia (objects resist change in motion), F = ma, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

States of matter change by adding or removing heat: melting, freezing, evaporation, condensation, sublimation, and deposition.

Atomic structure: protons (positive, in the nucleus), neutrons (neutral, in the nucleus), electrons (negative, orbiting the nucleus); atomic number = number of protons.

In a food web, producers make their own food, consumers eat other organisms, and decomposers break down dead material and recycle nutrients.

The water cycle stages are evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and collection/runoff.

Density = mass/volume; an object denser than the fluid sinks, and one less dense floats; conduction, convection, and radiation are the three heat transfer methods.