Sophia Learning U.S. History II Milestone 1 Practice Exam 40
Questions with Answers and Rationales
Historical thinking
1. Which source is primary evidence for studying factory work in 1890?
A. A textbook published in 2020
B. A recent encyclopedia entry
C. A diary written by a factory worker in 1890
D. A modern documentary script
2. Why should a historian identify the intended audience of an 1896 campaign speech?
A. The audience proves every claim is accurate
B. The audience can help explain the speaker's emphasis and persuasive choices
C. The audience determines the date of every event mentioned
D. The audience makes comparison with other sources unnecessary
3. A labor organizer and a factory owner describe the same strike differently. What
is the best next step?
A. Use only the account with more emotional language
B. Assume the owner is always impartial
C. Compare both accounts with additional evidence about the strike
D. Discard both accounts because they disagree
4. What does placing a document in historical context require?
A. Examining the conditions and ideas surrounding its creation
B. Assuming its words have identical meanings in every period
C. Judging it only by present-day expectations
D. Ignoring the author's circumstances
5. Which statement best distinguishes an argument from a simple historical fact?
A. An argument needs no supporting sources
1
, B. An argument consists only of an event's date
C. An argument interprets evidence to support a claim about the past
D. An argument is any statement found in a diary
6. Ahistorian finds a newspaper editorial calling a strike dangerous. What can
the source most directly establish?
A. The editorial writer portrayed the strike as a threat
B. All readers agreed with the editorial
C. Every striker committed violence
D. The strike had no economic causes
2
, 7. Whatis the chief problem with treating two events that occurred together as proof
of causation?
A. Correlation alone does not show that one event caused the other
B. Causal explanations never use chronology
C. Only eyewitnesses can propose causal explanations
D. Events occurring together cannot be related
8. Which
evidence would best test a claim that a city's population grew rapidly
between 1880 and 1900?
A. One politician's prediction from 1879
B. A photograph of a crowded street without a date
C. An advertisement for a new department store
D. Comparable census totals from 1880 and 1900
West and South
9. Whatdid the withdrawal of remaining federal troops from Southern statehouses in
1877 symbolize?
A. The immediate end of racial discrimination
B. The beginning of the Civil War
C. The end of Reconstruction's federal enforcement phase
D. The abolition of slavery
10. How did sharecropping often limit economic independence after the Civil War?
A. It abolished the need for credit
B. Farmers could become trapped in debt to landlords and merchants
C. It guaranteed land ownership after one harvest
D. It required payment exclusively in factory wages
11. What was a central purpose of Jim Crow laws?
A. To enforce racial segregation
B. To distribute Western land equally
3
Questions with Answers and Rationales
Historical thinking
1. Which source is primary evidence for studying factory work in 1890?
A. A textbook published in 2020
B. A recent encyclopedia entry
C. A diary written by a factory worker in 1890
D. A modern documentary script
2. Why should a historian identify the intended audience of an 1896 campaign speech?
A. The audience proves every claim is accurate
B. The audience can help explain the speaker's emphasis and persuasive choices
C. The audience determines the date of every event mentioned
D. The audience makes comparison with other sources unnecessary
3. A labor organizer and a factory owner describe the same strike differently. What
is the best next step?
A. Use only the account with more emotional language
B. Assume the owner is always impartial
C. Compare both accounts with additional evidence about the strike
D. Discard both accounts because they disagree
4. What does placing a document in historical context require?
A. Examining the conditions and ideas surrounding its creation
B. Assuming its words have identical meanings in every period
C. Judging it only by present-day expectations
D. Ignoring the author's circumstances
5. Which statement best distinguishes an argument from a simple historical fact?
A. An argument needs no supporting sources
1
, B. An argument consists only of an event's date
C. An argument interprets evidence to support a claim about the past
D. An argument is any statement found in a diary
6. Ahistorian finds a newspaper editorial calling a strike dangerous. What can
the source most directly establish?
A. The editorial writer portrayed the strike as a threat
B. All readers agreed with the editorial
C. Every striker committed violence
D. The strike had no economic causes
2
, 7. Whatis the chief problem with treating two events that occurred together as proof
of causation?
A. Correlation alone does not show that one event caused the other
B. Causal explanations never use chronology
C. Only eyewitnesses can propose causal explanations
D. Events occurring together cannot be related
8. Which
evidence would best test a claim that a city's population grew rapidly
between 1880 and 1900?
A. One politician's prediction from 1879
B. A photograph of a crowded street without a date
C. An advertisement for a new department store
D. Comparable census totals from 1880 and 1900
West and South
9. Whatdid the withdrawal of remaining federal troops from Southern statehouses in
1877 symbolize?
A. The immediate end of racial discrimination
B. The beginning of the Civil War
C. The end of Reconstruction's federal enforcement phase
D. The abolition of slavery
10. How did sharecropping often limit economic independence after the Civil War?
A. It abolished the need for credit
B. Farmers could become trapped in debt to landlords and merchants
C. It guaranteed land ownership after one harvest
D. It required payment exclusively in factory wages
11. What was a central purpose of Jim Crow laws?
A. To enforce racial segregation
B. To distribute Western land equally
3
