Subtest I: History and Social Science Study Guide for the CSET Multiple Subjects Test

Additional Skills and Concepts

In addition to knowing the basic facts related to all of the historical eras listed above, you should also be able to use fundamental reasoning and study skills to answer questions on this test.

Spatial and Chronological Thinking

You should be able to construct and utilize a variety of tools and thinking skills in social studies. These include maps, graphs, charts, tables, and timelines. Additionally, you should be adept at all of the following:

Locating Places

You should be able to locate a place based on any of the following:

Ordinal directions— NE, SE, NW, SW; also known as intermediate directions

Equator— located at zero degrees latitude, separates the Earth into north and south hemispheres

Tropics— areas close to the equator that have a warm climate year round

Hemisphere— half of the globe, can be north, south, east, or west

Time zone— Every 15 degrees of longitude is 1 hour of change and a new time zone.

Latitude and longitude— longitude runs north to south and measures distances east and west of the Prime Meridian, while latitude runs east to west and measures distances north and south of the Equator. Together, they create a geographic grid that can be used to find precise locations with coordinates.

Prime meridian— the main line of longitude, at zero degrees longitude, that runs through Greenwich, England

International dateline— the exact opposite of the Prime Meridian, located at 180 degrees longitude and location where either an entire day (24 hours) is added or subtracted based on time zones and direction of travel

Geographical Features

You need to be able to identify and interpret major geographical features on the earth’s surface, including the following:

Continents— The seven main continents, or landmasses, are North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica.

Other large land masses— like Archipelagos (groups of islands)

Mountain ranges— steep sided hills with dramatic elevation difference from surrounding land, such as the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains in North America; Sierra Madres and Andes Mountains in South America; Alps, Pyrenees, and the Ural Mountains in Europe; and the Himalayan Mountains in Asia

Forests— areas with dense tree and vegetation coverage; can include the rainforest (like in Brazil) or the Taiga (dense pine forests in high north latitudes)

Grasslands— areas of wide open space characterized by short grasses like the Great Plains in the U.S.A.

Deserts— dry, arid climate region, like the Sahara Desert in North Africa

Major bodies of water and rivers—four oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Indian) and major rivers (Amazon, Nile, Danube, Yangtze, Mississippi, etc.)

Other Features

You should be able to describe the following for each world region (i.e., Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, etc). Be sure to remember the main characteristics that make each region unique.

Culture— the way of life of a group of people that includes language, religion, customs, traditions, etc.

History— the study of the past. In this context, consider the past events that have shaped each region. For example, understanding how the regions of North America, Latin America, and Africa have been shaped by the legacy of European colonization and imperialism.

Economy— the making and transfer of money and wealth among people, states, and regions.

Politics— the governing systems that shape the laws and ways of life of people in different places.

Population— anything dealing with people including the total number of people, birth rates, death rates, density, and distribution.

Land Use patterns— how people modify and use the land in terms of housing, industry, agriculture, transportation, and urbanization.

Settlement patterns— explain where people live and why. Settlement patterns can be clustered, dispersed, dense, or sparse.

Though they make up only a small portion of the test and of the Social Sciences as a whole, you still need to be able to apply and explain concepts from the following areas:

Political Science and Government

Political science covers the study of political institutions of power, the various ways states are governed, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. You are probably already familiar with many different forms of government, but make sure you can understand and apply the ideas of the following:

Monarchy— rule or power is held in heredity and passed down from one generation to the next. Many monarchs, especially in Europe, believed that they had Divine Right, or that God ordained them to be in power.

Totalitarianism— power is concentrated in the hands of a single person, typically a dictator

Republicanism— representative form of government in which people elect representatives to lead and govern them. In a republic, the officials elected by the people vote and legislate policy.

Democracy— system in which citizens hold power by voting. In a direct democracy, all citizens hold power by voting on each issue.

Limited government— system in which the powers of the government are limited or restricted by a document, typically a constitution.

Geography

Geography is the study of why things are located where they are. It includes the skills of reading and understanding maps, globes, charts, graphs, etc., and it deals with the understanding of how people and the environment impact each other across space. Be sure to understand the following main concepts when it comes to geography:

Physical and human systems— physical systems include anything found in nature such as climate, weather patterns, natural disasters, ocean currents, etc. Human systems include anything man-made such as agricultural practices, government, culture, etc.

Human settlement and migration— areas where people live permanently are defined as human settlements. Settlement patterns have expanded due to technological innovations that allow people to live comfortably in more places, like air conditioning. Migration is the movement of people. People move for jobs, political or religious freedom, to escape war, or for a more suitable climate.

Spatial relationships— refer to how things are connected over the space of the Earth’s surface. For example, understanding the history of European colonization explains how and why North American culture is most similar to that of Europe compared to other places on Earth.

Cultural diffusion— the spread of culture from one place to another (i.e., blue jeans originated in the United States and are popular worldwide).

Human-environment interactions— how people and the environment influence each other. For example, people alter the landscape to grow food, but the environment dictates how and where we can alter it. In Southeast Asia, people cut into hillsides to grow food through agricultural terracing, while in the Great Plains of the United States no modification other than plowing the ground is necessary.

Economics

Economics deals with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth. This can be studied on a small scale for individual people (microeconomics) or a large scale for countries or international relations (macroeconomics). For either approach, be sure to understand each of these concepts:

Scarcity— the principle that people have unlimited wants and needs in a world of limited supply

Opportunity cost— something that is given up in order to get something else (i.e. the opportunity cost of taking off work for vacation is the money you could have made if you had gone to work instead)

Supply and demand— available resources compared to the want/need for those resources

The circular flow model— shows the flow of money through the economy. Households need goods and services that the business sector provides.

The business cycle— a series of economic expansion and contraction in the economy based on prices, production, employment, growth, decline, etc.

Fiscal and monetary policy— The federal government can pass laws that influence monetary policy, mostly with regard to interest rates and the supply of currency in circulation.

International trade and economic globalization— International trade and improved transportation have led to a globalized economy through businesses moving their production facilities overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor, thus bringing down the costs of consumer products.

Demography

Demography is the study of population characteristics. This includes birth rates, death rates, fertility rates, natural increase, etc. A large focus of demography is the study of migration push and pull factors. People move for any one of three main reasons: economic, political, or environmental. Economics are the number one reason why people move. People leave places in which they can’t find work (or money) in favor of places where they can. In terms of politics, people tend to move away from places in which they are persecuted in favor of places where they have more freedom. Finally, environmental reasons people move might include a favored climate (retirees moving to warmer climates) or natural disasters (people leaving an area recently devastated by a hurricane, earthquake, or wildfire).

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of human cultures and their development over time. You need to be able to analyze and explain the influence of these concepts on the cultural development of human society over time:

Hunting and gathering— the nomadic prehistoric practice of hunting animals and gathering plants for food

Nomadic pastoralism— practice of moving herds of animals from one place of pasture to another so that the herd has enough to eat at all times of the year

Domestication of plants and animals— the taming of wild plants and animals for better use by humans

Settlement and city creation and development— the building up and improvement of a settlement over time from people staying in one place and finding more efficient ways to provide food and a more comfortable, easier lifestyle

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study and understanding of knowledge. It can include the study of reality and the purpose of existence. Religion and other belief systems can largely be attributed as philosophy because they attempt to explain the world around us and provide a purpose for our existence. A main characteristic of many philosophers throughout history was the attempt at finding a moral or ethical understanding of the world outside of the influence of religion. In any case, philosophy has greatly impacted the world throughout history and continues to do so today.

Sociology

Sociology deals with how people interact with each other in society. You should have a basic understanding of how this applies to each of the following:

Individuals— A sociological approach to the individual would look at how people view themselves and how they interact with others based on that perspective of themselves.

Interpersonal relationships— deals with how people interact with others from family members to friends to superiors or even romantic interests. This analyzes the different ways people interact depending on the relationship.

Institutions— This largely includes the family and community (and its institutions) and makes up the primary support system for the individual.

Social structure— refers to the ways people interact and view each other based on a variety of factors including occupation, levels of education, socio-economic class, ethnicity, gender, etc.

Research Skills

You need to be able to analyze, interpret, and evaluate research evidence in history. In other words, you should be able to come into the study of a historical event with some contextualization of what caused that event to take place. Further, you should then be able to analyze the event and evaluate the effects of the event on the future or what happened after.

Types of Sources

A variety of sources are used for historical research and thinking. These can include, but are not limited to, written documents, narratives, photographs, art, and artifacts. The most used sources for historical analysis will be primary and secondary sources.

Primary sources— pictures, newspaper articles, journals, and other documents that come directly from the event or time period being studied.

Secondary sources— sources (typically books, encyclopedia articles, book reviews, etc.) that were written about an event after it occurred.

Using Sources

To effectively use sources, you should go beyond simply reading them. Historians analyze sources to better understand the author’s purpose, point of view, historical context, and author. Additionally, you should be able to do the following:

Understand academic language— Use context clues and read further to understand academic language. Think about what you know about the source, time period, context, etc.

Identify and use the structure in a source— Identify how key parts of the text contribute to the whole. (Don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees.)

Identify and use central ideas and details— Determine the author’s purpose and make a note of how supporting details are used to formulate a stronger argument for the text as a whole.

Provide textual evidence— Cite specific evidence found in the source that supports the argument or what the question is asking.

Use and compare multiple sources— Find similarities and differences among a variety of sources to find out what was happening at the time and why sources might vary based on a singular event.

Consider point of view—Evaluate the author’s point of view by thinking about what the author’s purpose was for creating the source and who the intended audience was.

Understand cause and effect— All history results from cause and effect and you should be able to explain these relationships by citing evidence from sources.

Writing an Argument

You must be able to write an argument that supports a historical claim, using evidence from your knowledge of history and citing specific textual information. To do this well, you need to make sure you have a strong thesis and all of the following aspects:

Present claims and counterclaims— A good historical argument presents a claim, acknowledges counterclaims, then goes on to explain why the claim is better by citing sources to support the claim.

Write texts— Be able to write a variety of texts from argumentative to informative.

Organize your writing— by having an introduction, thesis, organizing complex ideas and supporting details, and a conclusion.

Use relevant information to develop the topic— Never add unnecessary information to your writing. Be sure your supporting details and examples are relevant to your thesis.

Use precise language—Do not leave your point up for discussion. Your writing should be precise and to the point, so readers can easily identify your point of view.

Use transitions and varied sentence structure— Don’t use the same style over and over. Try to create variety in your writing by using different transitions and structure.

Write a conclusion— A strong conclusion will support and remind the reader of your thesis and pull the entire text together.