STAAR Impossible Maps, Charts, and Graphs

"The most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the... most melancholy man. there can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still... While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me." - Henry David Thoreau, 1854

Which statement shows how the excerpt is an example of transcendentalism in the early-to-mid 1800s?

• Thoreau uses reason to explain natural events that happen in the world.

• Thoreau focuses on the role of science in changing the natural world

• Thoreau studies the relationship between nature and historical events

• Thoreau focuses on the relationship between humans and the natural world

Boston, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California, and geographically similar in that BOTH -

• have a Mediterranean climate

• are located near active volcanoes

• have a hot desert climate

• are located on a coast

"In accordance with our promise on our departure from Sweden we are sending you a few lines to tell you how and where we are situated at present.. We decided to settle in Iowa... It has an abundance of water power, contains metals, marble, and several other natural resources, and only a very small part of this extensive territory is settled... If only half of the work expended on the soil in the fatherland were utilized here, the yield would reach the wildest imagination..." -Peter Cassel 1846

Which reasons BEST explains why many Swedish people settled in the American Midwest?

• They wanted to work in steel mills

• They wanted to participate in the abolitionist movement

• They wanted to settle in large cities

• They wanted to find fertile farmland

• Suffrage

• Abolitionist

• Temperance

• Transcendentalist

Which reasons correctly replace the numbers in this table?

• (1) To gain religious freedom

  (2) To provide military defense

• (1) To increase business profits

  (2) To escape religious persecution

• (1) To provide military defense

  (2) To help benefit the poor

• (1) To increase business profits

  (2) To provide a place for criminals

Why is this sequence of events important?

• Colonists created a legislature with two houses

• Colonists declared independence from English rule

• Colonists defended the concept of unalienable rights

• Colonists established a tradition of self-government

Which statement describes a factor that MOST contributed to the population differences shown in the table?

• The South had a society that relied on wage labor.

• The South had an economy that relied on cotton.

• The South had a variety of natural resources.

• The South had an abundance of large cities.

Which event is MOST associated with the change in American life shown in this sketch?

• The adoption of the Great Compromise

• The establishment of a two-party political system

• The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment

• The election of more qualified judges

Which action prompted the newspaper’s claim that John Brown’s raid “advanced the cause of disunion”?

• Some Northerners were willing to defend the South’s right to continue slavery.

• Some Southerners were willing to take up arms to protest high tariffs.

• Some abolitionists thought violence was necessary to end slavery.

• Some people in territories needed to defend their right to popular sovereignty.

What is being described in this excerpt?

• Spinning jenny and the textile industry

• Interchangeable parts and mass production

• Cotton gin and the plantation system

• Steam engine and railroad commerce