EXAMPLES OF ESSAY QUESTIONS-Unit 11



EXAMPLES OF ESSAY QUESTIONS-Unit 12

1. Do you think that the “noble experiment” of prohibition did more harm than good or vice versa? Explain your view by citing specific consequences of the prohibition amendment.

2. List at least five major economic and/or technological developments of the 1920s. Select the three most significant ones and explain your choices.

3. What were the greatest changes in religious and moral values in the 1920s? How did Americans respond to these changes?

4. In what ways did writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Theodore Dreiser reflect the prevalent American culture of the 1920s? In what ways did they criticize it?

5. Compare the presidential leadership of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. What did they have in common, and how did they differ? How did their personal qualities affect their political success in the 1920s?

6. Outline the causes of the great crash of 1929. Why did come so unexpectedly?

7. In what ways did the Washington Conference, Kellogg-Briand Pact, and Stimson doctrine fall short of ensuring American national security?

8. Historians have not looked too kindly on the presidents of the 1920s, usually judging them as mediocre. Do you agree with this evaluation of their performance?

9. Many historians now believe that Herbert Hoover has been unfairly maligned as the villain of the Great Depression. What blame, if any, does Hoover deserve for the economic collapse and the suffering of the public? Why does the text state that Hoover was caught “on the horns of a cruel dilemma”?

10. Was Franklin Roosevelt’s victory in 1932 more a support for his campaign proposals or a repudiation of Herbert Hoover and the Republican policies?

11. Compare and contrast the first two years of the New Deal with the later New Deal after 1934. Account for the differences.

12. Select the three most important programs of the New Deal, explain what they did, and tell why you chose these three.

13. Among New Deal actions that have continued long after the 1930s are Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the full legalization of labor unions. Why have these efforts continued long after the Depression conditions of the 1930s passed? What other New Deal programs quickly passed away, and why?

14. What was the greatest threat to the stability of American society in the 1930s? Was there ever any serious threat that the United States could have turned away from democracy as many other nations did during the Depression?

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download