The long essay would be a traditional essay that typically five paragraphs long. The first paragraph should introduce the topic and state the student's position / answer to the question. It should contain between three-five (3-5) complete sentences, including the thesis statement for the essay. The second, third, and fourth paragraphs are the body paragraphs. Each body paragraph should contain between three-five (3-5) sentences, including the topic sentence (first sentence of the body paragraph, states a main point that supports the thesis) and at least two-three (2-3) specific examples per main point. The fifth and final paragraph should begin with a restatement of the thesis. It should be three-five (3-5) complete sentences, and include a brief summary/conclusion of the student's answer to the essay question. It is essential, particularly in the survey courses, for students to provide citations and footnotes for their work in exams. There are four sections with four questions in each. You need to answer one question for each section.
Question 1-
1. Compare and contrast racial conflict in the South and the West.
2. How successful were business people in overcoming the problems that confronted them in the last third of the nineteenth century?
3. How did some urban housing reforms of the late nineteenth century eventually add to urban blight?
4. Why was it so difficult to resolve such issues as the spoils system, the tariff, and bimetallism, which consumed congressional energies in the late nineteenth century?
Question 2-
1. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of progressivism.
2. In what ways were mobilization and the war effort a fulfillment of the progressive legacy? In what ways did the war deny the basic tenets of progressivism?
3. How did popular culture-whether in the form of best-selling novels, games, films, or radio programs-reflect and respond to the ravages of the Great Depression?
4. Compare and contrast the Depression experiences of Mexican- and African-Americans. In your opinion, which group fared better?
Question 3-
1. Describe the major war aims of the Allied Powers.
2. How did the war change the attitudes of women and minorities toward their status in American society?
3. Many historians feel that Harry Truman as much as Joe McCarthy gave force to the postwar "Red Scare." Explain why you agree or disagree.
4. Compare the quality of life in the suburbs with the quality of life either on farms or in cities
Question 4-
1. Compare the achievements and shortcomings of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
2. Defend or attack the use of civil disobedience as a strategy in the civil rights movement, using Martin Luther King's early career as an example of the technique.
3. Both Indians and Hispanics were hardly "monolithic" ethnic groups in American life. Explain how that led to a variety of responses to the activist currents of the 1960s and 1970s, among both Hispanics and Indians.
4. Describe the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade; then defend or criticize it.