SEMESTER TEST STUDY GUIDE

Ben Renkly & Isaiah Jorgensen

CWI

Semester Test Questions study guide

1. Describe the situation/conflict between the US and North Korea.

2. What are the main economic and political systems that are practiced in the world and how do they differ?

3. What is income inequality, why is it an issue and what can be done to help improve it?

4. What are the major differences between democrats and republicans in the United States?

5. Describe US diplomacy/foreign policy over the years.

6. Describe the importance of the US Constitution and the Amendments.

7. Describe the impact Climate Change may have on the world.

1.       America and North Korea have been at each others throats ever since the end of World War II when the U.S. decided that they should break Korea into two different countries, due to its difference in political systems. They were meant to join back as one again after a conference to decide whether they would keep Communism, or switch to Democracy. Each country thought that they would overall lose, so the conference never happened. After that North Korea Invaded the south under the leadership of Kim il Sung, to which we responded and helped South Korea.

Sense then, North Korea invested in beefing up their military, and developing nuclear weapons. All of this was supervised by Sung’s descendants, Kim Jong il, and Kim Jong Un. They have threatened the U.S. and South Korea multiple times. The people on the streets that are not part of the government suffer and barely get by, meanwhile everyone in the upper class, and the people that are part of the government, thrive, and live perfectly happy lives.

2.       Socialism- a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individuals of people and companies. Indian countries

Capitalism- a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by people own the business; it allows a small amount of people to own a huge amount of the country’s wealth. (Germany, Switzerland, UK, Iceland, France, Japan, U.S.A., etc…)

Absolute Monarchy- Where the ruler has the power to rule their country and citizens and has full power. Middle East has a strong influence

Constitutional Monarchy- A country ruled by a king or queen whose powers are limited by a constitution Countries include Australia Canada, Jamaica, Spain, and the UK

Communism practiced and theory-Practiced communism is the government has everything and the people don’t even have rights or freedoms, whereas the theory is like that, but then the people overthrow the government and the government kind of just slips away. Countries that have it are in south Asia. (North Korea, China, Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam)

Mixed Economy- Most Countries have a Mixed economy. (More than one form of economy)

Direct Democracy- When a group of people vote on a topic and majority rules apply. (ex- having the class vote on order of map tests.)

Representative Democracy- The powers of the sovereignty are delegated to a body of people/ a form of government where the representatives are elected by the people for the people, and they represent them. (Canada, UK, India, Australia, US)

Dictatorship- When one person or a small group of people takes full control over the country. EX: Hitler’s reign of Germany (1934-1945) North Korea (1994-present) Libya (1969-2011) Sudan (1989-present) and Zimbabwe.

Anarchy- The Absence of government. Happens a lot during a civil war when a government falls, and no one is powerful enough to take power. Somalia (1991-Present) France (1789-1799) Jamaica (not yet, people think it will fall into anarchy) Russia (1917-1922) Spain (1919-1939)

Oligarchy- A government in which a small group of people have the control Top people are the best, no one else is important. Countries- South Africa (20th century) China, Russia, Pakistan, Cuba.

3.       Income Inequality is the in-equal distribution of money to different people.

It’s a problem because while people are living the good life with wealth and riches, others are living on the streets begging for coins.

Stats for Income Inequality---The top 1% of people in the United States control 40% of all the wealth in the country; where as the top 20% has 93% of all wealth In the United States of America. The rest only have 7%. That 7% includes all of the middle class and the bottom 20% of all Americans.

What can be done to improve income inequality?- start cutting off the government's money and funding all of the other people that are in the middle and lowers class

Lake Province, Louisiana is has the worst income inequality. The main reason why there is bad income inequality is because that there is literally and lake separating the rich and the poor. There is no middle class, and the rate of people that graduate from the rich people school is 100% and the regular poor people school, is less than 75%. The history is also a reason for the problem. Back in the day, all the white people owned the land, and they never gave it up, so most of the white people own all the land and are rich and all the black people are poor and live in small cramped homes.

An economy state (poor, middle class, rich) is inherited by the children of the parent that has that economic state.



4.        Democrats are liberal, they are open to change in the country favor an active role in society feel that certain regulations could help our way of life.

    Republicans are Conservative, they want to preserve our way of life, not change a lot; favor a limited role for government in society, think that the people should fend for themselves, not rely on the government.

Main Topics-

Gun control-

  • Republicans are against gun control.

  • Democrats are pro gun control.

Abortion-

  • Republicans are against it.

  • Democrats are for it.

Natural Environment-

  • Republicans think it will hurt the economy to “go green”

  • Democrats feel that we need to make green regulations to everything.

Race Relations-

  • Republicans believe that people can be trusted not to discriminate when it comes to giving jobs and things like that. don’t usually agree with affirmative action.

  • Democrats think that we need strong laws are needed for this, and favor affirmative action.

Minimum Wage-

  • Republicans believe it needs to be raised

  • Democrats believe raising it would hurt businesses.

Health Care-

  • Democrats want to require universal health care access.

  • Republicans want it to be private, you should be able to get/ buy your own health care

Taxes-

  • Democrats want to tax the rich more, and give back to the middle/ lower class.

  • Republicans think that cutting taxes for everyone helps the economy.

Military-

  • Democrats want to cut military spending, and expand benefits and be involved with other countries

  • Republicans want to increase military spending, then lessen the benefits, and keep more to ourselves.

Death Penalty-

  • Democrats are against it

  • Republicans are for it

Gay marriage-

  • Democrats are for it

  • Republicans are against it

Prayer In School-

  • Democrats are against it

  • Republicans are for it



5. OVERVIEW---

Isolationism-G.W.- late 1800’s

Imperialism- Late 1800’s to WWI

Return to Normality (1920’s-1930’s)

WWII & becoming a world superpower

Cold War

War on Terror

9-11, Afghanistan, Iraq



Imperialism- strong countries taking over small, unstructured countries for power.

A lot of the time, we got involved in foreign policy, and end up winning because we are the biggest superpower in the world. We started getting really involved with this stuff after WWII because after WWI we just wanted to be neutral and not be apart of the rest of the world. but then we got bombed at pearl harbor, Which brought us into WWII and we didn’t go back to isolationism, and from there we became the world's superpower.

  • Puerto Rico Got control in 1898 Still a US territory.

  • Alaska When we got control 1867 we bought I from Russia they were afraid Great Britain would take it over. Still have control became state in 1959.

  • Hawaii 1959 became state queen was scared and just gave it to us, she didn't want war. wanted it for sugar cane.

  • US got control of Virgin Islands in 1917 we paid  25 million in gold to improve military we still own it as today.

  • American Samoa Got control in 1899-1904 fighting Germany for the islands. We control it as today.

Cold war- Russia vs. America we wanted equality, and freedom, russia wanted socialism and power to the government. the domino effect, if one big country falls to communism, others are going to fall as well. BRINKMANSHIP- saying we’ll go to war with countries to get them to bend to our desires

    Cold war ended with the new leadership of the Soviet Union (Mikhail Gorbachev) the made the soviet union break up, and now there a lot of different countries in Europe, and Asia.

most of our foreign policy is about stopping communism and terrorism.

the ways we contained communism:

truman doctrine

marshall plan

korean war

vietnam war

Detente-1970’s means an ease of tensions/ kind of ended the cold war

this ended in 1979 when russia invaded Afghanistan US helped the mujahideen fight the communists. this group eventually became al-Qaeda and the taliban

Iran and Iraq went to war in the 1980’s- US helped saddam hussein as the US was at odds with Iran.

1990’s  the rise of Iraq and al-Qaeda- Persian gulf war- Iraq invaded Kuwait after that we started monitoring iraq a lot more. then in 2003 we invaded, and they can’t handle people in their territory, so the declared us as an enemy.

6. (See word document I have 3 pages on the 3 branches of government and all of the amendments) Gives people rights and doesn't let government have full control. It lets the people have power.  Like religious freedoms right to bare arms just like today they want to take away firearms but the 2nd amendment says that we have the right to.

7. The basic jist of this is that scientist believe that people are emitting a lot of CO2 gases, and none of it is being released from the atmosphere, so it’s like a big greenhouse effect, all of the hot gases are trapped by the atmosphere and now the entire world is starting to heat up. this is called global warming.

Whole islands are going to get covered over with water from glaciers melting (the melted water makes the sea levels rise which causes low sea level islands to get washed away.) From global warming. coral reefs are dying and they help prevent waves that come and slow them down but since there dying papua new guinea islands there dying so if a storm comes it will wash right over it. From global warming there has been lots of fires and forests are getting smaller and from humans cutting them down and they take to long to grow to replace them and fast as were cutting them down. Sea ice has decreased dramatically more than 40% and the thickness of the ice has decreased by 50%. Water evaporation has been increasing causing surface lakes and ice to disappear. Chad lake has decreased by 90% from global warming having an effect on people and wildlife. Vegetation is getting slim in some areas due to large amount of water loss.  Water purity is getting bad which makes it so people and animals get sick and die.

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