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FRQ help! (1865-1900)

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musedae's picture
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FRQ help! (1865-1900)

So, I lucked out and ended up getting sick today, which gave me more time to prep and chose an FRQ for my APUSH test. Our teacher gave us two options.

1. "The politics of the Gilded Age failed to deal with the critical social and economic issues of the times." --> Assess the validity of this statement using time period 1865-1900

or

2. Progressives believed that greater democracy was the key to solving societies problems. Identify 3 problems that Progressives addressed and for each, describe the democratic reform that was designed to deal with each of the problems.

They seem easy enough, I"m leaning towards the second one...but I'm a fail at this kind of thing. DBQ's...a good grade for me is a C+, at best. FRQ's, I'm just okay. I'm not good at this kind of writing. English essays? Piece of cake. History? KIll me now.

HELP?! o.O I'm leaning towards the second, so if anyone can help me asap, that'd be AMAZING.

For the second one, I identified Farmers, Women's Rights, Black Civil Rights and Political Corruption. But i don't know how I'm going to write about it...help..T.T

pianogirl2422's picture
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Alright, so you've got ideas, but you're not sure how to go about writing the actual essay - I can help you with that! I'm not sure what kind of problems you're having though. I'll go through the basics of a history essay though.

Intro - okay, so basically this is where you set the stage for your essay. Mention the time period, some background on the situation so far (for instance, if your essay was about the french and indian war you could say that the colonists were extremely stressed and england was having issues with france and finally war broke out with the american colonies in the middle), and of course your thesis statement. Your thesis statement, just like in english, outlines what you're going to talk about in your paper

Body - Here's where all the tricky stuff comes in. Important things that you definitely need - you need to state your facts, but for each fact you state you have to tell why it's important. History essays are all about cause and effect, and if you can explain your facts you can argue any point of view. Everything you state has to be a fact - you can't say "I think" or "Some people say". In fact, it's better not to use first person at all. Try to change up your sentence structure a bit and use some nice SAT words.

Conclusion - Just like english essays, just recap what you've said.

That's all the advice I have for the moment, let me know if this helps or I'm happy to look over what you've written or help you with it if you want.

Good luck!

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"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It

musedae's picture
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Hey! I think I did pretty well on my FRQ, thanks to your pointers. I got a few little bits of information wrong (got the Women Right To Vote amendment wrong, whoops! it's 19, not 20 x]) but otherwise, i think I did okay! I'll let you know :]

pianogirl2422's picture
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I hope your grade improved, and I'd definitely love to hear the results!

[=RoyalBlue][=Comic Sans MS]
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It

musedae's picture
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Joined: Oct 2009

I got a 38/40 on my essay!

I just bombed the multiple choice.

But its an improvement in the essay area.

pianogirl2422's picture
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Congrats on the essay! I hope the multiple choice picks up for you!

[=RoyalBlue][=Comic Sans MS]
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It

musedae's picture
Offline
Joined: Oct 2009

It did pick up (:

I got a 93 on the last test. Thank you! :D

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