<p>So I did the Enlightened Monarchs and how they did and did not advance Enlightenment ideas during their reigns. For Frederick I used religious toleration, friends with Voltaire, sanitized Prussia helping the poor people etc. For Joseph I used the abolishing of serfdom and the refined judicial system. I basically said neither could be truly Enlightened since both were absolute and didn’t use the separation of powers, checks and balances etc. that many of the philisophes argued for.</p>
<p>For 4 I basically said the same thing is you however, for why they weren’t monarchs I was a lot more vague. I just said that their reforms were in an attempt to seek greater support and increase their political power (idk if it’s true, it’s the best bs i could come up with).
For the scientific revolution one, i was so dumb and wrote down that they supported the whole heliocentric thing but then i cuoldn’t remember if it was right so i decided not to us it. my whole essay was a series of weak and vague bs, i probably got a 3 or 4.</p>
<p>They? As in all of them? Descartes and Newton weren’t really involved in geocentric vs heliocentric. Galileo was the only one who argued for heliocentric and was found guilty of heresy by the Inquisition for doing it. Descartes was logic: deductive reasoning. Newton was the 3 laws of gravity.</p>
<p>So for #6 in FRQ I said that the peace of augsburg helped the calvinists, but it was actually the treaty of westphalia. besides that i killed it, but will something like that drastically affect the score?</p>
<p>Mine was similar. For four, I discussed how Frederick the Great played flute, was friends with Voltaire, public sanitation projects, but then he wasn’t because he took Silesia without provocation and took his people into the bloody Seven Year’s War. For Joey II, I talked about he freed the serfs and made laws protecting Jews and other religious minorities, but his reforms weren’t permanent, made the lives of the peasants worse, and defied the logic of the Enlight. My thesis was basically that they attempted to include the ideas of the Enlightenment in their reigns, but couldn’t because of political realities and such. </p>
<p>For the whole Peace of Augsburg/Calvinist thing, I can see it being a minor error, but I’m not sure how that would alter the flow of your essay, making it more significant.</p>
<p>I looked up the heliocentric thing on wiki right after the test and it said they advocated but i’m hoping that wasn’t a big thing. i talked about deductive reasoning for descartes, vagues stuff about galileo’s observations of the universe, and for newton laws of gravity and the concept of a universal force. No real unity but whatever, all the facts i stated were right so that has to count for something.</p>
<p>For 2, I said a long-term cause was the competition between the USSR and the US during the Cold War. For short-term causes, I used failure to reform early and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as a leader. I used East Germany and Czechoslovakia as the two countries but I didn’t really do specific factors. I think the downfall of communism was very similar in all of the satellites. I did however talk about the Prague Spring for Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Blockade/Berlin Wall for East Germany. I talked about the Velvet Revolution with Vaclav Havel. I also talked about how Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost reforms initially backfired. Overall I’m pretty sure I did very well on FRQ2.</p>
<p>I didn’t have enough information to use on FRQ7 as I did with FRQ2. I explained how Galileo challenged traditional views of nature by seeing craters on the moon made of similar substances that are found on Earth. I said that this was very contradictory to traditional views because God was considered to have made the galaxy divine but Earth was different because of its people’s sins. For Descartes I said that he made people think rationally. You can only prove something is real by seeing it yourself or proving it mathematically. For Newton I said he synthesized Descartes and Bacon’s teachings. I also said that he discovered natural laws on Earth and that these natural laws actually proved true for the universe as well. </p>
<p>My only big flaw on the FRQs was that I said Descartes was a philosophe from the Enlightenment. I’m pretty sure it won’t hurt too badly. I didn’t really go into Enlightenment ideals or anything like that. It didn’t affect my essay at all. I’m hoping the grader will see it that way.</p>
<p>For the DBQ, my 3 groups were ideology, desire for new markets/economical benefits, and showing a country’s strength and power. I completely misinterpreted Bismarck’s document (My map of Africa is nice…) though. I said that he favored expansion into Africa because it showed Germany’s military strength. My bias and outside information were excellent, but the document had nothing to do with this at all. In reality, Bismarck didn’t favor expansion and much wanted to deal with the other European powers (Russia and France) first. I hope it doesn’t kill me too much though.</p>
<p>Oh, and for the second part of the question that I didn’t catch until the end (analyze the attitudes towards), I had a little paragraph before my conclusion. I said that Europeans thought positively of expansion and only used 2 documents to prove it since I really needed to head on to my FRQs. Thankfully, I talked about how Disraeli favored it since he was a conservative and conservative generally favored colonial expansion (both bias and outside info). I don’t feel too good about my DBQ overall. I think it was so easy but I’m pretty sure I managed to screw it up.</p>
<p>I approached my DBQ fairly differently.
I had 3 groups:
-Political motivations/reactions: mostly talked about asserting power and maintaining balance of power. There was somebody who wasn’t positive I believe and so I talked about why most people were positive and why some people weren’t which also worked my bias in quite well.
-Economic motivations/reactions: mostly about economic stability and superiority. Again, the reactions helped work in the bias because those who were positive had fairly identifiable reasons for such feelings. I think there was a negative reaction as well.
-Social motivations/reactions: This one was trickier because there wasn’t too much unity amongst the documents but I managed. I got to talk about the white man’s burden which I was super proud of remembering. I’m not sure I talked about reactions very much in here but the bias was easy to work in.
Overall, I thought this was the easiest DBQ I’ve ever seen, way better than the one I had just written in class which was about WWI motivations and change over time that had like one document for every country in Europe.</p>
<p>I went yet a different route. I used Social Darwinism (and included the White Man’s Burden inside of this), the emergence Capitalism with the financiers (new ideologies) and nationalism. </p>
<p>I used all the documents except Disraeli’s and that was because I REALLY needed to move on to the FRQs.</p>
<p>I really wanted to fit in Cecil Rhodes’ document about philanthropy but I just couldn’t make it work. It really sucks because I knew a lot of outside info about him. I also talked about Social Darwinism and Kipling’s White Man’s Burden. There were two very strong documents about ideology. I just hope that all my documents are good enough for the grader because I only used 2 documents per group in like 2 groups.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that one needs at least three documents a group, especially for this DBQ, when each group should have a positive and negative reaction to the motivation. </p>
<p>Was anyone else surprised by the relative non-esoteric DBQ topic? I was expecting something ridiculous…</p>
<p>I was surprised because for DBQs, you don’t have to know anything about the topic. I was expecting I would be able to put in a couple of outside facts, but I was presently surprised to find out it was a topic that we had studied in class. I remember doing a practice DBQ in class about sports…there was absolutely no outside info possible. I don’t think anyone in the country knew anything about the topic. So yes, I was very surprised.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m almost positive 2 documents counts as a group.<br>
Thank god, because I was running out of time and couldn’t fit another one in. </p>
<p>My groups were:
those who favored expansion into africa
those who opposed it
the motivations for getting colonies</p>
<p>I did the fall of communism FRQ, focusing on Poland and Czechoslovakia. I said the causes were Gorbachev’s rise of power (explaining the limited success of perestroika and glasnot), and then went into detail about the two countries I chose. For Poland, I talked about Solidarity and Lech Walesa. For Czech, I mentioned Prague Spring and then went on to explain the Velvet Revolution, Vaclav Havel, etc. </p>
<p>For the Galileo/Descartes/Newton FRQ, I BSed the entire thing with vagueness and general “facts”. Not expecting a high score on that one.</p>
<p>Social (Pro -> moral duty of social darwinism, Christianity, Con –> exploitation)
Economic (helps vs. doesn’t)
Political (power, prestige.)</p>
<p>I used all the documents and had some outside information, like laws in India about cotton manufacturing, White Man’s Burden, some stuff about Darwin, Bismark’s isolationist policy, and background about new imperialism. </p>
<p>I did 2 and 7 for the FRQs. I HATED all of the questions, especially the first grouping. </p>
<p>For 2, I did Czeck and Poland. I think it was decent, though only two body paragraphs. I had correct facts, etc. My thesis wasn’t esp strong, but I essentially said that both places had rebellions that were put down earlier which led to more discontent and that when Gorbachev was in control, they used the opportunity to seize power in mostly peaceful ways.</p>
<p>For 7, I thought it was pretty good. I had four bodies, one on each person and a background on middle age thought. I paralleled it to the Reformation. </p>
<p>How do you think that sounds? :/</p>
<p>MC I thought were really easy. I had maybe 10 tops I was a little unsure of.</p>