<p>Tech: I mostly wrote about the effects that railroads and the new farm machines helped farmers but also led to inflation~crop prices drop like crazy. So it was hard for small scale farmers and sharecroppers to keep up with the huge farms and they had a hard time. Also the effects that railroads had the cattle trails (it was that doc with the two maps), they didn't need cowboys and cattle drivers anymore and ranches became more prevalent. </p>
<p>Econ: Bleh this was probably my weakest paragraph, I wrote in random thing about bimetallism, the lowering of crop prices, I don't really remember...</p>
<p>Govt Policy: Since this was around the Gilded age, mostly limited government, laisse faire, social darwinism. Those in the agriculture sector are ignored largely. lol I didn't realize it was Gilded age until this paragraph.</p>
<p>Most of my outside information pertained to the docs/time, but some might've been a little vague. The only specific act that I remember I put was Interstate Commerce Act. Hopefully stating that it was the Gilded age counts as outside info too, although it was pretty much implied by the time period given.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I talked about cotton gin and the interchangeable parts stuff. I did not say they were invented during that period, I just said the cotton gin and the interchangeable parts, along with the railroad, increased production, and then led to over production, which led to Panic of 1893.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's basically what I said, except I didn't write anything about the Panic of 1893...and that was the extent of my outside info. I used 8 out of 10 docs.</p>
<p>This is how I think I did:
MC - 48 raw score
DBQ - 2 :D
FRQ #3 - 3
FRQ #5 - 4</p>
<p>I don't know how they weight all of the scores...I know they multiply the raw scores by a certain amount, but is that good enough to get me a 3? That's all I need for the college I want to go to.</p>
<p>I think I would have gotten a 4 overall if not for the DBQ. Yikes! I think I'm heading for a 3 now.</p>
<p>I had NEVER written a DBQ before I walked into that exam. All my teacher did was have us write topic sentences and one sentence each for five paragraphs on a DBQ. That was all.</p>
<p>How important is writing style on the essays? I know they have to be at a high level and competent, but I assume it would not be as important as, for example, the SAT essay- am I correct? I ask because my DBQ did not have a conclusion paragraph. As I said, I had never written a DBQ answer, and had only written about four history essays the entire year, and my timing was way off. I am not worrying about not having a conclusion on the DBQ, but am curious as to how much I should expect it to impact my score on that essay. Either way, I'm not worried- that's the way it turned out, and there's nothing I can do about it.</p>
<p>I focused a lot on the depression of the 1890s (Panic of 1893). Other than that, I had almost no outside information, but I felt I did a fair job analyzing the documents for not knowing how to do it.</p>
<p>Having a conclusion is not very important, my teacher told me that you can have a stellar essay without the conclusion.
In fact I wasn't planning on writing a conclusion for any of my essays until I discovered I had like 20 minutes left after finishing my essays.
The important things were that you had a clear and responsive thesis (to the prompt), and that your body paragraphs support and build on that thesis. Writing style and grammar/spelling are not really that important (but it never hurts), as long as the reader can figure out what you're writing about.</p>
<p>50%? no....my teacher said that the docs gave most of the info of the time period anyway. so at most outside info you could put in some extra things, but just using the docs well meant that you were talking specifically about the time period.</p>
<p>besides, outside info that's from a totally diff period counts for 0 pts.</p>
<p>I'm just asking like... if one wrote a competent essay that interpreted the documents, organized it pretty well, had an argument, and supported the arguement with some outside info + the documents and the info that goes along with it... Would that be a 5/9... or are the graders extremly strict..</p>
<p>Also, what counts as outside info... does information that the document doesn't excatly tell but you state it.. or is it like random acts and court cases</p>
<p>I believe outside info is anything not given to you - your knowledge - whether that be acts or cases (which do look good since they draw attention) or something as simple as knowledge about where farmers generally were (the South).</p>
<p>I am a little unsure of this, but I also think that outside info is also defined as expansion past the documents. For instance, I wrote in mine about a depression in the 1890s. That may have been implied by the tone of the documents, but you really had to know it - it's hard to reason through history.</p>
<p>I'd say the line where outside info stops is where broad generalizations begin, or, obviously, interpretation of the documents.</p>
<p>but you dont need to use 50%....like that other dude said. and if you talk about docs, but add in something about the writer that wasnt mentioned like bryans was populist or whatever - that's outside info! dont worry JW you probably at least got 6. they know how hard the topic this yr was.</p>
<p>economic:
declining farming prices
unfair and high RR rates
sharecropping for southern black farmers, which was like slavery even though gov considered giving them "40 acres and a mule"</p>
<p>political:
gov supported big business
grange movement and ocala demands
populist movement (silver, gov reg of railroads, lower tariffs, end of natl bank)
populist to progressive in conclusion paragraph</p>
<p>What am I looking at -
4.5 pages
TEchonology- all about railroads
Documents- map, one about Chicago
Outside info- transcontinental in Grant's admin, control of railroads, etc.
Economic-
Documents- Chart with prices, Overproduction, Starving girl
Outside info- effects of overproduction, correlation with railroads, Homestead Act gave out land but caused overproduction, etc.
Governmental policies/proposals-
Documents- William Jennings Bryan, Railraod legislation one
Outside info- Intersate Commerce Act, bitmetallism, gold silver ratio 1:16, Populist party, Patrons of Husbandry Oliver Kelley, also a social group, lots of goodies in this paragraph.</p>
<p>Technology:
-railroads, transcontinental railroad . . .
-can't remember if i put something else or not, i'm drawing a blank :-</p>
<p>Economic conditions:
-sharecropping
-overproduction leading to lower prices
-depression of 1893</p>
<p>Government policy:
-subsidies for railroads/support for big business
-Reconstruction/Civil War policies (sharecropping, Sherman's scorched earth policy when marching to Atlanta (somehow i connected that?), something else in the south that i can't remember)
-Populism (silver standard, tariff, 'cross of gold' speech, etc)</p>
<p>What did everybody put for farmers' responses? I used two of the documents for that, then for outside info I talked about the Grange movement and Farmers Alliance and how that spawned the Populist movement - does that count?</p>
<p>Any thoughts on how I scored? I thought I did decently, having never written a timed DBQ before, but after reading about all of the court cases I've never heard of and such, I'm getting worried :-. Does writing and organizing well help at all? (I'm praying I also added stuff that I can't remember right now, but I doubt it). It was about 3 and 3/4 pages, and my handwriting isnt huge.</p>
<p>Oh my... I was half-confident in my DBQ up until now. </p>
<p>Let's see... This is what I used for outside info.:
-Populist Party
-Granger Movement
-bimetallism issue ("Cross of Gold")
-Wabash v. Illinois (but now that I think about it, I might've written Worchester v. Illinois, and I might've mixed it up with Munn v. Illinois -- which I couldn't remmeber)
-railroads
-mechanization of farm technology
-Reconcstruction of the South (the industriliztion by northerners who I forgot to refer to as carpetbaggers)
-Sharecropping
-exodusters</p>
<p>I also left out Doc G and Doc J (I think). I forgot to include G (Chicago cattling industry), and it would've been too awkward to re-include it. I panicked towards the end and couldn't think of a good way to work in Doc J (native-American problems)... which meant Dawes was out of the question.</p>
<p>My thesis was not what one would call eloquent. I answered the question (great extent), focusing around the dying out of farming, but I didn't analyze for extent -- I analyzed for death of farming (oops). My info. was niether balanced for each point, nor organized/flowing (bad transitions). This basically surmounts to 5 pages of utter cr*p. </p>
<p>I thought that essay was a strong 6-7. Now I guess I'm looking at a 1-5 on the DBQ and a 4 on the AP. My MC was mediocre, as were my thematics.</p>