America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and Inequality | AQA GCSE History (8145)

America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and Inequality

100 questions
9 subtopics
Paper 1
Paper 1

America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality is examined in Paper 1, Understanding the modern world.

It covers the ‘Boom’, social and cultural developments, A divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tension, American society during the Depression, the effectiveness of the New Deal on different groups in society, the impact of the Second World War, post-war American society and economy, racial tension and developments in the Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s and America and the ‘Great Society'.

Sample questions from America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and Inequality

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The ‘Boom’

Why was advertising so important to the consumer society of the 1920s?

Show the answer
Newspapers, magazines, billboards and radio persuaded Americans to want goods they had never owned, creating the demand that kept the factories profitable.
Social and cultural developments

Where did jazz music come from?

Show the answer
African-American musicians in the southern states, above all New Orleans, who carried it north to cities such as Chicago and New York.
A divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tension

What happened in the St Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929?

Show the answer
Seven members of a rival Chicago gang were machine-gunned by Capone's men, and the shock helped turn opinion against the ban on alcohol.
American society during the Depression

What was the Dust Bowl?

Show the answer
Years of drought and over-ploughing turned the soil of the southern plains to dust, and the storms that blew it away drove thousands of families west to look for work.
The effectiveness of the New Deal on different groups in society

Which two laws of 1935 gave American workers lasting protection?

Show the answer
The Wagner Act, which guaranteed the right to join a trade union and bargain collectively, and the Social Security Act, which created old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
The impact of the Second World War

Who was Rosie the Riveter?

Show the answer
The poster figure used to persuade women into factory work making aircraft and munitions, jobs that had previously been done only by men.
Post-war American society and economy

What is meant by the American Dream?

Show the answer
The belief that anyone in America, whatever their background, could rise by hard work to a home of their own, a car and a comfortable family life.
Racial tension and developments in the Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s

What started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and what did it achieve?

Show the answer
Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. Black passengers then walked for over a year until the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation illegal.

The 9 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The ‘Boom’	Hire purchase, Henry Ford's Model T and the moving assembly line, advertising and the new household goods, tariffs and laissez-faire, the Americans left out of the prosperity, and the buying of shares on the margin that fed the speculation of the late 1920s.	10
Social and cultural developments	Hollywood and the coming of sound, Charlie Chaplin, where jazz came from and Louis Armstrong, why the older generation objected, the flapper, the vote for women in 1920, and how far women's lives changed.	10
A divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tension	Prohibition and the speakeasies, Al Capone and the St Valentine's Day Massacre, why the ban ended in 1933, the immigration quotas and life for new immigrants, the Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Scare and the case of Sacco and Vanzetti.	11
American society during the Depression	Mass unemployment and the Hoovervilles, the ruin of farmers and the Dust Bowl, the bank failures, Hoover's beliefs and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Bonus Army of 1932, and Roosevelt's promise of a New Deal and his landslide victory.	10
The effectiveness of the New Deal on different groups in society	The bank shutdown, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Wagner and Social Security Acts, what black Americans and women gained, the Supreme Court clash, the critics, and the fireside chats.	11
The impact of the Second World War	How war production ended unemployment, Lend Lease and the boom in exports, Rosie the Riveter and what became of women's war work, the segregated army and the Tuskegee Airmen, the Double V campaign, the migration north, and Roosevelt's order on the defence industries.	10
Post-war American society and economy	The prosperity of the 1950s and the GI Bill, suburbs such as Levittown and the American Dream, the people left out of the affluent society, McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist, and the rise of television and Rock and Roll.	10
Racial tension and developments in the Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s	Segregation in the South, Brown v Board of Education, Little Rock, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King's non-violence and the March on Washington, Malcolm X, Black Power, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.	10
America and the ‘Great Society'	Kennedy's New Frontier and its limits, Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and federal money for schools, and the women's movement from Betty Friedan and the Equal Pay Act to NOW, the Equal Rights Amendment, Phyllis Schlafly and Roe v Wade.	18

America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and Inequality is 100 of the 1,889 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.