Wisconsin's High School
Graduation Test

The eligible content standards are taken from Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards. These are the standards that students are responsible for on the High School Graduation Test.

Social Studies

A. Geography: People, Places, and Environments

  1. Use various types of atlases and appropriate vocabulary to describe the physical attributes of a place or region, employing such concepts as climate, plate tectonics, volcanism, and landforms, and to describe the human attributes, employing such concepts as demographics, birth and death rates, doubling time, emigration, and immigration
  2. Construct mental maps of the world and the world’s regions and draw maps from memory showing major physical and human features
  3. Collect and analyze geographic information to examine the effects that a geographic or environmental change in one part of the world, such as volcanic activity, river diversion, ozone depletion, air pollution, deforestation, or desertification may have on other parts of the world
  4. Identify the world’s major ecosystems and analyze how different economic, social, political, religious, and cultural systems have adapted to them
  5. Identify and analyze cultural factors, such as human needs, values, ideals, and public policies, that influence the design of places, such as an urban center, an industrial park, a public project, or a planned neighborhood

B. History: Time, Continuity, and Change

  1. Explain different points of view on the same historical event, using data gathered from various sources, such as letters, journals, diaries, newspapers, government documents, and speeches
  2. Analyze primary and secondary sources related to a historical question to evaluate their relevance, make comparisons, integrate new information with prior knowledge, and come to a reasoned conclusion
  3. Recall, select, and analyze significant historical periods and the relationships among them
  4. Assess the validity of different interpretations of significant historical events
  5. Gather various types of historical evidence, including visual and quantitative data, to analyze issues of freedom and equality, liberty and order, region and nation, individual and community, law and conscience, diversity and civic duty; form a reasoned conclusion in the light of other possible conclusions; and develop a coherent argument in the light of other possible arguments
  6. Select and analyze various documents that have influenced the legal, political, and constitutional heritage of the United States
  7. Select significant changes caused by technology, industrialization, urbanization, and population growth, and analyze the effects of these changes in the United States and the world
  8. Analyze the history, culture, tribal sovereignty, and current status of the American Indian tribes and bands in Wisconsin
  9. Analyze examples of ongoing change within and across cultures, such as the development of ancient civilizations; the rise of nation-states; and social, economic, and political revolutions
  10. Explain the origins, central ideas, and global influence of religions, such as Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity
  11. Identify a historical or contemporary event in which a person was forced to take an ethical position, such as a decision to go to war, the impeachment of a president, or a presidential pardon, and explain the issues involved
  12. Describe the purpose and effects of treaties, alliances, and international organizations that characterize today’s interconnected world
  13. Explain the history of slavery, racial and ethnic discrimination, and efforts to eliminate discrimination in the United States and elsewhere in the world
  • While studying Wisconsin history, students in grades 4–12 will learn about:
    • The prehistory and the early history of Wisconsin’s native people
    • Early explorers, traders, and settlers to 1812
    • The transition from territory to statehood, 1787–1848
    • Immigration and settlement
    • Wisconsin’s role in the Civil War, 1860–1865
    • Mining, lumber, and agriculture
    • La Follette and the Progressive Era, 1874–1914
    • The world wars and conflicts
    • Prosperity, depression, industrialization, and urbanization
    • Wisconsin’s response to 20th century change

  • While studying United States history, students in grades 5–12 will learn about:
    • The prehistory and early history of the Americas to 1607
    • Colonial history and settlement, 1607–1763
    • The American Revolution and the early national period, 1763–1815
    • The paradox of nationalism and sectionalism in an expanding nation, 1815–1860
    • The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877
    • The growth of industrialization and urbanization, 1865–1914
    • World War I and America’s emergence as a world power, 1890–1920
    • Prosperity, depression, and the New Deal, 1920–1941
    • World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnamese conflict, 1941–1975
    • The search for prosperity and equal rights in Cold War and post-Cold War America, 1945–present

  • While studying world history, students in grades 5–12 will learn about:
    • Prehistory to 2000 B.C.
    • Early pastoral civilizations, nonwestern empires, and tropical civilizations
    • Classical civilizations, including China, India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500
    • Multiple religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism) and civilizations to A.D. 1100
    • Expansion and centralization of power, including the decline of feudalism, A.D. 1000–1500
    • The early modern world, 1450–1800
    • Global unrest, change, and revolution, 1750–1850
    • Global encounters, industrialization, urbanization, and imperialism, 1850–1914
    • Wars, revolutions, and ideologies, 1900–1945
    • Post-industrialism, global interdependence, and fragmentation in the contemporary world, 1945–present
  1. Identify major works of art and literature produced
  2. United States and elsewhere in the world and explain how they reflect the era in which they were created
  3. Recall, select, and explain the significance of important people, their work, and their ideas in the areas of political and intellectual leadership, inventions, discoveries, and the arts, within each major era of Wisconsin, United States, and world history
  4. Select instances of scientific, intellectual, and religious change in various regions of the world at different times in history and discuss the impact those changes had on beliefs and values
  5. Compare examples and analyze why governments of various countries have sometimes sought peaceful resolution to conflicts and sometimes gone to war
  6. Identify historical and current instances when national interests and global interests have seemed to be opposed and analyze the issues involved

C. Political Science and Citizenship: Power, Authority, Governance, and Responsibility

  1. Identify the sources, evaluate the justification, and analyze the implications of certain rights and responsibilities of citizens
  2. Describe how different political systems define and protect individual human rights
  3. Trace how legal interpretations of liberty, equality, justice, and power, as identified in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other Constitutional Amendments, have changed and evolved over time
  4. Analyze different theories of how governmental powers might be used to help promote or hinder liberty, equality, and justice, and develop a reasoned conclusion
  5. Identify and analyze significant political benefits, problems, and solutions to problems related to federalism and the separation of powers
  6. Describe how past and present American political parties and interest groups have gained or lost influence on political decision-making and voting behavior
  7. Explain the United States’ relationship to other nations and its role in international organizations, such as the United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and North American Free Trade Agreement
  8. Explain and analyze how different political and social movements have sought to mobilize public opinion and obtain governmental support in order to achieve their goals
  9. Describe and analyze the origins and consequences of slavery, genocide, and other forms of persecution, including the Holocaust
  10. Describe the evolution of movements to assert rights by people with disabilities, ethnic and racial groups, minorities, and women

D. Economics: Production, Distribution, Exchange, Consumption

  1. Explain how decisions about spending and production made by households, businesses, and governments determine the nation’s levels of income, employment, and prices
  2. Use basic economic concepts (such as supply and demand; production, distribution, and consumption; labor, wages, and capital; inflation and deflation; market economy and command economy) to compare and contrast local, regional, and national economies across time and at the present time
  3. Explain and evaluate the effects of new technology, global economic interdependence, and competition on the development of national policies and on the lives of individuals and families in the United States and the world
  4. Explain how interest rates are determined by market forces that influence the amount of borrowing and saving done by investors, consumers, and government officials
  5. Analyze and evaluate the role of Wisconsin and the United States in the world economy
  6. Explain how federal budgetary policy and the Federal Reserve System’s monetary policies influence overall levels of employment, interest rates, production, and prices
  7. Use economic concepts to analyze historical and contemporary questions about economic development in the United States and the world
  8. Compare, contrast, and evaluate different types of economies (traditional, command, market, and mixed) and analyze how they have been affected in the past by specific social and political systems and important historical events
  9. Explain the basic characteristics of international trade, including absolute and comparative advantage, barriers to trade, exchange rates, and balance of trade
  10. Explain the operations of common financial instruments (such as stocks and bonds) and financial institutions (such as credit companies, banks, and insurance companies)
  11. Analyze the ways in which supply and demand, competition, prices, incentives, and profits influence what is produced and distributed in a competitive market system
  12. Compare and contrast how values and beliefs, such as economic freedom, economic efficiency, equity, full employment, price stability, security, and growth, influence decisions in different economic systems
  13. Describe and explain global economic interdependence and competition, using examples to illustrate the influence of these on national and international policies
  14. Analyze the economic roles of institutions, such as corporations and businesses, banks, labor unions, and the Federal Reserve System

E. The Behavioral Sciences: Individuals, Institutions, and Society

  1. Analyze the role of economic, political, educational, familial, and religious institutions as agents of both continuity and change, citing current and past examples
  2. Analyze the means by which and extent to which groups and institutions can influence people, events, and cultures in both historical and contemporary settings
  3. Analyze issues of cultural assimilation and cultural preservation among ethnic and racial groups in Wisconsin, the United States, and the world
  4. Illustrate and evaluate ways in which cultures resolve conflicting beliefs and practices
  5. Explain current and past efforts of groups and institutions to eliminate prejudice and discrimination against racial, ethnic, religious, and social groups such as women, children, the elderly, and individuals who are disabled
  6. Use the research procedures and skills of the behavioral sciences (such as gathering, organizing, and interpreting data from several sources) to develop an informed position on an issue

Posted December 9, 1998

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