Unit 19: Paper 3 (HL) — History of the Americas
Topic 19.8: US Civil War: causes, course and effects (1840–1877) Questions
Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB History Topic 19.8. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.
1Choose1 mark
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Choose the piece of legislation that let Kansas and Nebraska decide on slavery by popular sovereignty, overturning the Missouri Compromise line.
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To what extent was the Compromise of 1850 responsible for increasing sectional tension rather than reducing it?
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Compare and contrast the arguments used by abolitionists and pro-slavery Southerners to defend their positions on slavery.
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Evaluate the reasons why the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 triggered the secession of Southern states.
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Examine the reasons why slavery became the central issue dividing the United States by 1860.
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Which Confederate general won early victories such as Chancellorsville (1863) but was defeated at Gettysburg?
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Evaluate the relative importance of economic and military factors in explaining the Union's victory in the American Civil War (1861–1865).
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Examine the reasons why the Confederacy was not able to translate its early military advantages into victory in the American Civil War.
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Examine the significance of the campaigns of 1863 (Gettysburg and Vicksburg) as a turning point in the American Civil War.
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Discuss the methods enslaved people used to resist slavery in the United States before 1861.
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Analyse the role of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) in escalating the crisis over slavery's expansion.
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Discuss the significance of the Nullification Crisis (1832-33) for the development of the states' rights doctrine before the Civil War.
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Examine the economic differences between the North and the South and their contribution to sectional conflict before 1861.
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Evaluate the impact of the domestic slave trade and slave codes on enslaved people in the antebellum South.
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To what extent do the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 mark a turning point in the sectional crisis over slavery?
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To what extent was the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant responsible for the Union's victory in the American Civil War?
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Discuss the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) on the course and outcome of the American Civil War.
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Evaluate the reasons why Britain and France did not intervene on behalf of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
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Compare and contrast Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan (1863) and Congress's Radical Reconstruction (from 1867) as approaches to reintegrating the former Confederate states.
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Discuss the reasons why Reconstruction failed to secure lasting civil rights for African Americans in the Southern United States.
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