1. ACE the SAQ

2. HOW TO ACE THE SAQ ACE it A - Answer C – Cite E – Expand
A = Answer. You directly answer the question by identifying your claim.
C = Cite You briefly define/describe your claim.
E = Expand. You connect your claim through historical context.

3. EXAMPLE
Prompt (i.e. Part A): Briefly explain ONE important political development of the sectional conflict over slavery during the 1850’s.
ANSWER: The Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854 was another attempt to settle the sectional conflict over slavery during the 1850’s.
CITE: The act split the Nebraska Territory into two new territories, Nebraska and Kansas, and allowed each territory to determine free state or slave state through popular sovereignty.
EXPAND: Although the Kansas Nebraska Act attempted to settle the conflict over slavery through a more democratic means, it consequently allowed slavery to expand beyond the Missouri Compromise line of 36’30 and was considered a political victory for “slave power.”

5. A) The Irish Potato Famine sparked a massive wave of immigration of Irish to the United States between 1840 and Irish potato farms became stricken with a disease destroying thousands of acres of potatoes. Poor Irish families suffered greatly as they depended on the potato as a staple food source and those who could migrated to the United States to escape the famine.
B) The influx of Irish immigrants significantly contributed to the industrial expansion of the Northeast. Urban factory owners hired poor Irish immigrants at low wages given their minimal skills. As unskilled Irish immigrants became urban economic competition, Americans migrated west of the Appalachians and to the Mississippi River further fueling Northern industries with Western resources.
C) Irish immigration of the 1840s and 1850s sparked a cultural backlash of nativism. Some Americans felt threatened by the influx of Catholic Irish. The nativism eventually formalized into the Know-Nothing Party to preserve the American culture of Protestantism and subjugate the political rights of Irish immigrants.