2.3 Interpreting Maps & Political Cartoons

Why Visual Sources Get Their Own Skill

The GED Testing Service's Assessment Guide for Educators: Social Studies singles out maps and political cartoons by name under SSP.6.b, which requires you to "analyze information presented in a variety of maps, graphic organizers, tables, and charts; and in a variety of visual sources such as artifacts, photographs, political cartoons." This practice is not confined to the Geography and the World domain (15% of the test) — expect map-based items in U.S. History (a Cold War containment map, a Civil War troop-movement map) and political cartoons in Civics and Government (a cartoon satirizing a president's policy or a political party). Closely related is SSP.4 (Interpreting Meaning of Symbols, Words and Phrases), which is the skill that lets you decode a map's legend symbols or a cartoon's visual metaphors the same way you'd figure out an unfamiliar vocabulary word from context.

Types of Maps on the GED

Reading a map legend correctly is the whole skill. A thematic map's legend might use darker shading for higher values — before answering any item, check whether darker means "more" or "less" for that specific map, since conventions vary. A common item format directs you to a specific shaded region and asks what it represents, or asks you to compare two shaded regions using only the legend key, not outside knowledge of the actual geography.

Anatomy of a Political Cartoon

Political cartoonists compress an argument into a single image using a recurring toolkit:

• Symbolism — an object standing in for a larger idea (a ballot box representing democracy, a set of scales representing justice)
• Caricature — an exaggerated, easily-recognizable depiction of a real public figure (an oversized head, exaggerated facial features)
• Labeling — words written directly onto objects in the drawing (a barrel labeled "Tariff" or a ship labeled "The Economy") so the reader cannot mistake what the object represents
• Captions — a title or speech bubble that states or hints at the cartoon's point
• Exaggeration/irony — an absurd or ironic scenario used to criticize or mock a policy or figure

Common Symbol Vocabulary

Recognizing these on sight matters because GED cartoons are rarely captioned with an explicit explanation — you are expected to translate the symbol into its real-world referent the way you'd define an unfamiliar term from context (SSP.4).

The Literal-vs-Symbolic Trap

The single most common wrong answer on a political-cartoon item describes what is literally drawn rather than what the artist actually means. If a cartoon shows a bloated elephant labeled "Federal Budget" bursting out of a small suit labeled "1990 Spending Limits," the point is that federal spending has grown far beyond old limits — a distractor answer describing "an elephant that has outgrown its clothing" is literally accurate but misses the intended political argument entirely. Always ask: what real-world situation does this image, taken as a whole with its labels and caption, stand in for?

Worked Example

Picture a cartoon from the late 1800s: a large octopus labeled "Trusts," its many arms wrapped around the U.S. Capitol building, a railroad, and a factory, each arm labeled with a different industry. A caption reads, "Its tentacles reach everywhere."

Stem: What point is the cartoonist making?

Reading the symbols: the octopus (a symbol of an entity with many far-reaching, controlling arms) is explicitly labeled "Trusts" (large monopolistic business combinations); its arms grip government and multiple industries. The correct interpretation is that large business trusts had gained excessive, far-reaching control over government and the economy — precisely the argument that fueled the Progressive Era's antitrust reforms. An answer describing only "a sea creature near a government building" is the literal-reading trap; it ignores the labels and the argument they build.

How These Skills Appear in Item Types

Hot spot items are especially common with maps — clicking directly on the region a legend describes — while drag-and-drop items may ask you to place labels identifying resources, regions, or historical boundaries directly onto a map image.

Photographs and Artifacts as Visual Sources

SSP.6.b also names photographs and artifacts alongside maps and cartoons. A Dust Bowl-era photograph of an abandoned farmhouse half-buried in sand, or a Civil War-era tintype photo of soldiers in camp, functions as a primary source you must read for details the same way you would a written passage: what is explicitly visible (a specific detail you can point to and cite, per SSP.1), and what can be reasonably inferred from it (the scale of the drought, the harsh conditions of camp life). The trap here is the same literal-vs-symbolic error as with cartoons, just inverted: test-takers sometimes over-interpret a plain documentary photograph as if it were symbolic, when the GED usually wants only what is directly observable and reasonably inferable from the image itself.