1.2 Part I: Stimulus-Based Multiple Choice Strategy

Part I Is a Reading Test in Disguise

The 28 Part I questions are all stimulus-based, meaning each one is attached to a source: a short document excerpt, a map, a chart or graph, a timeline, or a political cartoon. The exam is testing whether you can read and reason about evidence the way a historian does, not whether you memorized a textbook. That is good news: even on a unit you found difficult, careful reading of the stimulus often reveals the answer.

Work in a fixed order: read the stimulus and its caption/attribution first, predict an answer in your head, then read the choices. Students who skip to the choices first get pulled toward whichever option 'sounds historical' and walk into the trap answers.

Sourcing the Stimulus

Every document carries an attribution line (author, title, date, source). Before anything else, pull four things from it:

1. Author / source - Who created this? A government, a reformer, a colonized subject, a cartoonist?
2. Date - This locks the historical period. A passage dated 1848 points to revolutions and industrial reform; one dated 1989 points to the end of the Cold War.
3. Audience - Who was meant to read or see it?
4. Purpose / point of view - Is the source trying to persuade, justify, criticize, or record? A colonial official defending empire and a colonized nationalist describe the same event very differently.

For a map, read the title, legend, and date - changes in borders, trade routes, or alliance blocs are the point. For a chart or graph, read the axis labels and units before interpreting a trend. For a political cartoon, identify the symbols, the labels, the exaggeration, and the cartoonist's target - cartoons are arguments, not neutral descriptions.

Distractor Elimination

Global II distractors fall into predictable types. Learn to spot them:

For a comparison question, the right answer must be true of both items named - a choice true of only one is wrong even if accurate. For a cause-and-effect question, separate long-term causes, short-term triggers, and effects; distractors often offer a real background condition when the question asks for the immediate trigger.

Reading Each Stimulus Type

Different stimulus formats reward different habits:

• Document excerpts - Read the attribution, then the passage, underlining the author's main claim. The question usually tests what the author argues or implies, not a trivia detail.
• Maps - Compare the map's date and borders to what you know. A map labeled 'Europe, 1942' versus 'Europe, 1949' is testing the difference between Axis expansion and Cold War division.
• Charts and graphs - Identify the trend direction first (rising urbanization, falling mortality), then match it to a historical cause such as industrialization or the Green Revolution.
• Timelines - These test sequence and causation; look at what comes before and after a labeled event.
• Political cartoons - Decode the symbols (an octopus for an empire, a figure labeled with a country), the exaggeration, and the cartoonist's clearly negative or positive stance.

Pacing and Bubbling

• Time budget: About 50-55 minutes for all 28 questions - roughly 2 minutes each. If a question stalls you, mark it, bubble your best guess, and move on; you can return with leftover time.
• No guessing penalty: Regents scoring counts correct answers only, so never leave a Part I bubble blank. A blind guess is a 25% chance; an educated guess after eliminating two choices is a coin flip.
• Paired questions: When two items share one stimulus, the first often tests literal comprehension and the second tests a deeper inference (point of view, cause, or comparison). Don't carry an assumption from the first question into the second - re-anchor to the stem.
• Transcribe carefully: Because MCQs are bubbled on a separate scannable sheet, check the question number every few items so a single skipped bubble does not shift all your later answers.

Finish Part I with a brief buffer so the time-intensive CRQs and essay are never rushed.