A History Major's Journey

[Westerner]

DSST Introduction to the Modern Middle East

Passed this bear in February 2013 with 65! PRAISE GOD!!!!!

>>My main resources were the AWESOME
1. Free Clep Prep study guide and practice test
2. IC's Specific Exam Feedback
3. Snazzlefrag's notes (great summary of the IC cards)
4. CLEP101's notes
5. Lyanne's notes
Those last 3 are fantastic!!! They were perfect for me to study from on the go.

>>I really didn't use the IC cards much. Did once through getting almost all wrong, then again getting about half wrong. However, the SEF is worth its weight in gold

>>I got a couple interesting-looking books from the library but actually spent most of my time Googling and Wikipedia-ing the stuff on the SEF.

>>Wish I'd studied more about EGYPT, AUSTRIA, SYRIA, and SAUDI ARABIA (just an overview of their histories, a timeline, something like that).

>>Timelines of rulers, to see where they fit together and who succeeded who, would've been helpful

>>Arab Nationalization, Modernization, Socialism, and Feminism...just Google those topics and read up on them

>>Study how Austria, Germany, France, Russia, Britain and the USA related to the Middle East (especially those last 4)

>>The Free Clep Prep practice test. Register (for free). Take it. Take it again. And again. As many times as you need to really understand and possibly even memorize the questions. I took it 3 times:
1st time: 69% (didn't study it)
2nd time: 78% (studied it)
3rd time: 91% (and studied it)
Again, about 20 questions were similar to FCP ones

>>Knowing the geography of the region helps

>>I didn't get as many Qs on the Ottoman Empire as others did

>>Helpful timeline

>>I studied a month, about 1-4 hours a day (on the 3 days/week I work, it was like 1—1.5 hours/day)

>>Here's a list of topics you should know:

Ibn Sa’ud
Faisal 1
Ottoman Empire — trade, what religious $ was used for, reforms,
Janissaries & their history
Coup d’etat of 1941 (Anglo-Iraqi War)
Yemen Civil War
Ba’th Party
Pan-Arabism
Sufis
Saaljuq Empire
Sa’d Zaghlul
Yom Kippur War
Wafdist Party
Aswan High Dam
Suez Canal
United Arab Republic
Young Turks & revolution
Free Officers
Gamal ‘abd al-Nasser
Midhat Pasha
Abdulhamid II
Russo/Turk War
Kingdom of Saud & alliances
Greater Syria
Millet System
Intifada
Zionist Movement
Camp David Accords
1967 Arab-Israeli War
Histadrut
Reza (Khan) Shah
Sharif Husayn
Capitulations
Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Balfour Declaration
Sykes-Picot Agreement
Islamic Modernist
Nationalist / Nationalism movement
Baghdad Pact
Ottoman Empire architecture
Middle Eastern feminism
Ayatollah Khomeini
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Muhammad Mossadegh
Huda Shaarwi
Soviet Influence in the Middle East
Marxism in the Middle East
Arab Socialism
Mandates—what European country controlled what ME area
1919 revolution & outcomes
Agriculture in Egypt (& reforms)
Tanzimat
Anglo-Otto trade agreement
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Kemalism
Copts
Armenia
Primary language of Islam
Peel Commission
1936-39 Arab revolts
Definition of Modern Middle East
Modern Middle East city planning
European Influence
1001 Arabian Nights
Madrid Conference
Malmuks
Muhammed al-Abduh
Nori al-Sa'id
Isman I-someone... (forgot the last name)
3 major religions timeline
How oil changed ME
Women's Ed.
Turkish language change
Wahhabis
Wuqt?
Enver Pasha
Greco-Turkish War
Zionism & history
Secular and religious Jews
1951 Iranian revolution
Muhammed Ali
Mosul
Camp David Accords
Sultanate of Women
Jordan River
Safavid Empire
CUP (Committee of Union and Progress)
Feminism in different countries
Hosni Mubaruk
Baktashi
Bazargan
Marxism in the Middle East
Ataturk & Reza Shah


DSST Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union

Well, I passed this test in March 2013 with 65, by God's grace! Same score I got on the Modern Middle East, but I felt this test was harder, probably because it covers only 1 country and therefore can go into more detail. However, it's helpful to have only ~100 years of a country to focus studying on.

Length of study: ~3 weeks

Resources: second half of "Russia: A Brief History" by Abraham Ascher—the part that covers Nicholas II to Putin, IC, SEF, JWill's study guide (awesome!!!), Snazzlefrag's notes (great review of IC—I ran thru it the morning of the test), Official fact sheet & PT questions

Tips: I want to emphasize the importance of getting and reading a book about the history of the USSR...it just helps so much to have an overview and big picture. Plus, it'll explain more about more important people, places, and events. I didn't get any of the recommended books, just one I picked up at the library, but it was terrific!

For this test, IC alone is not enough; however, I went through it twice and it is great for drilling the facts. IC and the SEF alone are not enough; however by going through the SEF and researching everything mentioned on it, several questions will be "gimmes"
The essential thing is using several sources. There are things mentioned by one source and not mentioned in another. Different things are given more or less importance, depending on the source. And the more you know, the better
Here's a list of "gotta know" topics I wrote up:

Know Lenin's biography
Stalin's goals and policies—domestic & foreign
Socialist Realism
Yugoslavia
Titoism
Women in USSR workforce
Malenkov
Rykov
Kaganovitch
Kamenev
Molotov
Bukharin
Tomsky
How Beria was greatly feared
How NEP was different from War Communism
Kerensky...what he did, how he was perceived
Kosygin
Zinovev
Bulganin (on the test I blanked on him)
Lysenko affair
When Yeltsin became popular
1991 coup
Georgia
Post-Lenin maneuvering for power
Post-Stalin maneuvering for power
Wars with Finland
Soviet-China relations
Alexander III
Lithuania/Latvia/Estonia
Rapallo treaty
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad—how they were related/influenced each other
Wars and conflicts (w/ Germany mostly) over Poland
Warsaw Pact
Operation Barbarossa
Maxim Gorky
Sergei Eisenstein
What armies Trotsky led
Lenin's "What is to be done?"
Lenin's Testament
Tomsky
Bolsheviks vs. Mensheviks
Zhdanovism
Chernobyl
Soviet response to the Spanish Civil War
Sergei Kirov
Soviet constitution - Article 6 that was changed
Politics — Left and Right, especially during Lenin's and Stalin's time
Names of the Soviet secret police
Meyerhold - theater
Sakharov - physicist
Solzhenitsyn
Land that changed hands
CIS & who did and didn't join
Stalin's Great Purges
Great Terror
Victor Chernov
Social Democrats
What USSR had to do w/ the reunification of Germany
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Nazi-Soviet agreement
The rich in Communist society
Stolpyin & his reforms - what did he do?
What kind of economic reforms Stolpyin carried out
"Red Cavalry" book
Nobel Prize winners from the USSR
Soviet—German relationships
Gorbachev's policies, feelings, goals
Perestroika (which was only economic reforms)
Glasnost
Gosplan
Marshall Plan
When the USSR started to fall apart
USSR & Egypt
Afghanistan War - disastrous for USSR
How USSR brought about the Korean War
Nicholas II
1905-1917 — the revolutions and wars
Khrushchev & his fights
"Whites" in the Russian Civil War
Total war casualties in WW1, WW2 and the Russian Civil War
Sergei Witte
Alexei Stankhanov
George Gapon
Svetlana Alliluyeva
Results of treaties and land transfers
Dates of each person's rule
General Secretary, Premier, Chairman...all those titles. Know who was what. Yeah, it's confusing :?
Central Committee
Know how the Soviet government and Communist Party were set up (titles too)
Council of People's Deputies
Nationalism and unrest in Soviet countries outside Russia
Hotspots in the 1980s-1990s
Rasputin
Gulags
USSR's interactions with other great world leaders
Doctor's Plot
USSR in WW2 - interactions, changing sides
Who Stalin deported
Jews in USSR
"April Theses"
USSR's different constitutions...and anything remarkable about any of them
Russian Orthodox Church

This is a chronological order of USSR leaders and their political helpers or enemies. I would read a short biography on the bolded ones. I didn't for all of them, but I wish I had; it helps keep things straight on all those politicians!

Kerensky
Lenin vs. Martov
Rykov
Stalin (+Zinovev, Kamenev) + (Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky) vs. Trotsky
Malenkov
Molotov, Beria, Malenkov vs. Khrushchev,
Bulganin
Khrushchev vs. Kaganovich, Molotov, Malenkov, Bulganin
Brezhnev (+Kosygin, Podgorny, Suslov)
Andropov
Chernenko
Gorbachev (+Ligachev, Rhyzkov)
Yeltsin
Putin