The cumulative portion of your final exam is basically the same test as the pretest you took on the first day of class.  Listed below are the ideas, terms, dates, names and numbers that are on the test. These are, in my opinion, what any well informed citizen should know in order to function as an intelligent citizen in our democratic republic.

Names you should know:

• Thomas Jefferson
• James Madison
• John Roberts
• Samuel Alito
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg
• Thurgood Marshall
• Clarence Thomas
• Nancy Pelosi
• Harry Reid
• Ben Bernanke
• Condi Rice

Institutions you should know:

• Articles of Confederation
• Electoral College
• branches of government
• democratic republic
• Federalist Party
• Political Action Committees (PACs)
• Federal Reserve Board (the Fed)
• cabinet departments
• State Department's job
• NATO

Dates you should know:

• 1787
• 1789
• 1865
• 1932
• 1947-1988

Numbers you should know:

• 9
• 60%
• 100
• 435
• 538

Rights and liberties you should know:

• Bill of Rights
• items in the 1st amendment
• Roe v. Wade
• probable cause
• exclusionary rule
• right to assembly
• no state religion
• no national law creating an official national language

Concepts and processes you should know:

• liberals and conservatives (difference and relative numbers)
• Democrats and Republicans and independents (differences and relative numbers)
• initiative, referendum, and recall
• separation of powers
• checks and balances
• constitutional amendment (proposal and ratification)
• gerrymandering
• veto override -- 2/3's of both bouses
• filibuster and cloture
• civil and criminal law
• declaration of war
• merit or civil service system
• bureaucracy
• monetary policy
• fiscal policy
• debt (about $9 trillion) and deficit
• entitlement programs

Miscellaneous things you should know:

• Federalist Papers
• accuracy of public opinion polls
• platform
• incumbent
• term of federal judge
• constitutional basis for political parties
• Welfare Reform (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 that created TANF)
• entitlement programs
• Social Security (relative size compared to foreign aid)
• term limits of US President
• party control of each house of congress
• foreign aid, size relative to the size of Social Security
• Marshall Plan