Unit 11 Short Answer Questions

Describe: Describe means to give a lot of details and paint a verbal picture of a situation or idea.

Explain: Explain means to make an idea or situation clear to someone by describing it in more detail or revealing relevant facts.

If a question asks you to explain it wants you to say WHY something happens.

Whereas if the question says describe it wants you to say WHAT happens.

1. Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.

"Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe...Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar...As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind...

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate!

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

President Ronald Reagan, address at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, June 12, 1987

1. Describe President Reagan's argument in the passage above. (3pts)
2. Explain one historical situation that supports Reagan's argument. (3 pts)

2. Answer all parts of the question that follows.

1. Explain one way in which US military and technological developments contributed to the end of the Cold War. (2pts)
2. Explain one way in which the Soviet Union contributed to its own collapse in 1991. (2 pts)