Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation Online Center
This Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation Online Center brings together practice, lessons, worksheets, flashcards and review tools. Choose the resource that matches the skill you want to work on next.
Praxis Social Studies Practice Center
Take a full form, then read the explanation under every question you missed. Score the six categories separately. Roughly a fifth of the questions hand you a map, a chart, a cartoon, or a source excerpt and ask what it supports, so sort those misses out on their own; they are a skill rather than a knowledge gap.
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Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation at a glance
Two things about this test surprise candidates. First, its real title is Content and Interpretation, not Content Knowledge, and there is a separate test called Content Knowledge with the code 5081. Second, the three short essays in Part B are worth a quarter of the score in about thirty minutes, which is a far better rate of return than any block of multiple-choice questions on the test.
| Test code | 5086 (Social Studies: Content and Interpretation) |
|---|---|
| Not to be confused with | 5081, Social Studies: Content Knowledge, which is a separate test. ETS also lists a newer code, 5581 Social Studies, with 140 selected-response questions and no essays. ETS publishes no retirement notice for 5086 or 5081, so confirm with your state which code it requires. |
| Number of questions | 90 selected-response questions in Part A and 3 short content essays in Part B |
| Time limit | 120 minutes total. The parts are not separately timed; ETS suggests budgeting about 10 minutes per essay. |
| What the essays ask | Each gives you social studies material such as a map, a chart, a cartoon, or a primary-source excerpt, and asks you to interpret it and place it in historical, geographic, political, or economic context. |
| Scoring | Part A is 75 percent of the score and the three essays are 25 percent. |
| Format | Computer-delivered |
| Score scale | 100 to 200 |
| Passing score | ETS does not set one. Each state sets its own qualifying score. |
ETS publishes counts and percentages for every category: United States History 18 questions and 15 percent, World History 18 and 15 percent, Government Civics and Political Science 18 and 15 percent, Economics 13 and 11 percent, Geography 13 and 11 percent, and Behavioral Sciences 10 and 8 percent. The three short essays carry 25 percent between them, which is more than any single selected-response category.
The six categories and the essays, in plain language
ETS lists each category and the topics under it. Here is what each one asks of you.
United States history (15 percent, 18 questions)
The full span at secondary depth.
- Indigenous North America and colonization
- Slavery, resistance, and the colonial economy
- Revolution, the Constitution, and the early republic
- Expansion, removal, and the sectional crisis
- Civil War, Reconstruction, and their aftermath
- Industrialization, labor, and immigration
- The World Wars, the New Deal, the Cold War, and civil rights
World history (15 percent, 18 questions)
Genuinely global rather than European with footnotes.
- The classical world and the great river valleys
- Africa, Asia, and the Islamic world
- Medieval Europe and the pre-contact Americas
- Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution
- Empire, the Columbian exchange, and the Atlantic world
- Revolutions, industrialization, nationalism, and imperialism
- The World Wars, decolonization, and globalization
Government, civics, and political science (15 percent, 18 questions)
How power is organized and contested.
- The Constitution, federalism, and separation of powers
- The three branches and how policy is made
- Landmark Supreme Court cases and what they actually held
- Civil rights and civil liberties
- Parties, elections, and political behavior
- Comparative government and international relations
Economics (11 percent, 13 questions)
Micro, macro, and international.
- Scarcity, opportunity cost, and the factors of production
- Supply, demand, elasticity, and price
- Market structures and competition
- GDP, inflation, unemployment, and the business cycle
- Fiscal and monetary policy
- Trade, comparative advantage, and exchange rates
Geography (11 percent, 13 questions)
Physical and human, and the tools for both.
- Landforms, climate, and biomes
- Population, migration, and urbanization
- Cultural and economic geography
- Map projections, scale, and what each distorts
- Spatial analysis and geographic tools
Behavioral sciences (8 percent, 10 questions)
The smallest category, drawn from three disciplines.
- Sociology: social structure, stratification, institutions, deviance
- Psychology: development, learning, cognition, social psychology
- Anthropology: culture, kinship, cultural relativism, fieldwork
Part B: three short content essays (25 percent)
Thirty minutes for a quarter of the score.
- Read the map, chart, cartoon, or excerpt carefully
- Say what it shows before you say what it means
- Place it in its historical, geographic, political, or economic context
- Answer the question asked, with specific content, and stop
A study routine for a 120-minute test with essays
Ninety questions and three essays in two hours. The essays are worth twenty-five percent and take about a quarter of the clock, so the rate of return is even. What is not even is how much preparation candidates give them.
Complete topic map
Every topic ETS lists under the six categories, followed by the ground a secondary social studies course covers.
United States History
- 01Basic North American geography, peoples, and cultures before European colonization
- 02The founding and development of the European colonies in North America
- 03Interactions among European, African, and Native American peoples during the colonial period
- 04The origins of the American Revolution and its impact on the founding of the United States
- 05The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, their context, and their political impact
- 06The causes and consequences of United States territorial expansion
- 07Nineteenth-century sectionalism, the Civil War, and Reconstruction
- 08Industrialization, urbanization, and immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- 09Developments from the Progressive Era through the New Deal
- 10The causes and consequences of United States participation in the First and Second World Wars
- 11The origins, development, and consequences of the Cold War
- 12Social, economic, and technological change in the latter twentieth century
- 13Political realignment from the New Deal through the rise of conservatism
- 14Theme: the ongoing impact of race, gender, and ethnicity
World History
- 15Classical civilizations including Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and China, roughly 1000 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.
- 16The transformation of the classical civilizations, roughly 300 C.E. to 1400 C.E.
- 17The European Renaissance through the Enlightenment
- 18Global interaction through trade, exploration, and colonization, roughly 1200 to 1750 C.E.
- 19Revolutions, nationalism, and imperialism, roughly 1750 to 1914 C.E.
- 20The causes and consequences of the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War
- 21Developments after the Cold War
- 22Theme: the role of technological innovation in shaping societies
- 23Theme: the historical significance of the major world religions
- 24Theme: trade and economic exchange within and between societies
- 25Theme: the major political ideologies that have influenced societies
- 26Theme: economic transformations affecting world societies
- 27Theme: differences and similarities in family structure and gender roles
- 28Theme: conflict and cooperation as forces transforming societies
Government/Civics/Political Science
- 29Major political theorists and their contributions to thinking about government
- 30The development of contemporary legal systems and current issues within them
- 31Key concepts of United States government including popular sovereignty, separation of powers, and rule of law
- 32How the United States electoral system operates
- 33The mechanisms by which an individual can influence government, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship
- 34The origins, roles, and interactions of the three branches of the federal government
- 35The origins of the United States Constitution, how it has evolved, and its continuing impact
- 36The development and politics of civil rights and civil liberties
- 37The roles of political parties, interest groups, and the media in elections and in policy making
- 38The impact of federalism on United States politics
- 39The characteristics of different political systems
- 40How national governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations interact
- 41The relationships between political systems and economic conditions
Economics
- 42Scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost
- 43The characteristics of market, command, and mixed economies
- 44The principles of supply and demand and how market equilibrium is reached
- 45The effects of government intervention, including taxation and regulation
- 46How consumers allocate income between needs and wants
- 47Basic principles of personal finance
- 48The factors of production: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship
- 49How profit-maximizing firms behave in various market structures
- 50Why personal wealth varies across economic systems
- 51Measures of economic performance including gross domestic product, unemployment, and inflation
- 52How the banking system operates and how it relates to economic activity
- 53The factors that influence economic growth and the policies that promote it
Geography
- 54Types of maps and map projections, and the analysis of spatial information
- 55The use of mental maps to organize spatial information
- 56Recognizing and interpreting spatial patterns at multiple scales
- 57Locating and using sources of geographic data
- 58Applying spatial concepts to the interpretation of data
- 59How physical processes, climate patterns, and natural hazards affect humans
- 60The characteristics and spatial distribution of Earth’s ecosystems
- 61The interrelationships between humans and their environment
- 62Renewable and nonrenewable natural resources
- 63The spatial patterns of cultural and economic activity
- 64Patterns of migration and settlement, internal and international, urban and rural
- 65The development and changing nature of agriculture
- 66Contemporary patterns of development, industrialization, and globalization and their impacts
- 67Demographic patterns and demographic change
Behavioral Sciences
- 68How human behavior is influenced by society, by groups, and by institutions
- 69How culture, cultural change, human adaptation, and diversity influence behavior
- 70How individual behavior is affected by learning, personal identity, and development
Short Content Essays (Part B)
- 71Read and interpret social studies materials such as maps, charts, graphs, tables, cartoons, photographs, and short primary-source excerpts
- 72Place the supplied material in its historical, geographical, political, and economic context
- 73Exercise critical thinking to answer a focused short-answer prompt in about 10 minutes
- 74Draw on content from across the six selected-response categories rather than from a single discipline
United States history topics (no lessons on site yet)
- 75Indigenous North America before contact
- 76Colonization and the colonial regions
- 77Slavery, resistance, and the plantation economy
- 78Revolution and the founding documents
- 79The early republic and Jacksonian America
- 80Expansion, removal, and sectional crisis
- 81The Civil War and Reconstruction
- 82Industrialization, labor, and immigration
- 83Progressivism and the World Wars
- 84The Depression, the New Deal, and the Cold War
- 85Civil rights and the modern era
World history topics
- 86River valley civilizations and the classical world
- 87Africa, Asia, and the Islamic world
- 88Medieval Europe and the Americas before contact
- 89Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution
- 90Exploration, empire, and the Columbian exchange
- 91Enlightenment and Atlantic revolutions
- 92Industrialization, nationalism, and imperialism
- 93The World Wars and the interwar years
- 94Decolonization, the Cold War, and globalization
Government, economics, geography, and behavioral sciences
- 95The Constitution, federalism, and separation of powers
- 96The three branches and the policy process
- 97Landmark Supreme Court cases and their holdings
- 98Civil rights and civil liberties
- 99Parties, elections, and political behavior
- 100Comparative government and international relations
- 101Microeconomics: scarcity, demand, elasticity, market structures
- 102Macroeconomics: GDP, inflation, unemployment, policy
- 103Trade, comparative advantage, and exchange rates
- 104Physical geography, climate, and biomes
- 105Population, migration, and urbanization
- 106Map projections, scale, and spatial analysis
- 107Sociology: structure, stratification, and institutions
- 108Psychology: development, learning, and social psychology
- 109Anthropology: culture, kinship, and fieldwork
Before test day
Two things decide this test. The first is confirming the code, because 5081, 5086, and 5581 are three different tests and only one of them is what your state wants. The second is Part B. Three short essays for twenty-five percent is the best value on the paper, and the most common way to waste it is to write a fourth of an essay on each because you spent seventy minutes on Part A. Watch the clock at question forty-five.
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Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation: study questions
What can I study in this Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation Online Center?
This Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation Online Center includes practice, lessons, worksheets, flashcards and review tools. Topics on the page include Part B: three short content essays (25 percent), United States History, World History.
How should I use the Praxis Social Studies: Content and Interpretation resources?
Choose a topic or practice activity from this Online Center. Review the linked explanation, try the practice, and use the result to decide what to study next. Check each resource’s directions for its format and access requirements.
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