- A science passage about epidemics (in particular, the Black Death)
- Humanism and the rise of Reason in intellectual history
- Important times/events in the history of Great Britain
- A letter or essay by Queen Elizabeth I of England
- Discussion/text on the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in 1440
- Articles about the development of different kinds of musical styles and instruments: a capella, madrigals
- Essays about art, particularly Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Consider The Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, the statue of David, the Sistine Chapel
- A speech by President Reagan, particularly his “Shining City on a Hill” speech
- Passages about slave labor and minorities are increasingly utilized, especially texts from the perspectives of the oppressed
- Renaissance inventions, such as the microscope and the telescope, etc.
- Enlightenment texts. Students should be familiar with the ideas of the Divine Right of Kings, the Social Contract, the Glorious Revolution
- Articles about slavery
- Texts from Hobbes, particularly his book, Leviathan
- Texts from John Locke
- American canonical texts: Declaration, Constitution, etc.
- Texts by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Speeches by leaders who argue that human rights should be applied to all Americans or all people in common
- Abigail Adams’s letter to her husband with her admonition to “remember the ladies”
- Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” Speech (Speech in the Virginia Convention, 1775)
- Excerpts from Paine’s Common Sense
- Excerpts from The Federalist Papers
- The Bill of Rights
- Excerpt from Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations with its ideas of “the invisible hand”
- An excerpt from John Ruskin’s essay about the division of labor dehumanizing workers: within Unto This Last (a series of four essays on social theory)
- Essays about clashes between workers and owners of textile factories, populism, the Labor Movement
- Excerpt from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Excerpts from Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Alcott, and any of the Transcendentalists
- Excerpts from Enlightenment philosophers. For example, Rosseau, Diderot, Voltaire, de Montesquieu (the SAT creators have an affinity for the French Enlightenment writers—the philosophes)
- Excerpt from Burke’s “Reflections” in which he opposes the French Revolution; often paired with more liberal writers Olympe de Gouges or Thomas Paine
- Passages from novels about the French Revolution: A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (Orczy).
- Passages about child labor and the Industrial Revolution. Hard Times by Dickens is sometimes excerpted. Dickens is often excerpted on the SAT.
- Passages about Florence Nightingale
- Passages about the Boer Wars in South Africa (1899-1902)
- Excerpt from President Monroe’s State of the Union speech (1823) (the Monroe Doctrine)
- Excerpts about the Indian Removal Act, the Revolutionary War
- Passages about Nat Turner, the Mason-Dixon Line, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Charles Sumner, texts by Senator Andrew Butler attacking the Kansas-Nebraska Act
- Lincoln’s “House Divided Cannot Stand” speech
- Writings by Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists
- Excerpts from The Liberator, an abolitionist magazine
- Excerpts from Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- Excerpts from the abolition texts of Sarah and Angelina Grimke
- The Gettysburg Address
- Excerpt from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
- Excerpts from texts about the early Women’s Rights Movement and the Labor Movement
- Excerpt from the “Declaration of Sentiments”
- Excerpt from Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote”
- African American feminist texts: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- Excerpts from writings about the Gilded Age
- Discussions of businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J.D. Rockefeller
- Discussions of Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, who founded Hull House and supported child labor laws, workers’ rights, and women’s rights
- Muckraking discussions
- Temperance Movement discussions
- Excerpts from speeches by President Wilson
- Passages about racism, lynching, and civil rights (Alain Locke, W. E. B. Dubois, James Weldon Johnson, Ida B. Wells)
- Prohibition writings
- Women’s suffrage writings, including British suffragists
- Excerpts for speeches by Carrie Chapman Catt
- Excerpts from speeches by Warren G. Harding
- Discussions of the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, laissez-faire economics
- Excerpts from speeches by Winston Churchill; discussions of WWII, Lord Chamberlain
- Discussions of Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt texts
- Gandhi texts
- Excerpts from President Carter's speeches
- Discussions of Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and George Orwell excerpts
- Discussions about the Domino Theory—belief that if one country in Asia became communist, others would as well
- Texts by and about Senator McCarthy
- Discussions of the Korean War
- Excerpts from JFK and MLK texts and speeches
- Civil Rights Movement discussions
- Discussions of Cold War
- Discussions of Apartheid and South Africa
- Excerpts from Mandela's speeches
- Excerpt from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” speech
Information in this post was adapted, excerpted, and added to from the work of Professor Elizabeth Breau.
