NY Regents Exam August 2025: UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT

SEQ Set 1 (Question 29)

Task: Read and analyze the following documents, applying your social studies knowledge and skills to write a short essay of two or three paragraphs in which you:

• Describe the historical context surrounding these documents

• Identify and explain the relationship between the events and/or ideas found in these documents (Cause and Effect, or Similarity/Difference, or Turning Point)

In developing your short-essay answer of two or three paragraphs, be sure to keep these explanations in mind:

Describe means “to illustrate something in words or tell about it.”

Historical Context refers to “the relevant historical circumstances surrounding or connecting the events, ideas, or developments in these documents.”

Identify means “to put a name to or to name.”

Explain means “to make plain or understandable; to give reasons for or causes of; to show the logical development or relationship of.”

Types of Relationships:

• Cause refers to “something that contributes to the occurrence of an event, the rise of an idea, or the bringing about of a development.”

• Effect refers to “what happens as a consequence (result, impact, outcome) of an event, an idea, or a development.”

• Similarity tells how “something is alike or the same as something else.”

• Difference tells how “something is not alike or not the same as something else.”

• Turning Point is “a major event, idea, or historical development that brings about significant change. It can be local, regional, national, or global.”

SEQ Set 2 (Question 30)

Task: Read and analyze the following documents, applying your social studies knowledge and skills to write a short essay of two or three paragraphs in which you:

• Describe the historical context surrounding Documents 1 and 2

• Analyze Document 1 and explain how audience, or purpose, or bias, or point of view affects this document’s use as a reliable source of evidence

In developing your short-essay answer of two or three paragraphs, be sure to keep these explanations in mind:

Describe means “to illustrate something in words or tell about it.”

Historical Context refers to “the relevant historical circumstances surrounding or connecting the events, ideas, or developments in these documents.”

Analyze means “to examine a document and determine its elements and its relationships.”

Explain means “to make plain or understandable; to give reasons for or causes of; to show the logical development or relationship of.”

Reliability is determined by how accurate and useful the information found in a source is for a specific purpose.

Part B
Civic Literacy Essay Question (37)

Directions: Write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs, and a conclusion. Use evidence from at least four documents in the body of the essay. Support your response with relevant facts, examples, and details. Include additional outside information.

Historical Context: Government Regulation of Business

Throughout United States history, many constitutional and civic issues have been debated by Americans. These debates have resulted in efforts by individuals, groups, and governments to address these issues. These efforts have achieved varying degrees of success. One of these constitutional and civic issues is the government regulation of business.

Task: Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history, write an essay in which you

• Describe the historical circumstances surrounding this constitutional or civic issue

• Explain efforts by individuals, groups, and/or governments to address this constitutional or civic issue

• Discuss the extent to which the efforts were successful

Guidelines: In your essay, be sure to

• Develop all aspects of the task

• Explain at least two efforts to address the issue

• Incorporate information from at least four documents

• Incorporate relevant outside information

• Support the theme with relevant facts, examples, and details

• Use a logical and clear plan of organization, including an introduction and a conclusion

  that are beyond a restatement of the theme

Document 1a

Source: Frank Beard, The Judge, July 19, 1884 (adapted)

Document 1b

. . . In my Message to the present Congress at its first session I discussed at length the question of the regulation of those big corporations commonly doing an interstate business, often with some tendency to monopoly, which are popularly known as trusts. . . . We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve [serve] the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. . . .

No more important subject can come before the Congress than this of the regulation of interstate business. . . The power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant, and without limitations other than those prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional authority to make all laws necessary and proper for executing this power, and I am satisfied that this power has not been exhausted by any legislation now on the statute books. It is evident, therefore, that evils restrictive of commercial freedom and entailing restraint upon national commerce fall within the regulative power of the Congress, and that a wise and reasonable law would be a necessary and proper exercise of Congressional authority to the end that such evils should be eradicated. . . .

Source: President Theodore Roosevelt, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 2, 1902

Document 2

. . . I deny emphatically the assertion that opportunity has been restricted or individual effort stifled by reason of the growth of the trusts. On the contrary, the trusts have opened wider avenues and greater opportunities to the young men of to-day than those of any other generation ever enjoyed. In the old days, before the union of interests, murderous competition made any business venture precarious; but aside from that, through lack of time, opportunity, and capital, the young man was kept within a very restricted field. It is combination that has produced the capital to open up mines and factories, to build great industrial plants and the monster wholesale and retail establishments. It is combination and capital that have sent the railroads shooting in a hundred different directions all over the continent. . . .

Yes, decidedly, the opportunities for the young American boy are greater to-day than they have ever been before; and no boy, however lowly—the barefoot country boy, the humble newsboy, the child of the tenement—need despair. I see in each of them infinite possibilities. They have but to master the knack of economy, thrift, honesty, and perseverance, and success is theirs.

Source: J. D. Rockefeller, “Opportunity in America,” Cosmopolitan, September 1, 1907

Document 3

. . . Journalism and publicity played important roles in promoting the goals of the progressives, especially with regard to corruption in government and the monopolistic practices of business and industry. During the period, scores of articles appeared in magazines—revealing the truth, as the reformers saw it—about the way America was really ruled. Novels were also written to expose evil. The use of journalism to further a social cause was made possible by new magazines of mass circulation, a number of them counting their readers in the hundreds of thousands. Such magazines included McClure’s, Munsey’s, Everybody’s, Cosmopolitan, Collier’s, and the American Magazine. The men and women who wrote these articles were called muckrakers, although the name was applied some time after they began their work. It was applied to them in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt who, while basically on their side, feared their revelations would get people too worked up and indignant. . . .

Source: Fon Boardman, America and the Progressive Era, 1900–1917, Henry Z. Walck, Inc., 1970

Document 4

The Northern Securities Company was a combination of three railroads that monopolized transportation in several western states. Theodore Roosevelt considered the company to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and, in 1904, the Supreme Court agreed.

. . . More sophisticated than most Progressives, Roosevelt recognized that the large corporation was a fact of modern economic life and that a general rise in the standard of living depended far more on increased productivity than on radical redistribution of existing wealth. Rather than follow the common Progressive line that by their nature all trusts were inherently evil, he divided them into “good” and “bad” trusts. If a trust was charging fair prices and offering good service, he favored allowing it to continue. If it was restraining trade and jacking up prices, then it was evil. The line was to be drawn on conduct, not bigness. Roosevelt and Roosevelt alone decided which trust was good and which was bad, however. Northern Securities, he decided, was bad—and should be broken up. Roosevelt also advocated selective prosecutions because the government did not have enough lawyers to prosecute all monopolies and because he realized that the conservatism of the courts would make all prosecutions difficult. . . .

Specifically, Roosevelt called for the establishment of a Bureau of Corporations in a Cabinet-level Department of Commerce to determine if regulation was warranted—a program he had advocated as governor of New York. The bureau would provide the president with information on the trusts, which he could at his own discretion make public and present to the Justice Department as a basis for indictments. . . .

Source: Nathan Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life, William Morrow and Company, 1992

Document 5

. . . Roosevelt’s brand of progressivism put him foursquare in the middle of the national mood: for while people wanted change, they did not want radical change, and while Roosevelt’s reforms were progressive, they were a conservative sort of progressivism that policed more by threat than by action (it was TR who declared the presidency as a “bully pulpit”), more by regulation than by prosecution, and used power more symbolically and rhetorically than in fact. In a very public confrontation, Roosevelt did prosecute John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan, two of the most celebrated titans of American business, for their railroad monopoly in the Northwest; he righteously took the side of labor and the consumer in the great coal strike of 1902; and by 1906, two years after he had been elected in his own right, TR increased the pace of reform by creating standards for food and drugs, tackling the corruption in the meat industry (in response to novelist Upton Sinclair’s best-selling The Jungle), and, in the cause that he perhaps held dearest, aggressively limiting development of public lands (he would double the number of national parks and establish fifty-one wild bird refuges). . . .

Source: Jennings and Brewster, The Century, Doubleday, 1998

Document 6

. . . America’s prosperity is built on hard work, open markets, and fair competition. But right now we’re facing a monopoly problem as dominant digital platforms like Amazon increasingly use their power to increase prices, preference their own products and services, and harm small businesses. These anticompetitive practices are bad for consumers, entrepreneurs, and businesses, and I commend the Federal Trade Commission for taking action. The case for reinvigorating competition policy and putting in place rules of the road for Big Tech companies is clear. I will continue to push for updates to the antitrust laws, including the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act, to strengthen our economy and make sure consumers can get the fair treatment they deserve.

Source: Senator Amy Klobuchar, Statement on the Antitrust Lawsuit Against Amazon, September 26, 2023