Regents Essay Topics

ESSAY TOPICS ON PAST REGENTS EXAMS

Note: If you see a topic twice, it is NOT an error; it means that it has come up more than once on past Regents Exams.

Thematic Essays

Individuals & change

Philosophers

Belief Systems

Geographic features

Role of Individuals

Global issues post-WWII

Belief systems

Nonpolitical Revolutions

Technology

Geographic features

Collapse of government

Technology

Nationalism & Unification/Independence

Denial of Human Rights

How humans changed their environment: Examples include Middle East (modified the land), Africa (modified the land), Japan (modified the land), Great Britain (removed resources), South Africa (removed resources), Brazil (removed vegetation), China (built a structure), and East Germany (built structures)

Political systems

Governmental change: Examples include efforts to strengthen the Empire of Mali under Mansa Musa, Reformation in England under Henry VIII, westernization of Russia under Peter the Great, Reign of Terror during the French Revolution under Robespierre, Meiji Restoration in Japan under the Emperor Meiji, modernization of Turkey under Atatürk, five-year plans in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, fascism in Italy under Benito Mussolini, and oil policies in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, communism under Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping

Human Rights Violations

Trade Routes or trade organizations

Conflict: Examples include Crusades, French Revolution, World War I, Russian revolution, Chinese civil war, partition of India policy of apartheid in South Africa, Rwandan civil war, Bosnian war

Philosophers/Leaders & Change: Examples include Confucius, John Locke, Adam Smith, Simone Bolivar, Otto von Bismarck, Vladimir Lenin, Mohandas Gandhi, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela

DBQ Essays

Conquest: Spanish, Mongols, Ottoman

Denial of Human Rights: Ukraine, Cambodia, Rawanda

Ideas: heliocentrism, natural rights, Marxism

Belief systems: Islam, Christianity, Buddhism

Autocratic leaders

Waterways & Effects on economy/politics

Middle Ages, Industrial Revolution, Age of Globalization Transportation

Salt, sugar & cotton

Protest movements

Geographic features

Neolithic Revolution, Agrarian (Agricultural) Revolution, Green Revolution

Migrations: Africans to the Americas, Jews to Palestine and Israel, and Hindus/Muslims between India and Pakistan

Genocide, threats to the environment, and weapons of mass destruction: attempts to resolve

Cold War

Industrial Revolution

Imperialism

Russia under Peter the Great, Germany under Adolf Hitler, and China under Mao Zedong: government control

Natural resources: development & hindrance

Economic systems: manorialism during the Middle Ages in Western Europe, mercantilism during the Age of Exploration, and communism in post–World War II China

French Revolution