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Social Studies 30-1

Social Studies 30-1 · Diploma prep

Sample diploma exam

A sample of Part B in the diploma format: six unfamiliar sources — quotations, a cartoon and a statement of policy — with 24 questions, weighted toward Related Issues 2 and 3 as the real paper is. Part B itself is 60 questions in this style.

These questions were written for this site. Alberta's own exams are secured; for real released items, use the links on the diploma prep page.

Sample Part B: Multiple Choice

Social Studies 30-1 · maddyhelps.com

Name
Date
Score
/ 24

Time: allow about 50 minutes for these 24 questions. The real Part B is 60 questions, designed for 2½ hours with up to 5 available.

Read each source before its questions. Every question depends on what the source actually says, not on general knowledge about the ideology.

Choose the best of the four answers. Several may be defensible; the right one is the one the source supports most fully.

Use the following information to answer questions 1 to 3.

Source I

  • “A person does not choose their language, their faith or the stories told at their table, and yet we ask them to reason as though they had. Before anyone argues about liberty, they have already been told what a free life looks like.”

1. The speaker of Source I is mainly arguing that

  1. A. identity is shaped by inherited factors before any political reasoning begins
  2. B. people should be free to choose their own faith and language
  3. C. liberty is an illusion created by the state
  4. D. political argument is a waste of effort

2. The perspective in Source I is most directly in tension with

  1. A. conservatism's respect for tradition
  2. B. classical liberalism's picture of the self-directing, rational individual
  3. C. collectivism's emphasis on shared purpose
  4. D. environmentalism's focus on ecological limits

3. A critic of Source I would most likely respond that

  1. A. individuals rarely disagree with their communities
  2. B. governments should assign identities to citizens
  3. C. people can examine inherited beliefs and choose to revise them
  4. D. language and faith have no bearing on political views

Use the following information to answer questions 4 to 6.

Source II

  • “They told us the market would lift every boat. It lifted the boats of those who already owned boats. The rest of us were told to be patient, and patience, we learned, is what the comfortable recommend to the desperate.”

4. Source II is best described as a critique of

  1. A. government regulation of private industry
  2. B. the principle of majority rule
  3. C. the expansion of international trade agreements
  4. D. the distribution of benefits under an unregulated market economy

5. The final clause of Source II functions primarily to

  1. A. expose the advice as self-serving by naming who gives it
  2. B. concede that patience is sometimes required
  3. C. predict that conditions will improve gradually
  4. D. identify the speaker as an economist

6. A response to Source II from a classical liberal perspective would most likely emphasize

  1. A. that trade should be restricted to protect domestic workers
  2. B. that market economies raise overall wealth even when gains are uneven
  3. C. that inequality is the intended purpose of a market economy
  4. D. that government should own major industries

Use the following information to answer questions 7 to 10.

Source III

  • A political cartoon shows a large machine labelled PROGRESS moving along a track. Smoke pours from it. A group of small figures labelled WORKERS is shovelling coal into its furnace, while a well-dressed figure rides on top holding a sign reading “Almost there.” The track ahead disappears into fog.

7. The cartoonist's placement of the well-dressed figure on top of the machine primarily suggests

  1. A. that the machine is dangerous to operate
  2. B. that progress has already been achieved
  3. C. that the benefits of progress are enjoyed by those who do not produce them
  4. D. that supervision is necessary for industrial work

8. The track disappearing into fog most likely represents

  1. A. pollution produced by industry
  2. B. the distance still to be travelled
  3. C. a natural obstacle in the landscape
  4. D. uncertainty about where the promised progress leads

9. Sources II and III are alike in that both

  1. A. argue that the costs and benefits of economic growth fall on different people
  2. B. call for the abolition of private property
  3. C. praise industrial progress while noting its risks
  4. D. focus on the environmental consequences of industry

10. Which historical response is most consistent with the perspectives in Sources II and III?

  1. A. The privatization of state-owned industries
  2. B. The growth of labour unions and workplace legislation in the early twentieth century
  3. C. The expansion of free trade agreements in the 1990s
  4. D. The deregulation of financial markets after 1980

Use the following information to answer questions 11 to 13.

Source IV

  • “When the emergency came, the same citizens who had spent years insisting that government should stay out of their lives asked government to do everything at once: to close what needed closing, to pay what needed paying, and to decide who was essential. We did not abandon our principles. We discovered which of them we held on condition.”

11. The main claim of Source IV is that

  1. A. government should always play a limited role
  2. B. emergencies justify permanent expansions of state power
  3. C. a crisis reveals which commitments people hold conditionally
  4. D. citizens are hypocritical about their political beliefs

12. The perspective in Source IV would most likely support

  1. A. the permanent transfer of economic planning to the state
  2. B. the removal of all restrictions on individual action
  3. C. the abolition of elected oversight during a crisis
  4. D. emergency powers that are limited in scope and reviewed afterwards

13. A student using the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War as evidence against Source IV would be arguing that

  1. A. decisions made under fear can betray values rather than reveal them
  2. B. emergencies always require the suspension of rights
  3. C. Canada has never restricted civil liberties
  4. D. wartime measures are usually reversed quickly

Use the following information to answer questions 14 to 18.

Source V

  • “Public health insurance, universal schooling and income support are not departures from individual liberty. They are the conditions that make liberty usable by people who would otherwise be free only in principle.”

14. Source V reflects the perspective of

  1. A. modern liberalism
  2. B. classical liberalism
  3. C. fascism
  4. D. communism

15. The distinction Source V draws between being free “in principle” and in practice is best described as the difference between

  1. A. federal and provincial responsibilities
  2. B. the absence of legal barriers and the actual capacity to act
  3. C. written law and unwritten custom
  4. D. individual rights and collective rights

16. Sources IV and V are most alike in that both

  1. A. reject liberal democracy
  2. B. focus on the economy rather than on rights
  3. C. treat the role of government as something to be judged by its effects on real lives
  4. D. argue that government should be as small as possible

17. A classical liberal response to Source V would most likely argue that

  1. A. schooling and health care have no effect on a person's opportunities
  2. B. governments are incapable of delivering services efficiently
  3. C. liberty is less important than equality
  4. D. programs funded by taxation reduce the liberty of those who pay for them

18. Which statement most accurately describes the relationship between Source II and Source V?

  1. A. Source V is a direct criticism of the claims made in Source II
  2. B. Source II identifies a problem for which Source V proposes the remedy
  3. C. The two sources argue for opposite conclusions about government
  4. D. Both sources reject market economies entirely

Use the following information to answer questions 19 to 21.

Source VI

  • “A citizen who votes and does nothing else has performed a duty the way a person waters a plant once a year. Citizenship is not an event. It is the willingness to be inconvenienced on behalf of people you will never meet.”

19. Source VI primarily argues that citizenship requires

  1. A. membership in a political party
  2. B. obedience to the decisions of the majority
  3. C. ongoing personal commitment beyond formal participation
  4. D. voting in every available election

20. The phrase “people you will never meet” emphasizes that the obligation described is

  1. A. impossible to fulfil in practice
  2. B. limited to one's local community
  3. C. a legal requirement of citizenship
  4. D. owed to strangers rather than to one's own circle

21. An action most consistent with Source VI would be

  1. A. accepting a local cost — higher taxes, a changed street — for a benefit to others
  2. B. voting according to one's own economic interest
  3. C. joining a group that shares one's existing views
  4. D. avoiding political discussion to preserve social harmony

Use the following information to answer questions 22 to 24.

Answer the following questions by considering all six sources.

22. Which two sources most directly disagree about what government should do?

  1. A. Source IV and Source VI
  2. B. Source II's critic in the classical liberal tradition, and Source V
  3. C. Source I and Source VI
  4. D. Source III and Source IV

23. A student writing about the extent to which ideology should shape citizens' actions could best use Sources I and VI together to argue that

  1. A. ideology has no practical effect on how people behave
  2. B. voting is the only meaningful political act
  3. C. belief is inherited before it is chosen, which makes deliberate civic effort necessary
  4. D. citizens should follow whichever ideology they were raised in

24. The six sources taken together suggest that debates about liberalism most often turn on

  1. A. whether democracy should be replaced with another system
  2. B. which country's model should be adopted
  3. C. whether economic growth is desirable
  4. D. what freedom requires in practice, rather than whether freedom is valuable

Answer key · Sample diploma exam

Social Studies 30-1 · maddyhelps.com

Multiple choice
1. A · 2. B · 3. C · 4. D · 5. A · 6. B · 7. C · 8. D · 9. A · 10. B · 11. C · 12. D · 13. A · 14. A · 15. B · 16. C · 17. D · 18. B · 19. C · 20. D · 21. A · 22. B · 23. C · 24. D

Numerical response

Question 1 — A. identity is shaped by inherited factors before any political reasoning begins

The source is about what precedes argument — language, faith, family — not about rejecting liberty. Each wrong option overstates or reverses the claim.

Question 2 — B. classical liberalism's picture of the self-directing, rational individual

It challenges the idea of a person who reasons from nowhere — the autonomous individual at the heart of classical liberalism. It sits comfortably with both collectivism and conservatism.

Question 3 — C. people can examine inherited beliefs and choose to revise them

The strongest counterargument accepts the premise — we inherit beliefs — and denies the conclusion, since inherited beliefs can be examined. Denying the premise outright is weaker and less plausible.

Question 4 — D. the distribution of benefits under an unregulated market economy

The complaint is about who gained, not about markets existing at all. Nothing in the source addresses regulation, voting or trade agreements specifically.

Question 5 — A. expose the advice as self-serving by naming who gives it

Attributing the advice to “the comfortable” converts a neutral-sounding virtue into an interest. That move — asking who benefits from a piece of advice — is worth learning to name.

Question 6 — B. that market economies raise overall wealth even when gains are uneven

A classical liberal answers the charge of unevenness by pointing at aggregate growth and opportunity. The other options are either a caricature or the position the source itself is arguing toward.

Question 7 — C. that the benefits of progress are enjoyed by those who do not produce them

Position carries meaning in a cartoon: one figure rides while others feed the furnace. That vertical arrangement is the argument.

Question 8 — D. uncertainty about where the promised progress leads

Combined with the sign reading “Almost there”, the fog undercuts the promise: nobody can see the destination being claimed. Reading it as literal smoke ignores the caption it works against.

Question 9 — A. argue that the costs and benefits of economic growth fall on different people

Both separate who pays from who gains. Neither calls for abolishing property, and the environmental reading takes the smoke literally rather than as part of the cartoon's argument.

Question 10 — B. The growth of labour unions and workplace legislation in the early twentieth century

Both sources object to unevenly distributed gains, and organized labour with protective legislation is the historical answer to exactly that. The other three extend the arrangement being criticized.

Question 11 — C. a crisis reveals which commitments people hold conditionally

The final sentence explicitly declines the accusation of abandonment and offers a subtler claim about conditional commitments. The hypocrisy reading is the one the source rules out.

Question 12 — D. emergency powers that are limited in scope and reviewed afterwards

The source is descriptive rather than authoritarian: it notes that principles bent and asks what that reveals. Limits with review is the position consistent with valuing the principles while admitting the exception.

Question 13 — A. decisions made under fear can betray values rather than reveal them

The internment, later apologized for and compensated, is the standard counterexample: what a society does when frightened is not necessarily what it values. Recognizing which evidence answers which claim is the skill being tested.

Question 14 — A. modern liberalism

Treating collective programs as enabling freedom rather than restricting it is the defining move of modern liberalism. Classical liberalism reads the same programs as costs to liberty.

Question 15 — B. the absence of legal barriers and the actual capacity to act

That is the negative and positive freedom distinction, without the jargon: nobody forbids you, but you may still be unable. It is the argument the whole modern liberal position rests on.

Question 16 — C. treat the role of government as something to be judged by its effects on real lives

Both are pragmatic about principle: one asks what we actually did, the other what freedom actually requires. Neither takes a purely doctrinal position, which is what links them.

Question 17 — D. programs funded by taxation reduce the liberty of those who pay for them

The classical liberal objection accepts that the programs help and points at their cost in freedom for the taxpayer — a trade-off argument. Denying that schooling matters at all is a far weaker position, and the fourth option concedes the priority a classical liberal would not.

Question 18 — B. Source II identifies a problem for which Source V proposes the remedy

One diagnoses unevenly distributed gains; the other prescribes collective programs that make liberty usable. Reading them as opposites misses that they sit on the same side of the argument.

Question 19 — C. ongoing personal commitment beyond formal participation

The comparison to watering a plant once a year dismisses the sufficiency of voting, and the final sentence defines the alternative as sustained and costly.

Question 20 — D. owed to strangers rather than to one's own circle

Anonymity is the point: the duty is impersonal, which is what distinguishes civic obligation from loyalty to family or friends.

Question 21 — A. accepting a local cost — higher taxes, a changed street — for a benefit to others

The source defines citizenship as willingness to be inconvenienced for others, so the consistent action is bearing a cost that benefits someone else.

Question 22 — B. Source II's critic in the classical liberal tradition, and Source V

The clearest opposition is between the classical liberal response to Source II — markets raise wealth overall — and Source V's claim that collective programs are what make freedom usable. The other pairs address different questions rather than disagreeing.

Question 23 — C. belief is inherited before it is chosen, which makes deliberate civic effort necessary

Source I says our starting point is given; Source VI says citizenship demands sustained deliberate effort. Together they support an argument about examining what you inherited and then acting on purpose.

Question 24 — D. what freedom requires in practice, rather than whether freedom is valuable

Every source here takes freedom seriously and disagrees about its conditions — inherited identity, market outcomes, emergencies, collective programs, civic duty. Noticing that the disagreement is about conditions rather than value is the synthesis the exam rewards.