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Pencils Out!

Here's a chance to see what's on the 10th-grade history and social sciences test in Massachusetts.

By Derrick Z. Jackson

Get out your No. 2 pencils. Judge for yourself whether the MCAS10th grade history and social sciences test is the kind of teststudents need for tomorrow’s jobs.

The following are several of what the Massachusetts Departmentof Education calls its “common” questions. In the 12 differentforms of the test, these are the items that every student mustanswer.

1. King Henry issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 to

(a) end the Hundred Years’ War in England;
(b) establish Quebec as a French colony;
(c) grant religious tolerance to French Protestants (Huguenots);
(d) give the Estates General power to control taxes.

2. The prosperity of the African kingdom of Ghana was based uponits</p

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