S T U D E N T

H A N D O U T

Challenge Cards A1 During World War II, were the United

States and the Soviet Union both Allied Powers, both Axis Powers, or on opposite sides?

E1 Why did the victory of communism

in China take both the United States and the Soviet Union by surprise?

 

 

E2 Why did the United States hope that

A2 What future plans did Roosevelt,

China would reject Soviet influence?

Stalin, and Churchill agree upon at their meeting at Yalta?

B1 What was the purpose of the United

F1 How did Mao restructure the Chinese

 

 

B2 What did the UN Charter do?

F2 What was the “Great Leap Forward,”

C1 How did the experience of World

G1 How did the Great Leap Forward

Nations?

economy in the early 1950s?

and what did it achieve?

War II cause the Soviet Union to seek security?

 

affect Mao’s reputation?

  G2 How did relations between China

C2 What did Soviet leaders expect

and the Soviet Union change after the death of Joseph Stalin?

would happen to communism and capitalism over time?

D1 How did the Soviet Union react when

the Western allies announced plans to combine their German occupation zones into a new West German state?

 

H1 How did the Great Leap Forward

lead to the Cultural Revolution?

  H2 What happened during the Cultural

Revolution?

D2 What did the Soviet Union’s plan

achieve?

© Teachers’ Curriculum Institute

Era Overview: The Cold War and Beyond, 1945–Present  1

S T U D E N T

H A N D O U T

Challenge Cards I1 How did Korea become divided

M1 How did Hungarians try to resist

into a communist north and noncommunist south?

Soviet domination?

 

 

M2 Why did the Soviet Union build the

I2 How did the conflict between

Berlin Wall in 1961?

North and South Korea draw in the superpowers?

J1 How did the superpowers become

N1 Which nation held the edge in the

 

 

involved in Vietnam?

arms race until the late 1960s?

J2 Why was the United States unable to

N2 Why did the United States and the

K1 How did Cuba draw the United

O1 Why was the Soviet system in crisis

achieve victory in the Vietnam War?

States and the Soviet Union into conflict?

  K2 How did events in Cuba make the

Soviet Union embrace the idea of détente in the 1970s?

in the late 1980s?

  O2 What were perestroika and glasnost?

world teeter on the brink of nuclear war in 1962?

L1 Which sub-Saharan nations were

caught up in the Cold War struggle between the two superpowers?

  L2 How did Congo get caught up in the

Cold War?

© Teachers’ Curriculum Institute

P1 How did Mikhail Gorbachev’s

reforms affect relations with the Soviet Union’s Eastern European satellite nations?

  P2 Why was 1989 a significant turning

point in the Cold War?

Era Overview: The Cold War and Beyond, 1945–Present  2