Axia College Material
Appendix A

Midterm Exam

• Access the Week Four Electronic Reserve Readings located under the materials section of your student website. • Read this week’s Electronic Reserve Readings. • Write a paragraph of approximately 100 words for each section listed below.

1. Using the critical thinking skills you have gained so far and referring to the materials provided for this assignment, identify two possible strategies that Thomas Hutchinson or Samuel Adams likely used to develop and improve their thinking as those historical events unfolded prior to taking a stand and acting according to their beliefs.

Samuel Adams may have used strategy one: analyzing a single statement for what is means by asking yourself if the statement makes sense and if so responding with a yes or no answer. Adams was not only an extremist but a political writer speaking to issues that directly affected colonies like the Stamp Act and tea distribution from East India. Both of these events affected many colonists in a negative way because the Stamp Act added taxation to certain products, while India tea imports, caused some colonists to lose money from their own tea sells. Adams would have had to ask himself why these acts where just or unjust by analyzing them individually in a literal sense. He publicly came to the conclusion that these acts were unjust because they both caused colonists to lose money and also put a damper on their personal values and liberty. Another strategy he may have used it number 3, which is when something that is presented as factual isn’t and therefore needs an explanation on why it can or can’t be validated. By evaluating and concluding in his writings that colonists should not be taxed without the proper representation to back up this very law. He successfully evaluated this situation for what it was, an illegal