GED and HiSET social studies — globalization, environment and migration

The geography material already in this category is about place: rivers, mountains, latitude, time zones, why cities grow where they do. The GED's geography and the world content goes further, into how people change their environment, how populations grow and move, and how trade ties countries together. This material covers that second half, with every figure written into the question.

The first questions are about a connected economy. A phone designed in California, built with chips from Taiwan and assembled in China shows what a global supply chain is and why it makes countries depend on each other. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA in 2020, shows what a free-trade agreement does. The debate over globalization is stated fairly: lower prices and export jobs on one side, lost manufacturing jobs in particular communities on the other.

The environment questions look at trade-offs rather than villains. A dam brings electricity, irrigation and flood control, and also displaces people, blocks fish and traps sediment. In the Sahel, overgrazing strips the ground cover and helps turn dry grassland into desert. A resources item sorts renewable from nonrenewable.

The population questions are the most numerical. The demographic transition model explains why a country whose death rate has fallen while its birth rate stays high grows quickly. A population pyramid with a wide base tells you the population is young. One question adds natural increase and net migration from a state's yearly figures to get its total change. Others define refugees, economic migrants and internally displaced people, explain why remittances matter to many countries, and show cultural diffusion at work.

The flashcards cover nineteen terms, from globalization to cultural diffusion. The written work asks for fuller answers: tracing a supply chain, weighing a dam's costs and benefits, reading two population pyramids, computing a growth rate and a doubling time, and setting out the arguments about free trade and about remittances fairly. The oral exam asks you to explain one process at a time and to work through numbers aloud.

There are no maps or charts here; the real tests show them on screen. Zestly is an independent study tool, not affiliated with GED Testing Service or the HiSET program.

• Explain global supply chains, free-trade agreements such as the USMCA, and the main arguments on both sides of the globalization debate
• Weigh the benefits and costs of human changes to the environment such as dams, overgrazing and deforestation
• Classify resources as renewable or nonrenewable
• Use the demographic transition model and population pyramids to describe a country's population
• Compute natural increase, net migration and total population change
• Define refugees, economic migrants and internally displaced people, and explain remittances and cultural diffusion

Practice material written by Zestly on globalization, human-environment interaction and population and migration, based on the published descriptions of the GED Social Studies test (geography and the world) and the HiSET Social Studies subtest (geography). All figures are invented for practice.