Test your basic knowledge |

AP Government

Subjects : civics, ap
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Special spending projects that are set aside on behalf of individual members of Congress for their constituents.






2. A tactic in which PACs collect contributions from like-minded individuals (each limited to $2000) and present them to a candidate or political party as a 'bundle -' thus increasing the PAC's influence.






3. Attempting to overthrow the government by force or use violence to interrupt its activities.






4. A rising public approval of the president that follows a crisis as Americans 'rally 'round the flag' and the chief executive.






5. Presidential power to strike - or remove - specific items from a spending bill without vetoing the entire package; declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.






6. Aid to the poor; 'welfare.'






7. The formal instructions that government issues for implementing laws.






8. Something given with the expectation of receiving something in return.






9. Formal orders issued by the president to direct action by the Federal bureaucracy.






10. Constitutional doctrine that whenever conflict occurs between the constitutionally authorized actions of the national government and those of a state or local government - the actions of the federal government will prevail.






11. Governance according to the expressed preferences of the majority.






12. Clause in the Fifth Amendment limiting the power of the national government; similar clause in the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting state governments from depriving any person of life - liberty - or property without due process of law.






13. An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in childhood.






14. A close contest; by extension - any contest in which the focus is on who is ahead and by how much rather than on substantive differences between the candidates.






15. Legislative or executive review of a particular government program or organization. Can be in response to a crisis of some kind or part of routine review.






16. Court order directing an official to perform an official duty.






17. The cluster of presidential staff agencies that help the president carry out his responsibilities. Currently the office includes the Office of Management and Budget - the Council of Economic Advisers - and several other units.






18. Relationships among interest groups - congressional committees and subcommittees - and the government agencies that share a common policy concern.






19. A meeting of party delegates to vote on matters of policy and in some cases to select party candidates for public office.






20. Tax required to vote; prohibited for national elections by the Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964) and ruled unconstitutional for all elections in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966).






21. Petition that - if signed by majority of the House of Representatives' members - will pry a bill from committee and bring it to the floor for consideration.






22. Committee appointed by the presiding officers of each chamber to adjust differences on a particular bill passed by each in different form.






23. Stresses federalism as a system of intergovernmental relations in delivering governmental goods and services to the people and calls for cooperation among various levels of government.






24. Electoral system used in electing the president and vice president - in which voters vote for electors pledged to cast their ballots for particular party's candidates.






25. System designed to reduce voter fraud by limiting voting to those who have established eligibility to vote by submitting the proper documents.






26. The idea that a just government must derive its powers from the consent of the people it governs.






27. A policy-making alliance that involves a very strong ties among a congressional committee - an interest group - and a Federal Department or agency.






28. A congressional district created to include a majority of minority voters; ruled constitutional so long as race is not the main factor in redistricting.






29. Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment that forbids any state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. By interpretation - the Fifth Amendment imposes the same limitation on the national government. This clause is t






30. A grouping of human beings with distinctive characteristics determined by genetic inheritance.






31. Widespread agreement on fundamental principles of democratic governance and the values that undergird them.






32. The first governing document of the confederated states drafted in 1777 - ratified in 1781 - and replaced by the present Constitution in 1789.






33. The tendency of presidents to lose support over time.






34. Money government provides to parents to pay their children's tuition in a public or private school of their choice.






35. A jury of 6 to 12 persons that determines guilt or innocence in a civil or criminal action.






36. Citizenship in more than one nation.






37. The legislative leader selected by the minority party as spokesperson for the opposition.






38. A form of organization that operates through impersonal - uniform rules and procedures.






39. A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. These sanctions permit the use of federal money in one program to influence state and local policy in another. For example - a 1984 act reduced federal highway aid by up to 15 percent for any






40. A policy promoting cutbacks in the amount of Federal regulation in specific areas of economic activity.






41. The proportion of the voting age public that votes - sometimes defined as the number of registered voters that vote.






42. Largely banned party soft money - restored a long-standing prohibition on corporations and labor unions for using general treasury funds for electoral purposes - and narrowed the definition of issue advocacy.






43. The difference between the revenues raised annually from sources of income other than borrowing and the expenditures of government - including paying the interest on past borrowing.






44. The widely shared beliefs - values - and norms about how citizens relate to governments and to one another.






45. The act of declaring party affiliation; required by some states when one registers to vote.






46. General tax on sales transactions - sometimes exempting food and drugs.






47. Quality or state of a work that taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex by depicting sexual conduct in a patently offensive way and that lacks serious literary - artistic - political - or scientific value.






48. An action taken by Congress to reverse the presidential veto - requiring a two-thirds majority in each chamber.






49. The belief that nations must engage in international problem solving.






50. The rights of all people to dignity and worth; also called human rights.