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. During the Great Society - the marble cake approach of intergovernmental relations.






2. The process by which provisions of the bill of rights are brought within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment and so applied to state and local governments.






3. Presidential refusal to allow an agency to spend funds that Congress authorized and appropriated.






4. 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.






5. Unlimited and undisclosed spending by an individual or group on communications that do not use words like 'vote for' or 'vote against -' although much of this activity is actually about electing or defeating candidates.






6. Programs that the Federal government requires States to implement without Federal funding.






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






8. 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.






9. Economic theory based on the principles of John Maynard Keynes stating that government spending should increase during business slumps and be curbed during booms.






10. Implies that although federalism provides 'a sharing of power and authority between the national and state governments - the state's share rests upon the permission and permissiveness of the national government.'






11. A procedural rule in the House of Representatives that prohibits any amendments to bills or provides that only members of the committee reporting the bill may offer amendments.






12. The Supreme Court has ruled that individuals - groups - and parties can spend unlimited amounts in campaigns for or against candidates as long as they operate independently from the candidates. When an individual - group - or party does so - they are






13. Elections held in years when the president is on the ballot.






14. A company in which new employees must join a union within a stated time period.






15. 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.






16. The authority of a court to hear a case 'in the first instance.'






17. Segregation resulting from economic or social conditions or personal choice.






18. Special spending projects that are set aside on behalf of individual members of Congress for their constituents.






19. Compromise agreement by states at the Constitutional Convention for a bicameral legislature with a lower house in which representation would be based on population and an upper house in which each state would have two senators.






20. Presidential custom of submitting the names of perspective appointees for approval to senators from the states in which the appointees are to work.






21. Powers that the Constitution gives to both the national and state governments - such as the power to levy taxes.






22. The authority of a court to review decisions made by lower courts.






23. A law that defines crimes against the public order.






24. A secret ballot printed by the state.






25. Rebellion led by Daniel Shays of farmers in western Massachusetts in 1786-1787 - protesting mortgage foreclosures. It highlighted the need for a strong national government just as the call for the Constitutional Convention went out.

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26. Agreement signed by the United States - Canada - and Mexico in 1992 to form the largest free trade zone in the world.






27. An election system in which each party running receives the proportion of legislative seats corresponding to its proportion of the vote.






28. The assigning by Congress of congressional seats after each census. State legislatures reapportion state legislative districts.






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






30. Money raised in unlimited amounts by political parties for party-building purposes. Now largely illegal except for limited contributions to state or local parties for voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts.






31. A legal action conferring citizenship on an alien.






32. State laws formerly pervasive throughout the South requiring public facilities and accommodations to be segregated by race; ruled unconstitutional.






33. Programs such as Medicaid and welfare under which applicants must meet eligibility requirements based on need.






34. An organization that seeks political power by electing people to office so that its positions and philosophy become public policy.






35. A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent - from the Atlantic the Pacific.






36. Federal program that provides medical benefits for low-income persons.






37. An official who is expected to represent the views of his or her constituents even when personally holding different views; one interpretation of the role of legislator.






38. Governance divided between the parties - as when one holds the presidency and the other controls one or both houses of Congress.






39. Constitutional requirement that governments proceed by proper methods; limits how government may exercise power.






40. Powers the Constitution specifically grants to one of the branches of the national government.






41. A formal agreement between the U.S. president and the leaders of other nations that does not require Senate approval.






42. Promoting a particular position or an issue by interest groups or individuals but not candidates. Much issue advocacy is often electioneering for or against a candidate and - until 2004 had not been subject to regulation.






43. A permanent committee established in a legislature - usually focusing on a policy area.






44. Clause in the Constitution that states that 'Congress should have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers. . . .' This clause is also known as the elastic clause as is a major and significant p

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45. 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






46. A requirement the federal government imposes as a condition for receiving federal funds.






47. An electoral district in which voters choose one representative or official.






48. Donations made to political candidates - party committees - or groups which - by law - are limited and must be declared.






49. Supporters of ratification of the Constitution and of a strong central government.






50. Advertisements and commercials for products and services; they receive less First Amendment protection - primarily to discourage false and misleading ads.