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Test your basic knowledge |
AP Government
Start Test
Study First
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. A grouping of human beings with distinctive characteristics determined by genetic inheritance.
Incumbent
Independent agency
Race
Federal Register
2. Candidate or party with the most votes cast in an election - not necessarily more than half.
Photo ops
Mandate
Socialism
Plurality
3. The desire to avoid international entanglement altogether.
Isolationism
Inherent powers
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
Representative democracy
4. The tendency of presidents to lose support over time.
Deregulation
Prior restraint
Unemployment
Cycle of decreasing influence
5. Retroactive criminal law that works to the disadvantage of a person.
Total and Partial Preemption
Constitutionalism
Natural law
Ex post facto law
6. International organization derived from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that promotes it free trade around the world.
Extradition
World Trade Organization (WTO)
Department
Delegate
7. Initial proposal at the Constitutional Convention made by the Virginia delegation for a strong central government with a bicameral legislature dominated by the big states.
Electoral college
Environmental impact statement
Statism
Virginia Plan
8. A government entity that is independent of the legislative - executive - and judicial branches.
Primary election
Laissez-faire economics
Offshoring
Independent agency
9. An economic and governmental system based on public ownership of the means of production and exchange.
Winner-take-all system
Unilateralism
527 organizations
Socialism
10. Constitutional grant of powers that enables each of the three branches of government to check some acts of the others and therefore ensure that no branch can dominate.
Ex post facto law
Sales tax
Checks and balances
Cloture
11. Powers the Constitution specifically grants to one of the branches of the national government.
Express powers
Movement
Cross-cutting requirements
Social Security
12. The authority of a court to hear a case 'in the first instance.'
Original jurisdiction
Issue network
Writ of habeas corpus
Total and Partial Preemption
13. The assigning by Congress of congressional seats after each census. State legislatures reapportion state legislative districts.
Free exercise clause
Reapportionment
New Jersey Plan
Leadership PAC
14. In a criminal action - the person or party accused of an offense.
Federal Reserve System
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
Defendant
Crossover voting
15. The authority of a court to review decisions made by lower courts.
Filibuster
Unfunded mandates
Appellate jurisdiction
Bad tendency test
16. A formal agreement between a U.S. president and the leaders of other nations that acquires approval by both houses of Congress.
Standing committee
Primary election
Entitlement programs
Congressional-executive agreement
17. A meeting of the members of a party in a legislative chamber to select party leaders and to develop party policy. Called a conference by the Republicans.
Socialism
Natural law
Democracy
Party caucus
18. An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in childhood.
Patronage
Majority
Jim Crow laws
Party identification
19. A convention held in September 1786 to consider problems of trade and navigation - attended by five states and important because it issued the call to Congress and the states for what became the Constitutional Convention.
Delegate
Annapolis Convention
Tariff
Commerce clause
20. 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.
Regulations
Open primary
Independent expenditures
Discharge petition
21. Powers that the Constitution gives to both the national and state governments - such as the power to levy taxes.
Concurrent powers
National debt
Trustee
Open shop
22. A local or judicial election in which candidates are not selected or endorsed by political parties and party affiliation is not listed on ballots.
Total and Partial Preemption
Indexing
Distributive policy
Nonpartisan election
23. Committee appointed by the presiding officers of each chamber to adjust differences on a particular bill passed by each in different form.
Closed primary
Ethnocentrism
Plea bargain
Conference committee
24. A requirement the federal government imposes as a condition for receiving federal funds.
Federal mandate
Independent expenditures
Restrictive covenant
Senior Executive Service
25. A tax whereby people with lower incomes pay a higher fraction of their income than people with higher incomes.
Incumbent
Regressive tax
Party identification
Trust
26. Police targeting of racial minorities as potential suspects of criminal activities.
Racial profiling
Gross domestic product (GDP)
Interested money
Total and Partial Preemption
27. Belief in the superiority of one's nation or ethnic group.
Jim Crow laws
Discharge petition
Ethnocentrism
Isolationism
28. The clause of the Constitution (Article I - Section 8 - Clause 3) that gives Congress the power to regulate all business activities that cross state lines or affect more than one state or other nations.
Minority leader
Political culture
Commerce clause
Means-tested entitlements
29. A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. Total preemption rests on the national governments power under the supremacy and commerce clauses to preempt conflicting state and local activity. Building on this constitutional authority - f
Gender gap
Senior Executive Service
Total and Partial Preemption
Socialism
30. Clause in the Constitution (Article 4 - Section 1) requiring each state to recognize the civil judgments rendered by the courts of the other states and to accept their public records and acts as valid.
Police powers
Full faith and credit clause
Government corporation
Whip
31. The effort to slow the growth of the federal government by returning many functions to the states.
Political ideology
Devolution revolution
Adversary system
Gender gap
32. During the Great Society - the marble cake approach of intergovernmental relations.
Bipartisanship
amicus curiae brief
Senatorial courtesy
Creative federalism
33. Programs such as Medicaid and welfare under which applicants must meet eligibility requirements based on need.
Means-tested entitlements
Party identification
Liberalism
Free exercise clause
34. The clause in the Constitution (Article 1 - Section 8 - Clause 1) that gives Congress the power to regulate all business activities that cross state lines or affect more than one state or other nations.
Fiscal federalism
Commerce clause
Theocracy
Petit jury
35. A rise in the general price level (and decrease in dollar value) owing to an increase in the volume of money and credit in relation to available goods.
National Intelligence Director
Initiative
Inflation
Realism
36. A court order requiring explanation to a judge why a prisoner is being held in custody.
Racial gerrymandering
Monetary policy
Writ of habeas corpus
Filibuster
37. Efforts by government to alter the free operation of the market to achieve social goals such as protecting workers and the environment.
Regulation
Entitlement programs
Gerrymandering
Recall
38. How voters feel about a candidate's background - personality - leadership ability - and other personal qualities.
Standing committee
Majority
Candidate appeal
Commerce clause
39. The redrawing of congressional and other legislative district lines following the census - to accommodate population shifts and keep districts as equal as possible in population.
Internationalism
Revolving door
Redistricting
Right of expatriation
40. The head of the White House staff.
Public opinion
Pluralism
Chief of staff
Earmarks
41. A court with appellate jurisdiction that hears appeals from the decisions of lower courts.
Court of appeals
Selective incorporation
Patronage
Lobbying
42. Election in which voters choose party nominees.
Adversary system
Direct primary
Union shop
Free exercise clause
43. General tax on sales transactions - sometimes exempting food and drugs.
State's rights
Sales tax
Mandate
Criminal law
44. Divisions within society that cut across demographic categories to produce groups that are more heterogeneous or different.
Cross-cutting cleavages
Fighting words
Random sample
Party identification
45. The right to vote.
Suffrage
Patronage
Tax expenditure
New Jersey Plan
46. A type of policy that takes benefits (usually through taxes) from one group of Americans and gives them to another (usually through spending).
Photo ops
Redistributive policy
Joint committee
National debt
47. A procedural practice in the Senate whereby a senator temporarily blocks the consideration of the bill or nomination.
Lobbying
Contract clause
Search warrant
Hold
48. The reliance on diplomacy and negotiation to solve international problems.
Retrospective issue of voting
Crossover voting
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
Soft power
49. Consumer tax on a specific kind of merchandise - such as tobacco.
Judicial restraint
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
Excise tax
Line item veto
50. 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.
Single-member district
Horse race
Normal trade relations
Racial gerrymandering