SUBJECTS
|
BROWSE
|
CAREER CENTER
|
POPULAR
|
JOIN
|
LOGIN
Business Skills
|
Soft Skills
|
Basic Literacy
|
Certifications
About
|
Help
|
Privacy
|
Terms
|
Email
Search
Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP American Government
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
clep
,
civics
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. In some cases where blicity too much publicity surrounds a trial - courts have granted _______________ to help ensure a fair trial. One example is the trial of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City Bombing.
Change of Venue
Legislative Veto
Majority Opinion
Delegated Powers
2. These party members take active non-leadership roles such as working polls or contributing money to campaigns. Tend to compromise on important issues and are mostly concerned about winning elections.
Unlimited
Lyndon B. Johnson
Political Action Committees
Party Regulars
3. Presides over the Senate without voting privileges except in the case of a tie.
Confederation
Vice President
Soft money
Freedom of Speech
4. Colonies in which the proprietors (who had obtained their patents from the king) named the governors - subject to the king's approval.
Proprietary Colonies
Criminal Cases
Deviating Elections
Export Taxes
5. A system in which national and state government have shared or overlapping powers. FDR's New Deal legislation established this system in the US.
Cooperative / Marble Cake Federalism
Take Care Clause
Select Committee
Administrative Law
6. Method by which federal court judges may lose their position.
Impeachment
Confederation
Permanent Registration
Amicus Curiae Brief
7. Government regulation of the economy through its control over the supply of money and the cost and availability of credit. Controlled by the Federal Reserve Board.
Monetary Policy
President Pro Tempore
Petit Jury
Judicial
8. ________________ of the Constitution dictates how the Constitution shall be amended.
Federal Appellate
1776
Article V
Writ of Certiorari
9. In Schenck v. US (1919) - The Supreme Court ruled that government may prohibit speech that creates an immediate threat of criminal action. Essentially established different standards for speech during wartime than in peacetime. Thus - establishing th
Clear and Present Danger
Declining
Senate
Lose
10. A vote in the House of Representatives in which the position of each member is noted and published in the Congressional Record.
Recorded Vote
Equity
Executive
Iron Triangle
11. The view of the majority of the Supreme Court that First Amendment rights must be weighed against the competing needs of the community to preserve order.
Separate but Equal
Earmarks
Negative Advertising
Balancing Test
12. Concept of the British statesman Edmund Burke that legislators should act according to their own consciences.
Trustee
Virginia Plan
English Bill of Rights
Globalization
13. The Supreme Court has ruled that Congress_________________ take away a person's citizenship unless it is freely renounced.
Writ of Mandamus
Federalist Papers
may not
Commission Plan
14. An official document - published every weekday - which lists the new and proposed regulations of executive departments and regulatory agencies.
Federal Register
Elastic Clause
Charismatic authority
Amicus Curiae Brief
15. The FCC's equal time policy applies to _____________.
Block Grant
Political Advertising
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Electoral Votes
16. In 1992 - the television networks agreed not to release these until a majority of polling places had closed in each state
Exit Polls
Entitlement Programs
Judicial Activism
10th Amendment
17. Authority based on an individual's outstanding traits - which attract followers
Pork Barrel Spending
Dual / Layer Cake Federalism
Discharge Petition
Charismatic authority
18. A court decision in an earlier case with facts and legal issues similar to a dispute currently before a court.
Precedent
Concurrent
Discharge Petition
Town Meeting
19. Law enacted by Congress - or by state legislatures or local legislative bodies.
Federalism
Statutory Law
15
Office Column Ballot
20. Guarantees that an accused in innocent until proven guilty.
8th Amendment
Double Jeopardy
Independent Expenditures
Procedural Due Process
21. A political group organized under section 527 of the IRS code that may accept and spend unlimited amounts of money on election activities so long as they are not spent on broadcast ads run in the last 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a gene
CORE
527 Organization
Senatorial Courtesy
Democratic
22. Responsible for assigning bills to committee in the Senate.
Random Sample
Majority and Minority Leader
Royalists
Impeachment
23. Bills that benefit legislators' home districts - or powerful corporate contributors - with sometimes wasteful or unnecessary public works or other projects.
Closed
General Purpose Grants
Pork-Barrel Legislation
Freedom of Speech
24. A public policy that takes something away from one person or group and gives it to another person or group.
Patriot Act
Warrant
Redistributive Policy
Lord Acton
25. Executive check on Legislative Branch.
Civilian Supremacy
Veto
Felonies
Republicans
26. ______________ refers to the differences in political attitudes and voting behavior between men and women
Gender Gap
Literacy Tests
Freedom of Religion
Positive
27. Economists generally agree that the major responsibility for promoting prosperity and full employment falls on ________________.
Implied Powers
Government
Family
Socialism
28. A system in which national and state governments are competitors with distinct powers. This system was prominent in the US from the during the 19th century until 1937.
Albany Plan
Roth v. US
Dual / Layer Cake Federalism
Retrospective Voting
29. Grants that an accused may not be held in custody without charge - literally 'You shall have the body'.
Pyramid Model
Habeas Corpus
Statutory Law
National Chair
30. Libel - obscenity - fighting words - and commercial speech - which are not entitled to constitutional protection in all circumstances.
Non-protected Speech
Federal
Albany Plan
30
31. The way things should be by law
Muckrakers
de jure
Civil War Amendments
Lose
32. The Supreme Court is the only judicial body that may hear disputes between _________________.
Discharge Petition
It Failed to be Ratified
a senior senator of the majority party
States
33. Approximately 33% of American voters identify themselves as _______________ party.
Membership
Due Process of Law
Town Meeting
Independent
34. Plan that proposed bicameral legislature where states were to have representation based on size in both houses.
Automobiles
Enumerated Powers
Republicans
Virginia Plan
35. The name commonly given to a private group - regardless of size - organized to elect political candidates. An organization becomes one by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1 -000 for the purpose of influencing a federal ele
Inherent Powers
Constituencies
Article V
Political Action Committee
36. While the voting rights act of 1965 did direct the Attorney General to investigate the constitutionality of poll taxes and prohibit literacy tests - it did not expressly prohibit _____________.
4
Charter Colonies
Gerrymandering
14th
37. Number of Electoral College votes required to win the Presidency.
Enterprise Zones
Weber
Bill of Rights
270
38. The 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine that prompted King George III's Prohibitory Act and the sending of mercenaries to the colonies.
Common Sense
Political Culture
Libel
Categorical Grants
39. The action - or actions - taken by government to carry out a policy.
Federalism
Joseph McCarthy
Political Machines
Implementation
40. A group of writers - journalists - and critics who exposed corporate malfeasance and political corruption in the first decade of the 20th century.
Whigs
Wallace's Progressives
Freedom of Speech
Muckrakers
41. In the 1964 case of ____________ - the Supreme Court: established 'one person - one vote' -
Reynolds v. Sims
Conglomerates
Ratification
Interstate Compact
42. The concentration of economic power in the hands of a relatively few large companies.
Declining
Oligopoly
Northern and Southern
Outputs
43. The practice that allows senators to delay or even kill floor action on legislation - a nomination - or other matters by asking their party leaders not to schedule them.
Hold
House of Representatives
Senate
Members of Congress
44. Clause in the 14th Amendment that forbids any state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The 5th Amendment also imposes this limitation on the national government.
Bowers v. Hardwick
Party of Economic Protest
Equal Protection Clause
Dynamic Conservatism
45. Voter turnout is usually ____________ when there is a binding referendum on the ballot.
31
6
binding
Council of Economic Advisors
46. Information sent out in order to observe the reaction of an audience. Used by politicians who deliberately leak information on a policy change under consideration.
Trial Balloon
Freedom of Information Act
Felonies
Baker v. Wingo
47. These voters tend to have a high voter turnout because of their strong since of civic duty due to growing up during an era of political and civil unrest.
Right to Work Laws
Raiding
Baby Boomers
US Trade Representatives
48. Clause of the Constitution (Article 1 - Section 10) intended to prohibit state governments from modifying contracts made between individuals; interpreted as prohibiting state governments from taking actions that adversely affect property rights.
Television
Commission Plan
Contract Clause
5
49. 'lame duck' amendment
35
16th Amendment
20th
High
50. Passed in 1883 - it created a federal civil service so that hiring and promotion would be based on merit rather than patronage.
14th
National Committee
Chief Justice
Pendleton Civil Service Act