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SAT Subject Test: U.S. History

Subjects : sat, history
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. The popular name for the Kansas Territory in 1856 after abolitionist John Brown led a massacre at a pro-slavery camp - setting off waves of violence. Brown's massacre was in protest to the recent establishment of Kansas as a slave state. Pro-slavery






2. The centerpiece of a congressional effort to restrict union activity. The act - passed in 1947 - banned certain union practices and allowed the president to call for an eighty-day cooling off period to delay strikes thought to pose risks to national






3. A dissenter who clashed with Massachusetts Puritans over the issue of seperation of church and state. After being banished from Massachusetts in 1636 - he traveled south - where he founded a colony in Rhode Island that granted full religious freedom






4. Passed in 1964 - the act outlawed discrimination in education - employment - and all public accommodations.






5. A political group active in aiding the leftist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Prominent American intellectuals and writers - including Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos - joined the group.






6. Author of popular young adult novels - such as Ragged Dick - during the Industrial Revolution. His "rags to riches" tales emphasized that anyone could become wealthy and successful through hard work and exceptional luck.






7. Longtime government employee who - in 1948 - was accused by Time editor Whitaker Chambers of spying for the USSR. After a series of highly publicized hearings and trials - he was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to five years imprisonment -






8. Created in 1962. United college students throughout the country in a network committed to achieving racial equality - alleviating poverty - and ending the Vietnam War.






9. Religious revivals on the frontier during the Second Great Awakening. Hundreds or even thousands of people- members of various dominations- met to hear speeches on repentance and sign hymns.






10. Founded on the premise that the "perfect" human society could be achieved through genetic tinkering. Popularized during the Progressive Era - writers on this subject often used this theory to justify a supremacist white Protestant ideology - which ad






11. Nickname given to northerners who moved South during Reconstruction in search of political and economic opportunity. The term was coined by Southern Democrats - who said that these northern opportunists had left home so quickly that they were able to






12. A leading member of the women's suffrage movement. She served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1892 until 1900.






13. The first ten amendments of the Constitution - which guarantee the civil rights of American citizens. Drafted by anti-federalists - including James Madison - to protect individuals from the tyranny they felt the Constitution might permit.






14. Written by Thomas Paine; published in three parts between 1794 and 1807. A critique of organized religion - the book was criticized as a defense of Atheism. Paine's argument is a prime example of the rationalist approach to religion inspired by Enlig






15. A leader of the transcendentalist movemetn and an advocate of American literary nationalism. He published a number of influential essays during the 1830s and 1840s - including "Nature" and "Self Reliance."






16. A group of zealous Chinese nationalists terrorized foreigners and Chinese Christians - capturing Beijing (Peking) in June 1900 and threatening European and American interests in Chinese markets. The US committed 2 -500 men to an international force t






17. Eisenhower's Cold War strategy - preferring deterrence to ground force involvement - and emphasizing the massive retaliatory potential of a large nuclear stockpile. Eisenhower worked to increase nuclear spending and decrease spending on ground troops






18. 1795 treaty which provided for the removal of British troops from American land and opened up limited trade with the British West Indies - but said nothing about British seizure of American ships or the impressment of American sailors. While the Amer

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19. Political figure throughout the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson. He served as James Monroe's secretary of war - as John Quincy Adam's vice president - and then as Andrew Jackson's vice president for one term. A firm believer in states' ri






20. A series of investigations in 1987 exposed evidence that the US had been selling arms to the anti-American government in Iran and using the profits from these sales to secretly and illegally finance the Contras in Nicaragua. (The Contras were a rebel






21. A meeting of Federalists near the end of the War of 1812 - in which the New England-based party enumerated its complaints against the ruling Democratic-Republican party. The Federalists - already losing power steadily - hoped that antiwar sentiment w






22. Founded in 1920 - this organization seeks to protect the civil liberties of individuals - often by bringing "test cases" to court in order to challange questionable laws. In 1925 - the organization challanged a Christian fundamentalist law in the Sco






23. The series of French and American naval conflicts occuring between 1798 and 1800.






24. A prominent author during the Roaring Twenties - he wrote stories and novels that both glorified and criticized the wild lives of the carefree and prosperous. His most famous works include This Side of Paradise - published in 1920 - and The Great Gat






25. Leader of a group of senators known as "reservationists" during the 1919 debate over the League of Nations. He and his followers supported US membership in the League only if major revisions were made to the covenant. President Wilson - however - ref






26. A French sailor who explored the St. Lawrence River region between 1534 and 1542. He searched for a Northwest Passage - a waterway through which ships could cross the Americas and access Asia. He found no such passage but opened the region up to futu






27. Husband and wife who - in 1950 - were accused of spying for the Soviets. They countered the accusation on the grounds that their Jewish background and leftist beliefs made them easy targets for persecution. In a trial closely followed by the American






28. One of the best known writers of the 1920s' "lost generation." An expatriate - he produced a number of famous works during the 1920s - including The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929). A member of the Popular Front - he fought in the






29. Passed in 1930. This act limited the right to strike in key industries and authorized the president to intervene in any strike - eroding the generally amiable relationship between the government and organized labor during World War II.






30. Major American author in the 1930s. His novels depict simple - rural lives. His most famous work is The Grapes of Wrath (1939).






31. Passed by Federalists in 1798 in response to the XYZ Affair and growing Democratic-Republican support. On the grounds of "national security -" the acts increased the number of years required to gain citizenship - allowed for the imprisonment and depo






32. A series of raids coordinated by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Throughout 1910 - police and federal marshals raided the homes of suspected radicals and the headquarters of radical organizations in thirty-two cities. The raids resulted in more






33. Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy summed up his aggressive stance toward international affairs with the phrase - "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Under this doctrine - the US declared its domination over Latin American and built the Panama Can






34. Once a prominent member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - he abandoned his nonviolent leanings and became a leader of the Black Nationalist movement in 1966. He coined the phrase "Black Power."






35. A fiction writer who gained popularity in the 1840s for his horrific tales. He published many famous stories - including "The Raven" (1844) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846).






36. Issued in 1941 in response to German submarine attacks on American ships in the Atlantic ocean. The order authorized naval patrols to fire on any Axis ships found between the US and Iceland.






37. Issued on August 14 - 1941 during a meeting between President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The charter outlined the ideal postwar world - condemned military aggression - asserted the right to national self-determination - a






38. The increase of available paper money and bank credit - leading to higher prices and less valuable currency.






39. Ronald Reagan's economic philosophy which held that a capitalist system free from taxation and government involvement would be most productive. Reagan believed that the prosperity of the rich upper class would "trickle down" to the poor.






40. A series of twelve letters published by John Dickinson. The letters denounced the Townsend Duties by demonstrating that many ot the arguments employed against the Stamp Act were valid against the Townsend Duties as well. The letters inspired anti-Bri






41. Created by JFK in 1961. The organization sends volunteer teachers - health workers - and engineers on two-year aid programs to Third World countries.






42. In 1962 - a year after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion - the US government learned that Soviet missile bases were being constructed in Cuba. President JFK demanded that the USSR stop shipping military equipment to Cuba and remove the bases. US forces






43. Organized in 1966 in Oakland - California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The group stressed black pride - economic self-sufficiency - and armed resistance to white oppression.






44. Coined by Stokely Carmichael - and adopted by Malcolm X - the Black Panthers - and other civil rights groups. The term embodied the fight against oppression and the value of ethnic heritage.






45. The nickname of the Progressive Republican Party - led by Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. This party had the best showing of any third party in the history of the US. Its emergence dramatically weakened the Republican Party and allowed the D






46. Signed in September 1940 by Germany - Italy - and Japan. These nations comprised the Axis powers of World War II.






47. Early American fiction writer. His most famous work - The Scarlet Letter (1850) - explored the moral dilemmas of adultery in a Puritan community.






48. During ratification - these people opposed the Constitution on the grounds that it gave the federal government too much political - economic - and military control. They instead advocated a decentralized governmental structure that granted the most p






49. Created by FDR to cope with the added economic difficulties brought on by the cold winter months of 1933. The organization spent approximately $1 billion on short-term projects for the unemployed but was abolished in the spring of that year.






50. A component of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. This act established an Office of Economic Opportunity to provide young Americans with job training. It also created a volunteer network devoted to social work and education in impovershed areas.