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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. Passed by Southerners in Congress in 1836. The rule tabled all abolitionist petitions in Congress and thereby prevented antislavery discussions. It was repealed in 1845 - under increased pressure from Northern abolitionists and those concerned with t






2. Passed in 1883. This act established a civil service exam for many public posts and created hiring systems based on merit rather than on patronage. The act aimed to eliminate corrupt hiring practices.






3. Industrialist Henry Ford installed the first of these while developing his Model T car in 1908 - and perfected its use in the 1920s. This type of manufacturing allowed workers to remain in one place and master one repetitive action - maximizing outpu






4. 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






5. Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal - this organization pumped money into the economy by employing the destitute in conservation and other projects.






6. 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.






7. 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






8. Also the Compromise of 1820. Resolved the conflict surrounding the admission of Missouri to the Union as either a slave or free state. The compromise made Missouri a slave state - admitted Maine as a free state - and prohibited slavery in the remaind






9. 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






10. Written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. Exposed the environmental hazards of the pesticide DDT. Carson's book helped spur an increase in environmental awareness and concern among the American people.






11. A Frenchman who explored the Great Lakes and established the first French colony in North America at Quebec in 1608.






12. A religious zealot and an extreme abolitionist who believed God had ordained him to end slavery. In 1856 - he led an attack against pro-slavery government officials - killing five and sparking months of violence that earned the territory the name "Bl






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. 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






15. Nonconformist writers such as Allan Ginsberg - the author of Howl (1956) - and Jack Kerouac - who penned On the Road (1957). They rejected uniform middle-class culture and sought to overturn the sexual and social conservatism of the period.






16. The partnership of Great Britain - France - and Italy during World War I. The alliance was pitted against the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. In 1917 - the US joined the war on this side. During World War II - the coalition included Gr






17. An influential American writer in the early nineteenth century. His novels - The Pioneers (1823) - The Last of the Mohicans (1826) - and others - employed distinctly American themes.






18. Andrew Jackon's 1832 veto of the proposed charter renewal for the Second Bank of the United States. The veto marked the beginning of Jackon's five-year battle against the national bank.






19. 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






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






21. Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal. This administration controlled the production and prices of crops by offering subsidies to farmers who stayed under set quotas. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in the Butler v US decision - in






22. Written by Helen Hunt Jackson and published in 1881 - this work attempted to raise public awareness of the harsh and dishonorable treatment of Native Americans at the hands of the US.






23. Signed on Christmas Eve in 1815. Ended the War of 1812 and returned relations between the US and Britain to the way things were before the war.






24. 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






25. On June 3 and 4 - 1989 - China's communist army brutally crushed a pro-democracy protest here in Beijing. Diplomatic relations between the US and China significantly soured as a result of the attack.






26. Lyndon B. Johnson's program for domestic policy. It aimed to achieve racial equality - end poverty - and improve health-care. Johnson pushed a number of laws through Congress early in this presidency - but the plan failed to materialize fully - as th






27. The alleged leader of a group of Vikings who sailed to the eastern coast of Canada and attempted - unsuccessfully - to colonize the area around the year 1000- nearly 500 years before Columbus arrived in the Americas.






28. Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I. This coalition fought against the Allies (Great Britain - France - Italy). In 1917 - the US joined the war effort against them.






29. 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.






30. A name for the trade routes that linked England - its colonies in North America - the West Indies - and Africa. At each port - shipes were unloaded of goods from another port along the trade route - and then re-loaded with goods particular to that si






31. A writer and a disciple of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. His major work - Leaves of Grass (1855) - celebrated America's diversity and democracy.






32. A protest against the 1773 Tea Act - which allowed Britain to use the profits from selling tea to pay the salaries of royal governers. In December 1773 - Samuel Adams gathered Boston residents and warned them of the consequences of the Tea Act. Follo






33. A radical Protestant group that sought to "purify" the Church of England from within. Persecuted for their beliefs - many of them fled to the New World in the early 1600s - where they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in present-day Boston. Th






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






35. In 1676 - Nathaniel Bacon - a Virginia planter - accused the royal governer of failing to provide poorer farmers protection from raiding tribes. In response - Bacon led 300 settlers against local Native Americans - and then burned and looted Jamestow

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36. Founded in 1886 - this organization sought to organize craft unions into a federation. The loose structure of the organization differed from its rival - the Knights of Labor - in that it allowed individual unions to remain autonomous. Eventually the






37. Fought in Maryland on September 17 - 1863. Considered the single bloodiest day of the Civil War - casualties totalled more than 8 -000 dead and 18 -000 wounded. Although Union forces failed to defeat Lee and the Confederates - they did halt the Confe






38. 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.






39. 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






40. Primarily concerned with international espionage and information gathering. In the 1950s - this organization became heavily involved in many civil struggles in the Third World - supporting groups likely to cooperate with the US rather than the USSR.






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






42. A report issued in 1957 by Truman's Presidential Committee on Civil Rights. The report called form the elimination of segregation.






43. Formed in the absence of support form the British crown - these companies accrued funding for colonization through the sale of public stock. They dominated English colonization throughout the seventeenth century.






44. Republican - vice president to Ronald Reagan - and president of the US from 1989 to 1993. His presidency was marked by economic recession and US involvement in the Gulf War.






45. 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






46. A moderate Democrat with support from both the North and South who served as president of the US from 1857 to 1861. He could not stem the tide of sectional conflict that eventually erupted into Civil War.






47. 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






48. A failed attempt by US-backed Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in April 1961.






49. Founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent clergymen. Fought against segregation using nonviolent means.






50. Theory of trade which stresses that a nation's economic strenght depends on exporting more than it imports. Britain's use of this policy manifested itself in the triangular trade and in a series of laws - such as the Navigation Acts (1651-1673) - aim