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SAT Subject Test: U.S. History

Subjects : sat, history
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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  • 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. 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.






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






3. 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






4. Passed in 1918 as an amendment to the Espionage Act. Provided for the punishment of anyone using "disloyal - profane - scurrilous - or abusive language" in regard to the US government - flag - or military.






5. A prominent transcendentalist writer. Two of his most famous writings are Civil Disobediance (1849) and Walden (1854). He advocatd living life according to one's conscience - removed from materialism and repressive social codes.






6. A conglomerate of businesses that tends to reduce market competition. During the Industrial Age - many entrepreneurs consolidated their businesses into these in order to gain control of the market and amass great profit - often at the expense of poor






7. 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






8. 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.






9. In March 1770 - a crowd of colonists protested against Boston customs agents and the Townsend Duties. Violence flared and five colonists were killed.






10. 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






11. Passed in 1854. The act divided the Nebraska territory into two parts - Kansas and Nebraska - and left the issue of slavery in the territories to be decided by popular sovereignty. It nullified the prohibition of slavery above the 36 30' latitude est






12. Written by Kate Chopin in 1899. This novel portrays a married woman who defies social convention first by falling in love with another man - and then by committing suicide when she finds that his views on women are as oppressive as her husband's. It






13. Negotiated by President Carter - these were signed by Israel's leader - Menachem Begin - and Egypt's leader - Anwar el-Sadat - on March 26 - 1979. The treaty - however - fell apart when Sadat was assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981.






14. Passed by Congress in 1882 amid a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment among American workers. The act banned Chinese immigration for ten years.






15. The largest battle of the Civil War. Widely considered to be the war's turning point - the battle marked the Union's first major victory in the East. The three-day campaign - from July 1 to 4 - 1863 - resulted in an unprecedented 51 -000 total casual






16. 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.






17. Founded in 1895 - the league spearheaded the prohibition movement during the Progressive Era.






18. 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






19. Was the leader of Iraq. In August 1990 - he lead an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait - sparking the Gulf War.






20. Crafted by Henry Clay and backed by the National Republican Party - this plan proposed a series of tariffs and federally funded transportation imporvements - geared toward acheiving national economic self-sufficiency.






21. Chartered in 1791 - the bank was a controversial part of Hamilton's Federalist economic program.






22. 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






23. The last Soviet political leader. He became general secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the USSR in 1988. He helped ease tension between the US and the USSR- work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He oversaw the fal






24. 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."






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






26. Nickname for the 1950s - when economic prosperity caused US population to swell from 150 million to 180 million.






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






28. US Cold War policy - developed in the 1960s - that acknowledged that both the US and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weaponry to destroy each other many times over. This policy hoped to prevent outright war with the SU on the premise that any att






29. 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.






30. Submitted by Benjamin Franklin to the 1754 gathering of colonial delegates in Albany - New York. The plan called for the colonies to unify in the face of French and Native American threats. Although the delegates in Albany approved the plan - the col






31. 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






32. 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.






33. 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.






34. 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.






35. Democratic president of the US from 1977 to 1981. He is best known for his commitment to human rights. During his term in office - he faced an oil crisis - a weak economy - and severe tension in the Middle East.






36. A prominant publisher who bought the New York Journal in the late 1890s. His paper - along with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World - engaged in yellow journalism - printing sensational reports of Spanish activities in Cuba in order to win a circulation






37. 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






38. In September 1939 - FDR persuaded Congress to pass a new - amended Neutrality Act - which allowed warring nations to purchase arms from the US as long as they paid in cash and carried the arms away on their own ships. This program allowed the US to a






39. A small but prominent circle of writhers - poets - and intellectuals during the 1920s. Artists like Ernest Hemingway - F. Scott Fitzgerald - and Ezra Pound grew disillusioned with America's postwar culture - finding it overly materialistic and spirit






40. Defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union from the Northwest Territory. The ordinace forbade slavery in the territory but allowed citizens to vote on the legality of slavery once statehood had been established.






41. 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






42. Advocated isolationism and opposed FDR's reelection in 1940. Committee members urged neutrality - claiming that the US could stand alone regardless of Hitler's advances in Europe.






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






44. The relaxation of tensions between the US and USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period - the two powers signed treaties limiting nuclear arms productions and opened up economic relations. one of the most famous advocates of this policy was Pre






45. After World War II - this organization workerd on developing more effective ways of usting nuclear material - such as uranium - in order to mass-produce nuclear weapons.






46. Writer who satirized political leaders and American society in the 1920s. His magazine American Mercury served as the journalistic counterpart to the postwar disillusionment of the "lost generation."






47. 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






48. Passed in March 1941. Allowed the president to lend or lease supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the US -" such as Britain - and was a key move in support ot the Allied cause before the US formally entered World War II. Was extende






49. Granted freedmen a few basic rights but also enforced heavy civil restrictions based on race. They were enacted in Southern states under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan.






50. 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







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