Test your basic knowledge |

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. Adopted in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. They established the first limited central government of the US - reserving most powers for the individual states. However they didn't grant enough federal power to manage the country's budget or maintain






2. 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).






3. 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






4. Son of John Adams and president from 1825 to 1829. As James Monroe's secretary of state - he workerd to expand the nation's borders and authorized the Monroe Doctrine. His presidency was largely ineffectie due to lack of popular support; Congress blo






5. Signed in 1975 by Gerald Ford - Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev - and the leaders of thirty-one other states in a promise to solidify European boundaries - respect human rights - and permit freedom of travel.






6. 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 -






7. Democratic candidate for president in 1896. His goal of "free silver" (unlimited coinage of silver) won him the support of the Populist Party. Though a gifted orator - he lost the election to Republican William McKinley. He ran again for president in






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






9. 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.






10. 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






11. 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.






12. 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






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






14. 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






15. 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






16. 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.






17. 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






18. 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






19. 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






20. 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






21. Delegates from five states met in Annapolis in September 1786 to discuss interstate commerce. However - discussions of weaknesses in the government led them to suggest to Congress a new convention to amend the Articles of Confederation.






22. 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."






23. Head of the Manhatten Project - the secret American operation to develop the atomic bomb.






24. A 1836 executive order issued by President Jackson in an attempt to stabilize the economy - which had been dramatically expanding since the early 1830s due to state banks' excessive lending practices and over-speculation. It required that all land pa






25. 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.






26. 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






27. A Scottish immigrant who in 1901 founded Carnegie Steel - then the world's largest corporation. In addition to being an entrepreneur and industrialist - he was a philanthropist who donated more than $300 million to charity during his lifetime.






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






29. Written by Betty Friedan in 1963. This book was a rallying cry for the women's liberation movement. It denounced the belief that women should be tied to the home and encouraged women to get involved in activities outside their home and family.






30. Although Andrew Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes in the 1824 election - he failed to win the requisite majority and the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay backed John Quincy Adams for






31. During World War II - this alliance included Germany - Italy - and Japan. The three powers signed the Tripartite Pact in September 1940.






32. 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






33. 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.






34. 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






35. 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






36. 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






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






38. A third-party candidate in the 1992 presidential election who won 19 percent of the popular vote. His strong showing demonstrated voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties.






39. 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.






40. 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.






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






43. 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.






44. Passed in 1940. This act made it illegal to speak of - or advocate - overthrowing the US government. During the presidential campaign of 1948 - Truman demonstrated his aggressive stance against communism by prosecuting eleven leaders of the Communist






45. 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."






46. An important political figure during the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson. He engineered and championed the American System - a program aimed at economic self-sufficiency for the nation. As speaker of the house during Monroe's term in offi






47. 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.






48. 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.






49. 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






50. 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