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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. 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).






2. 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.






3. 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






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






5. Influenced by the spirit of rationalism - these people believed that God - like a celestial clockmaker - had created a perfect universe and then stepped back to let it operate according to natural laws.






6. 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 It was repealed in 1845 - under increased pressure from Northern abolitionists and those concerned with t






7. 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.






8. 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






9. A reformer and pacifist best known for founding Hull House in 1889. Hull House provided educational services to poor immigrants.






10. 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






11. 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.






12. 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






13. 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.






14. 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.






15. 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.






16. Signed with Spain in 1795. This treaty granted the US unrestricted access to the Mississippi River and removed Spanish troops from American land.






17. The principles established by the Constitution to prevent any one branch of government (legislative - executive - and judicial) from gaining too much power. They represent the solution to the problem of how to empower the central government while als






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






19. 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.






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






21. Signed by 12 Native American tribes after their defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The treaty cleared the Ohio territory of tribes and opened it up to US settlement.






22. 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






23. 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.






24. 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






25. 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






26. 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






27. Argued against American imperialism in the late 1890s. Its members included William James - Andrew Carnegie - and Mark Twain.






28. Prime minister of England from 1940 to 1945. He was known for his inspirational speeches and zealous pursuit of war victory. Together he - FDR - and Stalin mapped out the post-war world order as the "Big Three." In 1946 - he coined the term "iron cur






29. 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






30. 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."






31. 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






32. America's second president - served from 1797 to 1801. A federalist - he supported a powerful centralized government. His most notable actions in office were the undertakng of the quasi-war with France and the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.






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






34. 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






35. 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.






36. 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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37. 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






38. A leader of the Sons of Liberty. He suggested the formation of the Committees of Correspondence and fought for colonial rights throughout New England. He is credited with provoking the Boston Tea Party.






39. 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






40. 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.






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






42. 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






43. A communist revolutionary. Castro ousted an authoritarian regime in Cuba in 1959 and established the communist regime that remains in power to this day.






44. 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






45. 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






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






47. Anarchist Italian immigrants who were charged with murder in Massachusetts in 1920 and sentenced to death. The case against them was circumstantial and poorly argued - although evidence now suggests that they were in fact guilty. It was significant -






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






49. 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.






50. The English government's policy of not enforcing certain trade laws it imposed upon the American colonies throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The purpose of this policy was largely to ensure the loyalty of the colonies in