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SAT Subject Test: U.S. History Vocab

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. This clause - found in the last paragraph of Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution - allows Congress to make laws not specifically delegated to it by the Constitution but that may be "necessary and proper" to carry out its delegated powers. (Als






2. A term used to describe the ability of people to move within the social framework of a society. If the social system provides opportunities for a person born into a lower social class to move to an upper one - or vice versa - a characteristic of the






3. Laws passed in the Southern states immediately after the Civil War to restrict the movements and limit the rights of African Americans.






4. The traditions - language - and modes of behavior of the field hands who lived together in slave quarters. They practiced many forms of resistance to the wills of their masters - told each other African-derived tales - sand spirituals - and practiced






5. Critical term for the owners of the big business of the Gilded Age who accumulated great wealth and power.






6. A treaty in which the parties agree not to attack each other unless attacked first.






7. A method of mass production whereby the products are moved from worker to worker - with each person performing a small - repetitive task on the product and sending it to the next for a different task until the finished item is assembled. In the 18th






8. Grangers - Populists - and agrarian activists of the late 19th century who advocated basing money o silver as well as gold. See Free Silverites.






9. Settlers who were granted plots in the West - usually of 160 acres - under the Homestead Act of 1862.






10. The political advocacy of black-owned businesses and independent black political action. Stokely Carmichael first used the term in a position paper for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1965.






11. The policy of supplying government support for corporations when they are in severe financial trouble. The Chrysler Corporation - for example - got a $1.5 billion bailout in 1980 - and the savings and loan banks received at least $159 billion during






12. The policy practiced by the European nations prior to WWII wherein they made concessions to aggressive nations-particularly - Hitler's Germany-in hopes of satisfying the demands of that nation and ending further aggression.






13. Popular music genre - with roots in African American rhythm and blues and "doo-wop." It developed in the 1950s and was popularized by Elvis Presley.






14. Agreements employers forced potential employees to sign in which the employees agreed not to join unions or go on strike.






15. Journalists of the Progressive era who exposed urban poverty - unsafe working conditions - political corruption - and other social ills.






16. An agricultural system in which farm workers supply their own tools - rent land - and have more control over their work than agrarian wage workers.






17. Organizations - such as the underground press - Students for a Democratic Society and its offshoots - and women's groups (like the Red Stockings) - that were interested in social change but uninterested in the debates over whether to support Russia a






18. The post-WWII US policy that sought to prevent the spread of communism.






19. A method of mass production whereby the products are moved from worker to worker - with each person performing a small - repetitive task on the product and sending it to the next for a different task until the finished item is assembled. In the 18th






20. A person who believes in the broad interpretation of the US Constitution; that is - that the Constitution does not have to be interpreted word by word. Alexander Hamilton supported this idea.






21. An increase in number - volume - scope. In reference to the Vietnam War - it refers to the increase in the number of troops and the intensity of involvement by the United States.






22. Early 20th-century election reform that allowed citizens - rather than political machines - to choose candidates for public office.






23. The exodus of white - middle-class families from cities to suburbia following WWII - partially caused by the migration of African Americans to urban centers.






24. A list of persons - often secretly circulated - who are disapproved of and are to be denied employment or other benefits.






25. Derisive term for Northerners who went to the South during Reconstruction to promote reform or to profit from it.






26. The organizations and events in the 20th century that collectively pressured federal - state - and local governments and businesses to grant equal rights to blacks and other minorities.






27. The political act of leaving the Union. The Southern states formed their own country during 1860-1861 after they seceded from the United States.






28. The series of violent reactions to police brutality - poor living conditions - assassinations - and high unemployment from 1964-1968. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) called them a reaction to the rising expecta






29. The Eisenhower-era theory that one communist country would infiltrate or influence its neighbors - supporting insurrection there and causing them to become communist too. They would fall like a series of dominoes standing close together. Kennedy - Jo






30. Those who were pro-Vietnam war in the 1960s.






31. The political position that claimed that we could have won the Vietnam War if we had declared war - put in more troops - had a more unified country - or given our generals free reign to fight. These positions are called revisionist because the consen






32. A prosecutor chosen by a panel of three judges (appointed by the attorney general) to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch. Established after the Watergate Scandal - the role was designed to prevent conflict of interest within the executive






33. A government controlled behind the scenes by another power. During the Vietnam War - South Vietnam's governments were installed and controlled by the US; Ngo Dinh Diem and General Thieu - leaders of South Vietnam were American puppets.






34. Machine-made or standardized parts that could be put together to make a product. Eli Whitney demonstrated to President John Adams in 1801 how a box of guns could be disassembled and reassembled randomly. Each part must be precision-made so that it wi






35. The practice of granting the firstborn son the right to all the inheritance of the parent's estate - rather than subdividing it and giving portions to all offspring.






36. A political system dominated by two parties. Voters reluctance to support third parties reinforces the two-party system. The first two-party system - dating back to the 1970s - included the Federalist and Republican Parties. The current two-party sys






37. Sensationalist - lurid - and often falsified accounts of events printed by newspapers and magazines to attract readers.






38. A grouping of nations where each one pledges mutual support to the others. This support is usually defensive in nature. The formation of alliances was a nunderlying cause of WWI.






39. A legislature composed of two houses. The US Congress - composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives - is an example.






40. Coins or gold and silver money - also called "hard money."






41. Cattle handlers who drove large herds across the southern Great Plains. The era of the cowboy lasted from 1870 to the late 1880s.






42. The building of canals - railroads - and turnpikes at state or federal expense. These were part of the American Plan - which became an important part of the Whig program of the 1830s. Internal improvements were also supported by the National Republic






43. A system of government in which the power to rule comes from the people.






44. The policy used by the British before the War of 1812 wherein the British stopped US vessels and removed sailors from them to be used on British naval vessels. it was also used to a limited extent by the French during this same period. It was one of






45. A list - circulated among potential employers - of alleged "troublemakers" not to be hired.






46. Opposition to communism. Extreme anti-communism was manifested in the "Red Scare" of the 1920s and McCarthyism of the 1950s.






47. Political party organizations that run cities and are often associated with corruption and undemocratic practices. The most notorious example was New York's Tammary Hall Democratic club of the Gilded age.






48. An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods is determined by individual consumer preference. It is characterized by the free-enterprise system - competition - profit motive - and pricing based on the laws of supply and demand






49. Art and literature that seek to depict the commonplace in a plausible and direct manner.






50. A term coined in the 1950s to describe illegal or undesirable behavior by teenagers.