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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. The belief that the United States should not be involved in world affairs.






2. Derisive term for US foreign policy in the early 20th century designed to protect the investments of US corporations in Latin America.






3. The mixed race of people that developed as a result of the intermarriage of the Spanish and Native American populations in the 16th and 17th centuries.






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






5. The principal that the Supreme Court has the power to review laws passed by Congress and actions taken by the president to determine whether or not they are consistent with the Constitution. The Supreme Court can declare a law or presidential action






6. The system built into the US Constitution in which the three branches of government (legislative - executive - and judicial) have separate and equal powers that are limited and dependent upon each other. It is also called separation of powers.






7. 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






8. George W. Bush's belief in the propriety of using unilateral preemptive military strikes-essentially a preventive war- to fight terrorism.






9. A conference attended by leaders of two or more nations.






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






11. A country whose affairs are partly controlled by a stronger country. The US established several protectorates - such as Cuba - in the 20th century.






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






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. The first wave was in the 1830s through the early 20th century when the radicals Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Susan B. Anthony - and Lucretia Mott advocated equality - employment - education - and suffrage. The second wave - which advocated these same id






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






16. The idea that machinery eliminates the need for human employment-that the development of new machine-based methods of work can lead to workers' losing their jobs.






17. A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's nation. For people under the control of a foreign power - nationalism is expressed as a desire that one's nation should become a free and independent country. For people who already live in an indepe






18. A slave owner in early Virginia or Maryland; later - according to the census - a man who owned 20 or more slaves.






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






20. A type of coal - noted for being hard and clean burning.






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






22. The characteristic of a federal system of government in which power is distributed between central and local governments. This distribution of power usually is established through some outside source - often a constitution - as is the case in the Uni






23. A term used to describe an investment with a reward that can be great-if the investment is successful. It contributed to the stock market crash of 1929.






24. The killing of African Americans - usually by hanging - carried out by white mobs primarily in the Southern states.






25. Progressive political reform in the early 1900s that enabled voters to introduce legislation.






26. Populists and "Silver Democrats" who in the 1890s argued in favor of an immense increase in silver coinage as a way of stimulating a faltering economy. See Bimetallists.






27. The belief the the US should not be involved in world affairs.






28. Tax paid by those wishing to vote in several Southern states after Reconstruction. It was designed to limit political participation by African Americans.






29. Worker organization formed to press for workplace demands - such as better wages and safer working conditions.






30. Illegal bars and saloons that operated during Prohibition.






31. Hit and run tactics combined with hiding and ambushing the enemy. The soldier would live off the land and population in an area so that he or she need not carry many supplies. The Americans learned this from the Indians in colonial times and used it






32. The practice of buying stock on credit. People pay a small percentage of the price of the stock - hoping that it will go up in value and that they can use money from the sale to pay the balance they owe. This practice contributed to the stock market






33. Derogatory term used by the labor movement to describe workers who cross picket lines






34. Umbrella term for biological - chemical - and nuclear weapons designed to kill large numbers of people.






35. The political position advocating sending free blacks to Liberia in Africa to reduce the number of them in the country-the more blacks that were freed - the fewer there would be in America. It was seen as a way of alleviating the danger of slave insu






36. The generation of children born between the end of WWII and 1964.






37. A policy of empire building in which a nation conquers other nations or territories with the goal of increasing its power and expanding the area it controls. This was a cause of WWI.






38. The practice of paying for goods at regular intervals - usually with interest added to the balance - associated with consumption in the 1920s.






39. Lincoln's Civil War policy of treating runaway slaves as enemy war property. He accepted the slaves as a way to hurt the Southern cause. They were freed and employed as aides to the Union army until Lincoln started recruiting black troops after the E






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






41. Motion pictures with sound. The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first movie to use sound in a significant way.






42. A type of colony in which the people of the colony chose the governor of the colony. Rhode Island was a self-governing colony.






43. The political position advocated by Jerry Falwell - Pat Robertson - and other conservative Republicans emphasizing a life of religious observance along with no drugs - no divorce - no abortions - no homosexuality - no working mothers - and no sex bef






44. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was called the "Second Reconstruction" because the first Reconstruction in the 1860s and 1870s had not brought equality for blacks.






45. The political idea that the West should be free of slavery. In 1846 - David Wilmot wrote the proviso that there "shall be no slavery or involuntary servitude in any territory acquired from Mexico -" which galvanized the antislavery forces in Congress






46. 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






47. A practice used in colonial America in which a person entered into a contract for a specified period of time with another in exchange for the payment of his or her passage to the New World. The indentured servant was sometimes promised some land afte






48. 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.






49. A body of advisers to a head of state. The US president's cabinet consists of the heads of the various departments plus other advisers.






50. 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