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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 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.






2. A program providing health insurance and health care for people over the age of 65.






3. A type of democracy in which the people vote on the actions of the government - rather than electing representatives.






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






5. A global pact initiated in 1997 and put into force in 2005 designed to reduce greenhouse emissions to levels that would avoid climate change. The United States is not one of the 187 nations who have ratified the pact.






6. Also called "applied Christianity -" this reform movement - driven by Christian teachings - sought to relieve the suffering of the poor.






7. A company that developed in the early 1600s in England wherein a group of investors pooled their money to finance exploration of the new World. The investor would receive a portion of the profits resulting from the exploration of the New World based






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






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






10. The conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States from the end of WWII until the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). It was characterized by harsh rhetoric - technological rivalry - an arms buildup - and proxy wars in developing countries.






11. Philosophical movement - with deep roots in the United States - which holds that truth emerges from experimentation and experience rather than from abstract theory. it is associated with William James and John Dewey.






12. 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






13. 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.






14. A policy of empire building in which a nation conquers other nations with an aim toward increasing its power and controlling those nations. This was a cause of WWI.






15. Provisions in the voting laws in Southern states following Reconstruction designed to allow whites who could not pass literacy tests to vote. The grandfather clause gave the right to vote to people whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote-a provi






16. 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.






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






18. 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






19. 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






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






21. Trade that takes place between states. Under the US Constitution - the power to regulate interstate commerce is delegated to the Congress.






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






23. The result of a general shift in society in the 1920s characterized by a greater emphasis on purchasing goods.






24. Perfected by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1844 - the telegraph allowed for communications over long distances by tapping out coded messages to be carried over wires.






25. A high tax placed on imports. Its purpose is to make domestic goods cheaper than foreign goods - thus "protecting" domestic industry.






26. 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






27. Trade that takes place within the boundaries of a state. Under the US Constitution - the power to regulate intrastate commerce is delegated to the states.






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






29. A type of economic system in which the state controls the production and distribution of certain products that it deems necessary for the good of the people.






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






31. 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






32. A system of government in which the religious leaders rule. A church-state - where the church is the government - is an example.






33. 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.






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






35. 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






36. Middle-class reform movement of the first decades of the 20th century which sought to widen political participation - eradicate corruption - and apply scientific and technological expertise to social ills.






37. 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






38. Bundles of subprime mortgages that are traded like stocks.






39. 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.






40. 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






41. 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.






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






43. A slogan used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to describe his goal of ending poverty in the United States.






44. An element of President Truman's 1947 Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program - which was designed to weed out communists and other "subversives" from government employment.






45. Persons who do not represent a state or nation who participate in military conflict and do not adhere to accepted rules of war. According to the Bush administration - unlawful combatants captured on the battlefield and detained off of US soil are not






46. A defiant act of the colonies against the British government and its tea trade agreement with East India - which was causing colonial tea merchants to go bankrupt. Protesters dumped an entire shipment of tea into the Boston Harbor.






47. A legislature composed of only one house or chamber.






48. 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






49. A policy in which one people or a group within a nation attempts to destroy people whose ethnic background differs from theirs.






50. 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.