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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. Historiography is the study of how history is written. Historians in the 1950s-consensus historians-in general argued that America was the world's great democracy that only did good in the world and had no conflicts at home. Largely due to the effort






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






3. The political and social conviction that only white Protestant Americans deserved civil rights and employment. Nativists tried to prevent the Irish and the new immigrants of the 1880's-1920's from becoming citizens or entering the country. The Know-N






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






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






6. 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.






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






8. President Roosevelt's (FDR) attempt in 1936 to push a judicial reform bill through Congress that would allow him to appoint six new Supreme Court justices sympathetic to his New Deal.






9. A belief in the ability of people to achieve success in difficult times by calling on their own abilities and resources without the interference of the government. Herbert Hoover subscribed to this notion; it affected the development of governmental






10. The movement of mostly college-educated women to provide shelter - cultural activities - and services to the poor. The height of the movement occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.






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






12. Labor in which the worker can leave whenever he or she wishes (as opposed to slave labor). Wage labor or work for pay is free labor.






13. The wave of immigration from the 1880s to the 1920s of Eastern and Southern Europeans - contrasted with the "old" immigration of Northern and Western Europeans.






14. An indictment or formal charge brought by the legislative body against a government official - especially the president - in an attempt to remove the person from office. If the House of Representatives determines that a president has committed acts t






15. The promotion of products in various media. Modern advertising - employing psychology - expert testimony - and other innovations developed in the 1920s.






16. 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.






17. The practice of victorious candidates distributing government jobs to friends and supporters rather than to the most qualified people. Andre Jackson gave his supporters the spoils of victory - whereas John Quincy Adams by and large did not.






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






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






20. Those who were against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.






21. 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






22. 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.






23. 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






24. A policy developed by the Spanish in the 1500s in which the Spanish settlers in the New World were permitted to use Native American labor if the settlers promised to attempt to Christianize them. It led to the exploitation of the Native Americans






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






26. Reading tests required in some Southern states before people were allowed to register to vote. They were mainly intended to prevent African Americans from voting.






27. The term denoting the ongoing military battle of the US and its allies against terrorism - first used by George W. Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress following the terrorist attacks on September 11 - 2001.






28. Technique of the labor movement in the 1930s that entailed stopping work but not leaving the factory floor - as owners were not able to hire replacement workers so long as the workers occupied the shop floor.






29. Found in the 10th Amendment - it provides that any powers not specifically given to the central government or specifically denied to the state governments by the Constitution are powers that the states are granted. For example - the power to develop






30. 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.






31. 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






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






33. Derisive term for white Southerners who cooperated with the Reconstruction governments.






34. A machine that separates seeds from the cotton. The short-staple cotton that grew inland in the South's Black Belt could be cleaned profitably only with the cotton gin. The invention of the cotton gin allowed cotton cultivation to spread - enabling s






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






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






37. A court order stopping a specific act - often used against unions to end a strike.






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






39. The reaction of some whites to the Civil Rights Movement and the urban riots of the 1960s. The formerly solidly Democratic South started voting Republican following the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s - and many whites sent their kids






40. A land policy developed in the 1600s in Virginia and Maryland designed to encourage settlement in the New World. It promised 50 acres to any person who paid his own passage to the New World. It also promised an additional 50 acres to any person who p






41. The movement to form labor organizations that represent every worker in a single industry - regardless of his or her level of skill.






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






43. Anti-communism crusade of the 1950s led by Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was characterized by irresponsible accusations and smear campaigns.






44. The idea that each member of the British Parliament represented all British subjects - regardless of location.






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






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






47. 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






48. 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






49. A form of educational protest at universities. The practice began in 1965 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor - when professors and students analyzed US foreign policy and debated with each other and-only in the earlier days of the war-with go






50. The movement to end slavery. There were many points of view on the subject. Immediate abolitionism advocated ending slavery everywhere and refusing to cooperate with the political process (William Lloyd Garrison). Political abolitionism advocated an