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






2. A term used to describe a person who believes that the Consitution must be interpreted word by word. Thomas Jefferson believed in strict construction of the Constitution.






3. The political events of the 1960s divided the country in many ways. There were pro-Vietnam hawks and anti-Vietnam doves - those who supported the counterculture of liberated sex and drugs and those who did not - those who favored American involvement






4. The political position that opposes abortion.






5. 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.






6. 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.






7. 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.






8. 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.






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






10. 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






11. 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.






12. An economic system in which the state controls the production and distribution of certain products deemed necessary for the good of the people






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






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






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






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






17. 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






18. 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






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






20. 1) The political theory that the people hold the fundamental power in a democracy 2) The proposal by Steven Douglas in the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act stating that the people of the territory of Kansas and Nebraska could decide though their representati






21. 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






22. 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






23. The British policy of the 17th century in which the British were lax in the enforcement of laws in the colonies - thereby allowing the colonies to develop without much interference from the British government. After the French and Indian War - this p






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






25. Blacks who had been freed from slavery or were not born slaves. They lived in the cities and countryside in both the North and the South. In 1860 - there were about 500 -000 free blacks evenly distributed between the North and the South.






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






27. 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.






28. 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.






29. A type of colony that was settled by a group of investors and in which the governor of the colony was chosen by the proprietors.






30. The condition when all male adults in a democracy are granted the right to vote.






31. 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.






32. 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






33. 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






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






35. The exodus of white - middle-class families from cities to suburbia following WWII due to the migration of African Americans to urban centers.






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






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






38. 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






39. The name used by the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson to describe its domestic programs.






40. A political philosophy that promotes solving social issues through cooperation with private agencies rather than through direct government programs. It also stresses the personal responsibility and accountability as keys to success.






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






42. The condition when all adults in a democracy are granted the right to vote.






43. The series of laws designed to create separation between the races. These were by and large Southern state laws made constitutional by the Supreme Court decision Plessy. v Ferguson in 1896.






44. 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






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






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






47. 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.






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






49. The joining together of companies to control all aspects of the production process of an item - from the mining or growing of materials through production and distribution of the final product.






50. 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.