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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. 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






2. A type of colony controlled by the king. The crown chose the governor to run the colony.






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






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






5. 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.






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






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






8. 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.






9. The formal or official approval for a constitution or amendment.






10. An economic system in which a colony exists for the good of the mother country. The colony's role is to provide raw materials for the mother country (especially products that the mother country cannot produce itself) and serve as a market for the goo






11. 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






12. 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






13. A type of adjustable-rate mortgage - often requiring no down payment - offered to customers with risky credit ratings. The lending institution makes money by steadily increasing interest payments.






14. Techniques used in industry to produce large quantities of goods using interchangeable parts and moving assembly lines. Elements of mass production were developed in the 19th century; the process was perfected by Henry Ford in the 1910s.






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






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






17. 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






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






19. 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.






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






21. Laws enacted in many states based on religious bans of personal behavior deemed immoral; for example - law prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sundays.






22. 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.






23. 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.






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






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






26. 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.






27. 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.






28. 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.






29. 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






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






31. The 19th and early 20th century movement to limit or outlaw the drinking of alcoholic beverages. The movement achieved its ultimate success with the passage of the 18th Amendment-or Prohibition- which went into effect in 1920.






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






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






34. 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






35. The power of the president to reject legislation. The US Congress can override a veto by the US president if it can pass the legislation by a two-thirds majority.






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






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






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






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






40. A tax placed on imports; its purpose is to make domestic goods cheaper to keep out foreign goods.






41. 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.






42. Illegal bars and saloons that operated during Prohibition.






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






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






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






46. 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






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






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






49. 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.






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






Can you answer 50 questions in 15 minutes?



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