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






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






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






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






5. 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






6. 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






7. 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.






8. 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






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






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






11. 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.






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






13. Machine-made or standardized parts that could be put together to make a product. Eli Whitney demonstrated to President John Adams in 1801 how a box of guns could be disassembled and reassembled randomly. Each part must be precision-made so that it wi






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






15. 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






16. Lincoln's contention that the Union pre-existed the Constitution because it began with the Articles of Association in 1774-since the states had signed on to that document - the Union could not be broken. He discussed this theory in his first inaugura






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






18. 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.






19. The movement to form labor organizations made up of skilled wokrers within a particular field.






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






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






22. 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






23. 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






24. 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.






25. 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.






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






27. 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






28. 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






29. 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.






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






31. Government policy of noninterference in business practices and in individuals economic affairs; literally translated as "to let do."






32. The difference in the votes of men and women. Often men vote Republican in larger numbers that women - who are more likely to vote Democratic - producing a gender gap.






33. 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






34. 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.






35. 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






36. 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.






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






38. 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






39. 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






40. Progressive-era reform that created a mechanism for voters to approve or reject legislation placed on the ballot. It was designed to weaken the power of entrenched political machines.






41. Large plantation-type farm established by the Dutch along the Hudson River in the 1600s.






42. Agricultural labor system in the South following the era of slavery wherein a sharecropper could farm a piece of land in return for giving the landowner a share - usually half - of the crop.






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






44. 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






45. 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.






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. 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.






48. The economic state in which prices are rising (inflation) and unemployment is high - producing stagnation of growth.






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






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