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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. 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.






2. 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






3. 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






4. 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






5. 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.






6. The killing of African Americans - usually by hanging - carried out by white mobs primarily in the Southern states.






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






8. Laws made by the British government restricting colonial trade of sugar and tobacco to any country other than England or by any means other than on British ships.






9. 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.






10. 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.






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






12. Umbrella term for biological - chemical - and nuclear weapons designed to kill large numbers of people.






13. 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.






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






15. 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.






16. 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






17. 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






18. 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






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






20. 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.






21. 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.






22. Coins or gold and silver money - also called "hard money."






23. 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.






24. Those who were pro-Vietnam war in the 1960s.






25. 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.






26. 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.






27. 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.






28. 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.






29. 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 checks and balances.






30. 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.






31. The political position that opposes abortion.






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. 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






34. A country whose affairs are partly controlled by a stronger country. The US established several protectorates - such as Cuba - in the 20th century.






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






36. The political idea that the West should be free of slavery. In 1846 - David Wilmot wrote the proviso that there "shall be no slavery or involuntary servitude in any territory acquired from Mexico -" which galvanized the antislavery forces in Congress






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






38. Large corporations created by the consolidation of competing companies to form a monopoly or near monopoly.






39. 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.






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






41. 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






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






43. 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.






44. 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.






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






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






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






48. A form of nonviolent protest used by antiwar and antisegregation activists. Protesters would take over buildings - camp out in front of administration offices - or sit at lunch counters and demand to be served on an integrated basis. The first sit-in






49. A tax on imports (goods coming into a country). Tariffs were advocated by Alexander Hamilton in 1792 and favored by the supporters of the American System to pay for internal improvements and protect US industry. Tariffs were often a main issue in Jac






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