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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. 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






2. An element of President Truman's 1947 Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program - which was designed to weed out communists and other "subversives" from government employment.






3. 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






4. 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.






5. 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.






6. The study of the environment.






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






8. 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






9. 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.






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






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






12. 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






13. People who illegally manufactured - sold - or transported alcoholic beverages during the Prohibition period.






14. The post-WWII US policy that sought to prevent the spread of communism.






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






16. 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.






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






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






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






20. Laws passed in the Southern states immediately after the Civil War to restrict the movements and limit the rights of African Americans.






21. A program providing health care for the needy (people who lived below the poverty level) who were not covered by Medicare.






22. An organization and discussion method employed by feminists in the late 1960s and early 1970s in which women would exchange experiences of discrimination - read radical analyses of oppression - and develop an understanding that the patriarchal or som






23. 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






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






25. The name used by the administration of John F. Kennedy to describe its proposed programs for the nation.






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






27. Agreements employers forced potential employees to sign in which the employees agreed not to join unions or go on strike.






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






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






30. 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






31. A term used to describe the ability of people to move within the social framework of a society. If the social system provides opportunities for a person born into a lower social class to move to an upper one - or vice versa - a characteristic of the






32. The development of large military forces - not only for defense of the nation but for possible aggression into other nations. It was one of the causes of WWI.






33. 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






34. A prosecutor chosen by a panel of three judges (appointed by the attorney general) to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch. Established after the Watergate Scandal - the role was designed to prevent conflict of interest within the executive






35. 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






36. 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.






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






38. 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.






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






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






41. An invention of the 1870's - barbed wire enabled farmers to enclose land and prevent the long cattle drives that cowboys conducted.






42. 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.






43. 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.






44. 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.






45. Trade that takes place within the boundaries of a state. Under the US Constitution - the power to regulate intrastate commerce is delegated to the states.






46. 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.






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






48. 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.






49. 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.






50. 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.