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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. Found in the 10th Amendment - it provides that any powers not specifically given to the central government or specifically denied to the state governments by the Constitution are powers that the states are granted. For example - the power to develop






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






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






4. A type of coal - noted for being hard and clean burning.






5. 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.






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






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






8. Cattle handlers who drove large herds across the southern Great Plains. The era of the cowboy lasted from 1870 to the late 1880s.






9. 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






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






11. 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.






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






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






15. 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.






16. 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.






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






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






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






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






21. 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






22. 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






23. 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.






24. Grangers - Populists - and agrarian activists of the late 19th century who advocated basing money o silver as well as gold. See Free Silverites.






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






26. The policy of supplying government support for corporations when they are in severe financial trouble. The Chrysler Corporation - for example - got a $1.5 billion bailout in 1980 - and the savings and loan banks received at least $159 billion during






27. 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






28. 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.






29. A slave owner in early Virginia or Maryland; later - according to the census - a man who owned 20 or more slaves.






30. 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






31. The political position that favors abortion on demand.






32. 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.






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






34. 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






35. 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






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






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






38. 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






39. Cotton that grew inland in the Black Belt of the South - an area characterized by its dark soil. Short-staple cotton could not be grown profitably until the cotton gin was invented.






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. Those who were against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.






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






44. Tax paid by those wishing to vote in several Southern states after Reconstruction. It was designed to limit political participation by African Americans.






45. The theory that the path to economic growth is through tax cuts for the rich - who will then invest in new businesses and expand old ones - employing new workers as a result.






46. A skilled worker who had learned a trade from a master as an apprentice. Shoemakers - bakers - blacksmiths. and carpenters were artisans.






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






48. 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.






49. 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.






50. 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.