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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. 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.






2. 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






3. 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.






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






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






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






7. The belief the the US should not be involved in world affairs.






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






9. 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.






10. 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






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






12. Worker organization formed to press for workplace demands - such as better wages and safer working conditions.






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






15. 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.






16. A treaty in which the parties agree not to attack each other unless attacked first.






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






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






19. 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






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






21. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






28. The idea that the Constitution was created by the states and so the states could dissolve it. This was advocated first by Madison and Jefferson in 1798 in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and later by Robert Y Hayne in his debate with Daniel Web






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






30. 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.






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






32. 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






33. 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






34. 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.






35. 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.






36. The joining together of companies to control all aspects of the production process of an item - from the mining or growing of materials through production and distribution of the final product.






37. The movement of mostly college-educated women to provide shelter - cultural activities - and services to the poor. The height of the movement occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.






38. A person who believes in the broad interpretation of the US Constitution; that is - that the Constitution does not have to be interpreted word by word. Alexander Hamilton supported this idea.






39. Also called "applied Christianity -" this reform movement - driven by Christian teachings - sought to relieve the suffering of the poor.






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






41. The political position that favors abortion on demand.






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






43. 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






44. 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






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






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






47. 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.






48. 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






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






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