Test your basic knowledge |

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. Illegal bars and saloons that operated during Prohibition.






2. 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






3. 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.






4. The term denoting the ongoing military battle of the US and its allies against terrorism - first used by George W. Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress following the terrorist attacks on September 11 - 2001.






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. A belief in the ability of people to achieve success in difficult times by calling on their own abilities and resources without the interference of the government. Herbert Hoover subscribed to this notion; it affected the development of governmental






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






8. 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






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






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






11. The policy used by the British before the War of 1812 wherein the British stopped US vessels and removed sailors from them to be used on British naval vessels. it was also used to a limited extent by the French during this same period. It was one of






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






13. 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






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






15. 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.






16. 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






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






18. Lincoln's Civil War policy of treating runaway slaves as enemy war property. He accepted the slaves as a way to hurt the Southern cause. They were freed and employed as aides to the Union army until Lincoln started recruiting black troops after the E






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






20. A government controlled behind the scenes by another power. During the Vietnam War - South Vietnam's governments were installed and controlled by the US; Ngo Dinh Diem and General Thieu - leaders of South Vietnam were American puppets.






21. 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.






22. The process of acquiring new territories






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






24. A grouping of nations where each one pledges mutual support to the others. This support is usually defensive in nature. The formation of alliances was a nunderlying cause of WWI.






25. 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






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






27. A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's nation. For people under the control of a foreign power - nationalism is expressed as a desire that one's nation should become a free and independent country. For people who already live in an indepe






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






29. 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.






30. A political philosophy that promotes solving social issues through cooperation with private agencies rather than through direct government programs. It also stresses the personal responsibility and accountability as keys to success.






31. 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.






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






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






34. A type of colony controlled by the king. The crown chose the governor to run the colony.






35. 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.






36. A policy of empire building in which a nation conquers other nations or territories with the goal of increasing its power and expanding the area it controls. This was a cause of WWI.






37. 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






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






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






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






41. The practice of buying stock on credit. People pay a small percentage of the price of the stock - hoping that it will go up in value and that they can use money from the sale to pay the balance they owe. This practice contributed to the stock market






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






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






44. 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.






45. 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.






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






47. An agricultural system in which farm workers supply their own tools - rent land - and have more control over their work than agrarian wage workers.






48. An economic system in which a colony exists for the good of the mother country. The colony's role is to provide raw materials for the mother country (especially products that the mother country cannot produce itself) and serve as a market for the goo






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