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Test your basic knowledge |
AP Government
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
civics
,
ap
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. A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. Total preemption rests on the national governments power under the supremacy and commerce clauses to preempt conflicting state and local activity. Building on this constitutional authority - f
Closed rule
Total and Partial Preemption
Liberalism
Closed shop
2. An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in childhood.
Popular sovereignty
Party identification
Ethnocentrism
Lobbying
3. A social division based on national origin - religion - language - and often race.
Ethnicity
Soft money
Safe seat
Party registration
4. Conservative Christians who (as a group) have become more active in politics in the last two decades and were especially influential in the 2000 presidential election.
Soft money
Fundamentalists
Trust
Antifederalists
5. A court with appellate jurisdiction that hears appeals from the decisions of lower courts.
Issue advocacy
Gerrymandering
Court of appeals
Senatorial courtesy
6. The inclination to focus on national issues - rather than local issues - in an election campaign. The impact of the national tide can be reduced by the nature of the candidates on the ballot who might have differentiated themselves from their party o
National tide
Union shop
Photo ops
Presidential ticket
7. Exemption from prosecution for a particular crime in return for testimony pertaining to the case.
Immunity
Laissez-faire economics
Hard power
Concurring opinion
8. A formal - public agreement between the United States and one or more nations that must be approved by two thirds of the Senate.
Tax expenditure
Logrolling
Treaty
Double jeopardy
9. The president's annual statement to Congress and the nation.
Midterm election
White primary
Clear and present danger test
State of the Union Address
10. Alternative means of health care in which individuals make tax-deductible contributions to a special account that can be used to pay medical expenses.
Soft money
Commerce clause
Poll tax
Medical savings account
11. Constitutional arrangement in which power is distributed between a central government and subdivisional governments - called states in the United States. The national and the subdivisional governments both exercise direct authority over individuals.
Whip
Federalism
Soft money
Precedent
12. Tax required to vote; prohibited for national elections by the Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964) and ruled unconstitutional for all elections in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966).
Court of appeals
Isolationism
Poll tax
Gender gap
13. A meeting of local party members to choose party officials or candidates for public office and to decide the platform.
Caucus
Racial gerrymandering
Discharge petition
Eminent domain
14. The power of a court to refuse to enforce a law or a government regulation that in the opinion of the judges conflicts with the U.S. Constitution or - in a state court - the state constitution.
Judicial review
Ethnocentrism
Public defender system
Referendum
15. Democratic party primary in the old 'one-party South' that was limited to white people and essentially constituted an election; ruled unconstitutional in Smith v. Allwright (1944).
White primary
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
Winner-take-all system
Senior Executive Service
16. Period at the beginning of the new president's term during which the president enjoys generally positive relations with the press and Congress - usually lasting about six months.
Extradition
Free exercise clause
Medical savings account
Honeymoon
17. Agreement signed by the United States - Canada - and Mexico in 1992 to form the largest free trade zone in the world.
Theocracy
Party identification
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
Judicial restraint
18. A system of public employment based on rewarding party loyalists and friends.
Writ of habeas corpus
Spoils system
Labor injunction
Natural rights
19. A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. These sanctions permit the use of federal money in one program to influence state and local policy in another. For example - a 1984 act reduced federal highway aid by up to 15 percent for any
Class action suit
Popular consent
Crossover sanctions
Referendum
20. Through different grant programs - slices up the marble cake into many different pieces - making it even more difficult to differentiate the functions of the levels of government.
Fiscal federalism
Petit jury
Offshoring
Police powers
21. A law that governs relationships between individuals and defines their legal rights.
Civil law
Central clearance
Natural rights
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
22. An economic system characterized by private property - competitive markets - economic incentives - and limited government involvement in the production - distribution - and pricing of goods and services.
Ex post facto law
Capitalism
Commerce clause
Patronage
23. Review of all executive branch testimony - reports - and draft legislation by the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that each communication to Congress is in accordance with the president's program.
Plea bargain
Entitlements
Central clearance
Issue advocacy
24. Officer of the Senate selected by the majority party to act as chair in the absence of the vice president.
President pro tempore
Articles of Confederation
Minority leader
Civil disobedience
25. A grouping of human beings with distinctive characteristics determined by genetic inheritance.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
Federal Reserve System
Sales tax
Race
26. Deliberate refusal to obey law or comply with orders of public officials as a means of expressing opposition.
Civil disobedience
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
Independent expenditures
Inflation
27. The clause of the Constitution (Article I - Section 8 - Clause 3) that gives Congress the power to regulate all business activities that cross state lines or affect more than one state or other nations.
Gross domestic product (GDP)
Direct primary
Commerce clause
Government corporation
28. A judicial system in which the court of law is a neutral arena where two parties argue their differences.
Indictment
Shays's Rebellion
Adversary system
Concurrent powers
29. Those citizens who follow public affairs carefully.
Literacy test
Fiscal policy
Attentive public
Necessary and proper clause
30. These are broad state grants to states for prescribed activities—welfare - child care - education - social services - preventive health care - and health services—with only a few strings attached. States have greater flexibility in deciding how to sp
Block grants
Name recognition
Candidate appeal
The Federalist
31. Weakening of partisan preferences that points to a rejection of both major parties and a rise in the number of independents.
Safe seat
Dealignment
Open shop
Incumbent
32. Philosophy proposing that judges should interpret the Constitution to reflect what the framers intended and what its words literally say.
Judicial restraint
Pluralism
Bill of attainder
Party convention
33. Requirement that evidence unconstitutionally or illegally obtained be excluded from a criminal trial.
Administrative discretion
Exclusionary rule
Race
Tariff
34. Divisions within society that cut across demographic categories to produce groups that are more heterogeneous or different.
Public opinion
Keynesian economics
Bureaucracy
Cross-cutting cleavages
35. A meeting of party delegates to vote on matters of policy and in some cases to select party candidates for public office.
Party convention
Trust
Contract clause
Centralists
36. The study of the characteristics of populations.
Lobbyist
Demographics
527 organizations
Executive orders
37. A convention held in September 1786 to consider problems of trade and navigation - attended by five states and important because it issued the call to Congress and the states for what became the Constitutional Convention.
Cross-cutting cleavages
Take care clause
Selected perception
Annapolis Convention
38. The process by which we develop our political attitudes - values - and beliefs.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
Honeymoon
Political socialization
Double jeopardy
39. The process - most notably in families and schools - by which we develop our political attitudes - values - and beliefs.
Central clearance
Political socialization
Deregulation
Inherent powers
40. A term the founders used to refer to political parties and special interests or interest groups.
Plea bargain
Discharge petition
Faction
Realism
41. The principle of a two-house legislature.
Political party
Bicameralism
Monetarism
Representative democracy
42. System designed to reduce voter fraud by limiting voting to those who have established eligibility to vote by submitting the proper documents.
Closed shop
Idealism
Voter registration
Discharge petition
43. The idea that the rights of the nation are supreme over the rights of the individuals who make up the nation.
Nongovernmental organization (NGO)
Representative democracy
Statism
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
44. A court order requiring explanation to a judge why a prisoner is being held in custody.
Congressional-executive agreement
Constitutional democracy
Checks and balances
Writ of habeas corpus
45. Essays promoting ratification of the Constitution - published anonymously by Alexander Hamilton - John Jay - and James Madison in 1787 and 1788.
Hold
Redistricting
Conference committee
The Federalist
46. Election in which voters choose party nominees.
Discharge petition
Political culture
General election
Direct primary
47. The head of the White House staff.
Fighting words
Writ of certiorari
Trustee
Chief of staff
48. A procedural practice in the Senate whereby a senator refuses to relinquish the floor and thereby delays proceedings and prevents a vote on a controversial issue.
Constitutional Convention
Filibuster
Interest group
Winner-take-all system
49. The cluster of presidential staff agencies that help the president carry out his responsibilities. Currently the office includes the Office of Management and Budget - the Council of Economic Advisers - and several other units.
Literacy test
Cross-cutting cleavages
National supremacy
Executive Office of the President
50. Conceives of federalism as a marble cake in which all levels of government are involved in a variety of issues and programs - rather than a layer cake - or dual federalism - with fixed divisions between layers or levels of government.
Marble cake federalism
Government corporation
Bush Doctrine
Antitrust legislation