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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 combination of entitlement programs - paid for by employer and employee taxes - that includes retirement benefits - health insurance - and support for disabled workers and the children of deceased or disabled workers.
Social Security
Double jeopardy
Redistributive policy
Cycle of increasing effectiveness
2. A theory that is based on creating enough military strength to convince other nations not to attack first.
Cooperative federalism
Conservatism
Theory of deterrence
Chief of staff
3. The clause in the Constitution (Article 1 - Section 8 - Clause 1) that gives Congress the power to regulate all business activities that cross state lines or affect more than one state or other nations.
Party caucus
Fiscal federalism
Commerce clause
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
4. A technique of Congress to establish federal regulations. Direct orders must be complied with under threat of criminal or civil sanction. An example is the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 - barring job discrimination by state and local gover
Safe seat
Adversary system
Environmental impact statement
Direct orders
5. Denial of export - import - or financial relations with the target country in an effort to change that nation's policies.
Unfunded mandates
Minor party
Winner-take-all system
Economic sanctions
6. A company with a labor agreement under which union membership can be a condition of employment.
Prospective issue voting
Safe seat
Hold
Closed shop
7. The process of putting a law into practice through bureaucratic rules or spending.
Logrolling
Constitutional democracy
Implementation
Natural rights
8. A type of policy that takes benefits (usually through taxes) from one group of Americans and gives them to another (usually through spending).
Political socialization
Interstate compact
Centralists
Redistributive policy
9. Stresses federalism as a system of intergovernmental relations in delivering governmental goods and services to the people and calls for cooperation among various levels of government.
Court of appeals
Cooperative federalism
Libertarianism
Project grants
10. The tendency of presidents to lose support over time.
Equal protection clause
Interested money
Executive Office of the President
Cycle of decreasing influence
11. The process by which individuals perceive what they want to in media messages.
Women's suffrage
Selected perception
Winner-take-all system
Civil law
12. Government by religious leaders - who claim divine guidance.
Capitalism
Theocracy
Decentralists
Labor injunction
13. A procedural rule in the House of Representatives that prohibits any amendments to bills or provides that only members of the committee reporting the bill may offer amendments.
Impeachment
Cooperative federalism
Closed rule
Three-fifths compromise
14. Largely banned party soft money - restored a long-standing prohibition on corporations and labor unions for using general treasury funds for electoral purposes - and narrowed the definition of issue advocacy.
Race
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA)
Closed primary
Political culture
15. Assigning police to neighborhoods where they walk the beat and work with churches and other community groups to reduce crime and improve relations with minorities.
Gross domestic product (GDP)
Presidential election
Offshoring
Community policing
16. Government regulation of property so extensive that government is deemed to have taken the property by the power of eminent domain - for which it must compensate the property owners.
Regulatory taking
Bureaucrat
Movement
Winner-take-all system
17. A characteristic of individuals that is predictive of political behavior.
Australian ballot
Permissive federalism
Monetary policy
Political predisposition
18. Committee appointed by the presiding officers of each chamber to adjust differences on a particular bill passed by each in different form.
Idealism
Conference committee
Soft money
Direct democracy
19. The means by which individuals can express preferences regarding the development of public policy.
Ethnocentrism
Due process clause
Linkage institutions
Pocket veto
20. The total output of all economic activity in the nation - including goods and services.
Normal trade relations
Attentive public
Gross domestic product (GDP)
Free rider
21. The power of a court to refuse to enforce a law or 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
Incumbent
Idealism
Party registration
22. A committee composed of members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate; such committees oversee the Library of Congress and conduct investigations.
Selective exposure
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
Linkage institutions
Joint committee
23. Clause of the Constitution (Article 1 - Section 8 - Clause 3) setting forth the implied powers of Congress. It states that Congress - in addition to its express powers has the right to make all laws necessary and proper to carry out all powers the Co
Necessary and proper clause
Multilateralism
Bicameralism
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
24. Advertisements and commercials for products and services; they receive less First Amendment protection - primarily to discourage false and misleading ads.
Grand jury
Uncontrollable spending
Commercial speech
Faction
25. A veto exercised by the president after Congress has adjourned; if the president takes no action for 10 days - the bill does not become law and does not return to Congress for possible override.
Three-fifths compromise
Manifest opinion
Pocket veto
Selected perception
26. Method whereby representatives of the union and employer determine wages - hours - and other conditions of employment through direct negotiation.
Original jurisdiction
Collective bargaining
Seniority rule
Prospective issue voting
27. The difference between the revenues raised annually from sources of income other than borrowing and the expenditures of government - including paying the interest on past borrowing.
Turnout
Property rights
Deficit
World Trade Organization (WTO)
28. Constitutional requirement that governments act reasonably and that the substance of the laws themselves be fair and reasonable; limits what the government may do.
Substantive due process
Speaker
Class action suit
Direct primary
29. A meeting of the members of a party in a legislative chamber to select party leaders and to develop party policy. Called a conference by the Republicans.
Party caucus
Hard money
Medical savings account
Override
30. National Health Insurance program for the elderly and disabled.
Medicare
Speaker
Midterm election
Docket
31. A policy that emphasizes a united front and cooperation between the major political parties - especially on sensitive foreign policy issues.
Executive privilege
Soft money
Closed shop
Bipartisanship
32. Established by Congress in 1978 as a flexible - mobile corps of senior career executives who worked closely with presidential appointees to manage government.
Interstate compact
Deficit
White primary
Senior Executive Service
33. The process by which individuals screen out messages that do not conform to their own biases.
Majority
Earmarks
Due process clause
Selective exposure
34. Constitutional division of powers among the legislative - executive - and judicial branches - with the legislative branch making law - the executive applying and enforcing the law - and the judiciary interpreting the law.
Separation of powers
Antitrust legislation
Entitlements
Fighting words
35. The drawing of election districts so as to ensure that members of a certain race are a minority in the district; ruled unconstitutional in Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960).
Safe seat
Racial gerrymandering
Social capital
Affirmative action
36. 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).
Incumbent
Redistricting
Poll tax
Civil law
37. Compromise agreement by states at the Constitutional Convention for a bicameral legislature with a lower house in which representation would be based on population and an upper house in which each state would have two senators.
Fiscal policy
Connecticut Compromise
Nongovernmental organization (NGO)
Excise tax
38. A theory of international relations that focuses on the hope the nations will act together to solve international problems and promote peace.
Federal Reserve System
Political ideology
Liberalism
Idealism
39. A policy adopted by the Bush administration in 2001 that asserts America's right to attack any nation that has weapons of mass destruction that might be used against U.S. interests at home or abroad.
Bush Doctrine
Plea bargain
Racial profiling
Deregulation
40. The first governing document of the confederated states drafted in 1777 - ratified in 1781 - and replaced by the present Constitution in 1789.
Amicus curiae brief
Articles of Confederation
Coattail effect
The Federalist
41. Power of a government to take private property for public use; the U.S. Constitution gives national and state governments this power and requires them to provide just compensation for property so taken.
Rider
Natural rights
Unemployment
Eminent domain
42. A law that defines crimes against the public order.
Federal Reserve System
Laissez-faire economics
Criminal law
Interstate compact
43. Widespread agreement on fundamental principles of democratic governance and the values that undergird them.
Suffrage
Democratic consensus
Necessary and proper clause
Filibuster
44. Segregation resulting from economic or social conditions or personal choice.
Spoils system
Dual federalism (layer cake federalism)
Idealism
De facto segregation
45. Interpretation of the First Amendment that would permit legislatures to forbid speech encouraging people to engage in illegal action.
Capitalism
Racial profiling
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
Bad tendency test
46. The principle of a two-house legislature.
Natural rights
Tax expenditure
Bicameralism
Crossover sanctions
47. A system of government in which the legislature selects the prime minister or president.
Parliamentary system
Selective incorporation
Collective bargaining
Retrospective issue of voting
48. Congress appropriates a certain sum - which is allocated to state and local units and sometimes to nongovernmental agencies - based on applications from those who wish to participate. Examples are grants by the National Science Foundation to universi
Project grants
Petit jury
Faction
Caucus
49. A jury of 6 to 12 persons that determines guilt or innocence in a civil or criminal action.
Statism
Public assistance
Petit jury
Turnout
50. Money spent by individuals or groups not associated with candidates to elect or defeat candidates for office.
Veto
Independent expenditures
National party convention
Libertarianism