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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP American Government
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
clep
,
civics
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. The practice under which victorious politicians reward their followers with jobs.
Creative Federalism
Spoils System
Writ of Certiorari
Council-Manager Plan
2. Decides which bills will be considered.
Impeachment
Committees
Outputs
Declining
3. Laws must be administered in a fair manner.
Article V
Procedural Due Process
Enumerated Powers
Senior Executive Service
4. A system in which national and state government have shared or overlapping powers. FDR's New Deal legislation established this system in the US.
Enumerated Powers
Political Action Committees
Cooperative / Marble Cake Federalism
Reference Group
5. Polls taken as people leave voting places. In the past - television networks sometimes used these polls to predict election outcomes before the polls close. In 1992 - the television networks agreed not to project the winner in a state until the major
Earl Warren
Exit Polls
Woodrow Wilson
Initiative
6. The federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy)
Suburbia
Agriculture
State Government
Federal
7. Guarantees that any rights not explicitly outlined heretofore are reserved for the states.
10th Amendment
Budget Resolution
Inputs
Council-Manager Plan
8. Requests from people or groups for health care for the aged - loans for college students - equal opportunity for minorities - and higher subsidies for farmers are examples of:
Demands
Cycle of Decreasing Influence
Federal Appellate
Clothespin vote
9. Powers not specifically granted to the federal government or denied to the states belong to the states and the people
Declining
Cruel and Unusual
Reserved Powers
Implementation
10. Government regulation of the economy through its control over taxes and government spending. Controlled by the Department of Treasury.
Death penalty
Cooperative / Marble Cake Federalism
Fiscal Policy
Block Grant
11. The 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act - the 1965 Highway Beautification Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act are all examples of ____________________.
Lobbying
Selective Incorporation
Regulatory Federalism
Executive Agreements
12. Funds spent for or against a candidate by committees not formally connected to the candidate's campaign and without coordination with the campaign.
High
National
Interstate Compact
Independent Expenditures
13. The single biggest item in campaign spending at the presidential level is ___________________.
Union Shop
John Locke
Television and Radio
Democrats
14. Until the law was changed in 2002 - the term described unregulated campaign funds not subject to the limits of federal law because they went to party committees and not directly to candidates. The 2002 law banned contributions of soft money to nation
8th Amendment
Public Bills
Soft Money
legislative and executive
15. These party members are highly involved in the electoral process. Donate funds to party and candidates - demand a voice in state party agendas and tend to have a strong belief in their party's ideology.
Gay
Writ of Certiorari
Home Rule
Party Activists
16. Compromise between the large states and small states that established the bicameral Legislature consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives. Also included 3/5 compromise on the status of slaves in representation.
Contract Clause
Shield Laws
Balance of Trade
Great or Connecticut Compromise
17. The right to renounce one's citizenship.
Implied Powers
Procedural Due Process
Dred Scott Decision
Right of Expatriation
18. Colonies in which the proprietors (who had obtained their patents from the king) named the governors - subject to the king's approval.
Soft Money
Proprietary Colonies
House of Representatives
Royal Colonies
19. Information sent out in order to observe the reaction of an audience. Used by politicians who deliberately leak information on a policy change under consideration.
National Political Parties
Trial Balloon
Bull Moose Progressives
Implied
20. Practice by which voters of one party crossing over and voting in the primary of another party - effectively allowing a party to help choose its opposition's candidate.
Party Realignment
Raiding
Increased
The Sugar Act and the Currency Act
21. The possible tendency of some voters or convention delegates to support the candidate who is leading in the polls and seems likely to win.
Regulatory Federalism
Bandwagon
Federal Register
Quota Sampling
22. The primary purpose of _______________consolidate the nation's disability laws and provide for strong federal enforcement of a strengthened disability rights mandate
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Elastic Clause
Equal Protection Clause
Libertarianism
23. To negotiate a complex and politically sensitive trade treaty - a President will often
Fast Track Authority
Speech Plus
Small Business Administration (SBA)
Incumbents
24. This controversial clause of the 9th Amendment has allowed government to expand rights to suit its needs.
Elastic Clause
Valence issue
Slander
35
25. An act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial. Constitutionally prohibited.
Select Committee
Gay
The Federalist #10
Bill of Attainder
26. A course of action chosen by government officials
Public Policy
Majority Whip
Due Process of Law
Regulatory Federalism
27. The Democrats control over politics during the 20th century ended with this President's unpopular handling of the Vietnam War.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Rank and File
Public Policy
14
28. The reason that electors are chosen in each state by popular vote is ____________.
Pass the fundraising threshold
Custom
2/3
Closed Shop
29. Author of The Spirit of the Laws advocating balance of power in politics with liberty is dependant upon a separation of the judicial - legislative - and executive branches of government.
Oligopoly
Baron de Montesquieu
Electoral Votes
Horse race
30. Which historical figure described democracy as 'the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time?'
Department of Treasury
Cruel and Unusual
Right to Work Laws
Winston Churchill
31. In this essay - James Madison recognized that reconciling the competing interests of various groups was what legislation was all about
Equality
Party Column Ballot
Rank and File
The Federalist #10
32. Representing - characterized by - or including members from two parties or factions
Incumbents
Bipartisanship
Balance of Payments
congressional oversight committee
33. The estimated number of illegal aliens living in the US.
Hub and Spoke Model
Cold War
8 Million
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
34. Urban or rural areas in which businesses are encouraged to locate because of tax breaks and other incentives.
Enterprise Zones
Civil Cases
Supreme Court
Categorical Grant
35. Number of years a Senator must reside in the US prior to taking office
Class Action Suit
9
Pentagon Papers
Affirmative Action
36. A public policy that takes something away from one person or group and gives it to another person or group.
Common Law
Public Policies
Redistributive Policy
Probable Cause
37. A federal program established in 1965 to provide hospital and medical services to older people through the Social Security system.
Party of Economic Protest
Marshall Plan
Medicare
Salient Agenda
38. A group of independent states or nations that come together for a common purpose and whose central authority is usually limited to defense and foreign relations.
Office Column Ballot
Confederation
Civil Liberties
Executive Agencies
39. In 1978 - the Supreme Court - in the 'seven dirty words' case - ruled that the government has the right to prohibit the broadcasting of _______________.
Offensive Language
15
Containment
Senatorial Courtesy
40. Executive check on Legislative Branch.
Inverse
Senate
Libel
Veto
41. Contacts - coalitions - and interactions across national boundaries
Transnational Relations
Speaker of the House
Rules Committee
Open rule
42. Members of this party typically include women who support liberal policies on abortion and equal pay - Jews - Catholics - Blacks and other minorities - Blue-collar working class - urban - labor unions - and intelligensia
Strategic Deterrence
Political Advertising
Conference Committee
Democrats
43. In a 1943 case - the Supreme Court upheld the right to refuse to salute the American flag on the basis of the constitutional guarantee of _________________.
Gross Domestic Product
Majority Rule
Alien and Sedition Acts
Free Speech
44. Assigns bills to the appropriate House committee.
Democratic
Lafolette's Progressive s
Speaker of the House
Capitalism
45. Laws that were designed to segregate black and white Americans and give legal recognition to discrimination.
Regulatory Agencies
Discharge Petition
High
Jim Crow Laws
46. If 10 days do not remain in session and the president does not sign an act of Congress - the bill __________.
Members of Congress
Council of Economic Advisors
Dies
Original Jurisdiction
47. Senators are re-elected every ___ years with 1/3 of the Senate being up for election every 2 years.
Thomas Hobbes
Housing and Urban Development
6
National Chair
48. Which two British Acts - passed in 1764 - caused American colonists for the first time to organize protests against the injustices of British rule - and sparked the rallying cry 'no taxation without representation'?
The Sugar Act and the Currency Act
Article II
School Desegregation
Caucuses
49. How groups form and organize to pursue their goals or objectives - including how to get individuals and groups to participate and cooperate.
Political System
Republican
Private Bills
Collective Action
50. The foreign policy of the United States during the period after the Second World War - designed to contain the expansion of Soviet power.
Containment
Republicans
Select Committee
National Supremacy