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SAT Subject Test: U.S. History

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. An influential American writer in the early nineteenth century. His novels - The Pioneers (1823) - The Last of the Mohicans (1826) - and others - employed distinctly American themes.






2. Passed in 1930. This act limited the right to strike in key industries and authorized the president to intervene in any strike - eroding the generally amiable relationship between the government and organized labor during World War II.






3. Passed in 1964 - the act outlawed discrimination in education - employment - and all public accommodations.






4. A religious zealot and an extreme abolitionist who believed God had ordained him to end slavery. In 1856 - he led an attack against pro-slavery government officials - killing five and sparking months of violence that earned the territory the name "Bl






5. Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy summed up his aggressive stance toward international affairs with the phrase - "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Under this doctrine - the US declared its domination over Latin American and built the Panama Can






6. President of the Russian Republic in 1991 - when hard-line Communists attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. After helping to repel these hard-liners - he and the leaders of the other Soviet republics declared an end to the USSR - forcing Gorbache






7. Defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union from the Northwest Territory. The ordinace forbade slavery in the territory but allowed citizens to vote on the legality of slavery once statehood had been established.






8. During McCarthyism - provided the congressional forum in which many hearings about suspected communists in the government took place.






9. Nickname given to northerners who moved South during Reconstruction in search of political and economic opportunity. The term was coined by Southern Democrats - who said that these northern opportunists had left home so quickly that they were able to






10. Crafted by Henry Clay and backed by the National Republican Party - this plan proposed a series of tariffs and federally funded transportation imporvements - geared toward acheiving national economic self-sufficiency.






11. During World War II - this alliance included Germany - Italy - and Japan. The three powers signed the Tripartite Pact in September 1940.






12. The nickname of the Progressive Republican Party - led by Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. This party had the best showing of any third party in the history of the US. Its emergence dramatically weakened the Republican Party and allowed the D






13. In June 1807 - the British naval frigate HMS Leopard opened fire on the American naval frigate USS Chesapeake - killing three men and wounding twenty. British naval officers then boarded the American ship - seized four men who had deserted the Royal






14. A leader of the Sons of Liberty. He suggested the formation of the Committees of Correspondence and fought for colonial rights throughout New England. He is credited with provoking the Boston Tea Party.






15. Explored the northeast coast of North American in 1497 and 1498 - claiming Nova Scotia - Newfoundland - and the Grand Banks for England.






16. Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I. This coalition fought against the Allies (Great Britain - France - Italy). In 1917 - the US joined the war effort against them.






17. Founded on the premise that the "perfect" human society could be achieved through genetic tinkering. Popularized during the Progressive Era - writers on this subject often used this theory to justify a supremacist white Protestant ideology - which ad






18. Major American author in the 1930s. His novels depict simple - rural lives. His most famous work is The Grapes of Wrath (1939).






19. Constructed by the USSR and completed in August 1961 to prevent East Berliners from fleeing to West Berlin. The wall cemented the poltical split of Berlin between the communist and authoritarian Eastand the capitalist and democratic West. The wall wa






20. A radical Protestant group that sought to "purify" the Church of England from within. Persecuted for their beliefs - many of them fled to the New World in the early 1600s - where they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in present-day Boston. Th






21. Negotiated by President Carter - these were signed by Israel's leader - Menachem Begin - and Egypt's leader - Anwar el-Sadat - on March 26 - 1979. The treaty - however - fell apart when Sadat was assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981.






22. A 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision that reversed the "seperate but equal" segregationist doctrine established by the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision. The Court ruled that seperated facilities were inherently unequal and ordered public schools to






23. A series of investigations in 1987 exposed evidence that the US had been selling arms to the anti-American government in Iran and using the profits from these sales to secretly and illegally finance the Contras in Nicaragua. (The Contras were a rebel






24. Theory of trade which stresses that a nation's economic strenght depends on exporting more than it imports. Britain's use of this policy manifested itself in the triangular trade and in a series of laws - such as the Navigation Acts (1651-1673) - aim






25. Industrialist Henry Ford installed the first of these while developing his Model T car in 1908 - and perfected its use in the 1920s. This type of manufacturing allowed workers to remain in one place and master one repetitive action - maximizing outpu






26. Leader of a group of senators known as "reservationists" during the 1919 debate over the League of Nations. He and his followers supported US membership in the League only if major revisions were made to the covenant. President Wilson - however - ref






27. Passed in 1854. The act divided the Nebraska territory into two parts - Kansas and Nebraska - and left the issue of slavery in the territories to be decided by popular sovereignty. It nullified the prohibition of slavery above the 36 30' latitude est






28. Longtime government employee who - in 1948 - was accused by Time editor Whitaker Chambers of spying for the USSR. After a series of highly publicized hearings and trials - he was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to five years imprisonment -






29. America's second president - served from 1797 to 1801. A federalist - he supported a powerful centralized government. His most notable actions in office were the undertakng of the quasi-war with France and the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.






30. The centerpiece of a congressional effort to restrict union activity. The act - passed in 1947 - banned certain union practices and allowed the president to call for an eighty-day cooling off period to delay strikes thought to pose risks to national






31. Democratic president of the US from 1977 to 1981. He is best known for his commitment to human rights. During his term in office - he faced an oil crisis - a weak economy - and severe tension in the Middle East.






32. A third-party candidate in the 1992 presidential election who won 19 percent of the popular vote. His strong showing demonstrated voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties.






33. Passed in 1883. This act established a civil service exam for many public posts and created hiring systems based on merit rather than on patronage. The act aimed to eliminate corrupt hiring practices.






34. Republican - vice president to Ronald Reagan - and president of the US from 1989 to 1993. His presidency was marked by economic recession and US involvement in the Gulf War.






35. An important political figure during the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson. He engineered and championed the American System - a program aimed at economic self-sufficiency for the nation. As speaker of the house during Monroe's term in offi






36. A writer and a disciple of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. His major work - Leaves of Grass (1855) - celebrated America's diversity and democracy.






37. The popular name for the Kansas Territory in 1856 after abolitionist John Brown led a massacre at a pro-slavery camp - setting off waves of violence. Brown's massacre was in protest to the recent establishment of Kansas as a slave state. Pro-slavery






38. Coined by Stokely Carmichael - and adopted by Malcolm X - the Black Panthers - and other civil rights groups. The term embodied the fight against oppression and the value of ethnic heritage.






39. Although Andrew Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes in the 1824 election - he failed to win the requisite majority and the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay backed John Quincy Adams for






40. Andrew Jackon's 1832 veto of the proposed charter renewal for the Second Bank of the United States. The veto marked the beginning of Jackon's five-year battle against the national bank.






41. A time of religious fervor during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement arose in response to the Enlightenment's increased religious skepticism. Protestant ministers held revivals throughout the English colonies in America - stressing the need for indivi






42. A component of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. This act established an Office of Economic Opportunity to provide young Americans with job training. It also created a volunteer network devoted to social work and education in impovershed areas.






43. A name for the trade routes that linked England - its colonies in North America - the West Indies - and Africa. At each port - shipes were unloaded of goods from another port along the trade route - and then re-loaded with goods particular to that si






44. Written by Kate Chopin in 1899. This novel portrays a married woman who defies social convention first by falling in love with another man - and then by committing suicide when she finds that his views on women are as oppressive as her husband's. It






45. Trials of Nazi war criminals that began in November 1945. More than 200 defendants were indicted in the thirteen trials. All but thirty-eight of them were convicted of conspiring to wage aggressive war and of mistreating prisoners of war and inhabita






46. A communist revolutionary. Castro ousted an authoritarian regime in Cuba in 1959 and established the communist regime that remains in power to this day.






47. Once a prominent member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - he abandoned his nonviolent leanings and became a leader of the Black Nationalist movement in 1966. He coined the phrase "Black Power."






48. Written by Betty Friedan in 1963. This book was a rallying cry for the women's liberation movement. It denounced the belief that women should be tied to the home and encouraged women to get involved in activities outside their home and family.






49. One of the best known writers of the 1920s' "lost generation." An expatriate - he produced a number of famous works during the 1920s - including The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929). A member of the Popular Front - he fought in the






50. A small but prominent circle of writhers - poets - and intellectuals during the 1920s. Artists like Ernest Hemingway - F. Scott Fitzgerald - and Ezra Pound grew disillusioned with America's postwar culture - finding it overly materialistic and spirit