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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. Eisenhower's Cold War strategy - preferring deterrence to ground force involvement - and emphasizing the massive retaliatory potential of a large nuclear stockpile. Eisenhower worked to increase nuclear spending and decrease spending on ground troops






2. In March 1770 - a crowd of colonists protested against Boston customs agents and the Townsend Duties. Violence flared and five colonists were killed.






3. 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






4. Passed by Federalists in 1798 in response to the XYZ Affair and growing Democratic-Republican support. On the grounds of "national security -" the acts increased the number of years required to gain citizenship - allowed for the imprisonment and depo






5. 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."






6. A group of zealous Chinese nationalists terrorized foreigners and Chinese Christians - capturing Beijing (Peking) in June 1900 and threatening European and American interests in Chinese markets. The US committed 2 -500 men to an international force t






7. Early American fiction writer. His most famous work - The Scarlet Letter (1850) - explored the moral dilemmas of adultery in a Puritan community.






8. 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.






9. Created by FDR to cope with the added economic difficulties brought on by the cold winter months of 1933. The organization spent approximately $1 billion on short-term projects for the unemployed but was abolished in the spring of that year.






10. 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






11. A political group active in aiding the leftist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Prominent American intellectuals and writers - including Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos - joined the group.






12. 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.






13. The alleged leader of a group of Vikings who sailed to the eastern coast of Canada and attempted - unsuccessfully - to colonize the area around the year 1000- nearly 500 years before Columbus arrived in the Americas.






14. The final German offensive in Western Europe - lasting from December 16 - 1944 - to January 16 - 1945. Hitler amassed his last reserves against Allied troops in France. Germany made a substantial dent in the Allied front line - but the Allies recover






15. Written by Thomas Paine; published in three parts between 1794 and 1807. A critique of organized religion - the book was criticized as a defense of Atheism. Paine's argument is a prime example of the rationalist approach to religion inspired by Enlig






16. A fiction writer who gained popularity in the 1840s for his horrific tales. He published many famous stories - including "The Raven" (1844) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846).






17. Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal. This administration controlled the production and prices of crops by offering subsidies to farmers who stayed under set quotas. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in the Butler v US decision - in






18. Nonconformist writers such as Allan Ginsberg - the author of Howl (1956) - and Jack Kerouac - who penned On the Road (1957). They rejected uniform middle-class culture and sought to overturn the sexual and social conservatism of the period.






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






20. 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






21. Signed on Christmas Eve in 1815. Ended the War of 1812 and returned relations between the US and Britain to the way things were before the war.






22. 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.






23. Political figure throughout the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson. He served as James Monroe's secretary of war - as John Quincy Adam's vice president - and then as Andrew Jackson's vice president for one term. A firm believer in states' ri






24. Advocated isolationism and opposed FDR's reelection in 1940. Committee members urged neutrality - claiming that the US could stand alone regardless of Hitler's advances in Europe.






25. Signed in September 1940 by Germany - Italy - and Japan. These nations comprised the Axis powers of World War II.






26. A leading member of the women's suffrage movement. She served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1892 until 1900.






27. 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






28. Issued on August 14 - 1941 during a meeting between President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The charter outlined the ideal postwar world - condemned military aggression - asserted the right to national self-determination - a






29. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. His liberal court made a number of important decisions - primarily in the realm of civil rights - including Brown v Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.






30. Submitted by Benjamin Franklin to the 1754 gathering of colonial delegates in Albany - New York. The plan called for the colonies to unify in the face of French and Native American threats. Although the delegates in Albany approved the plan - the col






31. 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.






32. Head of the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972. He aggressively intestigated suspected subversives during the Cold War.






33. 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.






34. Smugglers of alcohol into the US during the Prohibition Era (1920-1933) - often from Canada or the West Indies.






35. Nickname for the 1950s - when economic prosperity caused US population to swell from 150 million to 180 million.






36. 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.






37. A series of raids coordinated by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Throughout 1910 - police and federal marshals raided the homes of suspected radicals and the headquarters of radical organizations in thirty-two cities. The raids resulted in more






38. Created by JFK in 1961. The organization sends volunteer teachers - health workers - and engineers on two-year aid programs to Third World countries.






39. 1795 treaty which provided for the removal of British troops from American land and opened up limited trade with the British West Indies - but said nothing about British seizure of American ships or the impressment of American sailors. While the Amer

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40. A dissenter who clashed with Massachusetts Puritans over the issue of seperation of church and state. After being banished from Massachusetts in 1636 - he traveled south - where he founded a colony in Rhode Island that granted full religious freedom






41. Passed in 1924. Established maximum quotas for immigration into the US. This law severely restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe - and excluded Asians entirely.






42. Founded in 1895 - the league spearheaded the prohibition movement during the Progressive Era.






43. In 1962 - a year after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion - the US government learned that Soviet missile bases were being constructed in Cuba. President JFK demanded that the USSR stop shipping military equipment to Cuba and remove the bases. US forces






44. Passed in 1918 as an amendment to the Espionage Act. Provided for the punishment of anyone using "disloyal - profane - scurrilous - or abusive language" in regard to the US government - flag - or military.






45. A moderate Democrat with support from both the North and South who served as president of the US from 1857 to 1861. He could not stem the tide of sectional conflict that eventually erupted into Civil War.






46. US Cold War policy - developed in the 1960s - that acknowledged that both the US and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weaponry to destroy each other many times over. This policy hoped to prevent outright war with the SU on the premise that any att






47. 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






48. The increase of available paper money and bank credit - leading to higher prices and less valuable currency.






49. Head of the Manhatten Project - the secret American operation to develop the atomic bomb.






50. Formed in the absence of support form the British crown - these companies accrued funding for colonization through the sale of public stock. They dominated English colonization throughout the seventeenth century.