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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. President Eisenhower's philosophy of government. He called it this to distinguish it from the Republican administrations of the past - which he deemed backword-looking and complacent. He was determined to work with the Democratic Party rather than ag






2. 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






3. 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






4. 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






5. A prominent author during the Roaring Twenties - he wrote stories and novels that both glorified and criticized the wild lives of the carefree and prosperous. His most famous works include This Side of Paradise - published in 1920 - and The Great Gat






6. 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






7. 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.






8. A 1836 executive order issued by President Jackson in an attempt to stabilize the economy - which had been dramatically expanding since the early 1830s due to state banks' excessive lending practices and over-speculation. It required that all land pa






9. 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






10. The stock market crash of October 24 - 1929. After a decade of great prosperity - on this day the market dropped in value by an astonishing 9 percent - kicking off the Great Depression.






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






12. Argued against American imperialism in the late 1890s. Its members included William James - Andrew Carnegie - and Mark Twain.






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






14. 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






15. In 1676 - Nathaniel Bacon - a Virginia planter - accused the royal governer of failing to provide poorer farmers protection from raiding tribes. In response - Bacon led 300 settlers against local Native Americans - and then burned and looted Jamestow

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16. Chartered in 1791 - the bank was a controversial part of Hamilton's Federalist economic program.






17. Adopted in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. They established the first limited central government of the US - reserving most powers for the individual states. However they didn't grant enough federal power to manage the country's budget or maintain






18. 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."






19. A meeting of Federalists near the end of the War of 1812 - in which the New England-based party enumerated its complaints against the ruling Democratic-Republican party. The Federalists - already losing power steadily - hoped that antiwar sentiment w






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






21. 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 -






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. 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.






24. 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.






25. A series of twelve letters published by John Dickinson. The letters denounced the Townsend Duties by demonstrating that many ot the arguments employed against the Stamp Act were valid against the Townsend Duties as well. The letters inspired anti-Bri






26. 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






27. 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






28. 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.






29. 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.






30. 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.






31. Written by Helen Hunt Jackson and published in 1881 - this work attempted to raise public awareness of the harsh and dishonorable treatment of Native Americans at the hands of the US.






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






33. The first ten amendments of the Constitution - which guarantee the civil rights of American citizens. Drafted by anti-federalists - including James Madison - to protect individuals from the tyranny they felt the Constitution might permit.






34. Founded in 1920 - this organization seeks to protect the civil liberties of individuals - often by bringing "test cases" to court in order to challange questionable laws. In 1925 - the organization challanged a Christian fundamentalist law in the Sco






35. 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






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






37. Ronald Reagan's economic philosophy which held that a capitalist system free from taxation and government involvement would be most productive. Reagan believed that the prosperity of the rich upper class would "trickle down" to the poor.






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






39. 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.






40. 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






41. 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.






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 leader of the transcendentalist movemetn and an advocate of American literary nationalism. He published a number of influential essays during the 1830s and 1840s - including "Nature" and "Self Reliance."






44. 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.






45. Passed in March 1941. Allowed the president to lend or lease supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the US -" such as Britain - and was a key move in support ot the Allied cause before the US formally entered World War II. Was extende






46. A French sailor who explored the St. Lawrence River region between 1534 and 1542. He searched for a Northwest Passage - a waterway through which ships could cross the Americas and access Asia. He found no such passage but opened the region up to futu






47. 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






48. A prominant publisher who bought the New York Journal in the late 1890s. His paper - along with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World - engaged in yellow journalism - printing sensational reports of Spanish activities in Cuba in order to win a circulation






49. A protest against the 1773 Tea Act - which allowed Britain to use the profits from selling tea to pay the salaries of royal governers. In December 1773 - Samuel Adams gathered Boston residents and warned them of the consequences of the Tea Act. Follo






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