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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. Written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. Exposed the environmental hazards of the pesticide DDT. Carson's book helped spur an increase in environmental awareness and concern among the American people.






2. 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






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






4. A failed attempt by US-backed Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in April 1961.






5. 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






6. 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.






7. Conducted during the summer and fall of 1940. In preparation for an amphibious assault - Germans launched airstrikes on London. Hitlers hoped the continuous bombing would destroy British industry and hurt morale - but the British successfully avoided






8. 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.






9. Created in 1962. United college students throughout the country in a network committed to achieving racial equality - alleviating poverty - and ending the Vietnam War.






10. 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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11. 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






12. 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






13. Religious revivals on the frontier during the Second Great Awakening. Hundreds or even thousands of people- members of various dominations- met to hear speeches on repentance and sign hymns.






14. 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






15. 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."






16. An English explorer sponsered by the Dutch East India Company. In 1609 - he sailed up the river that now bears his name - nearly reaching present-day Albany. His explorations gave the Dutch territorial claims to the Hudson Bay region.






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






18. 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






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. 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






21. The principles established by the Constitution to prevent any one branch of government (legislative - executive - and judicial) from gaining too much power. They represent the solution to the problem of how to empower the central government while als






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






23. 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.






24. 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.






25. 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.






26. Signed by 12 Native American tribes after their defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The treaty cleared the Ohio territory of tribes and opened it up to US settlement.






27. 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






28. 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






29. 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






30. Led by future president William Henry Harrison - US forces defeated Shawnee forces in this battle in 1811. The US victory lessed the Native American threat in Ohio and Indiana.






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






32. A Scottish immigrant who in 1901 founded Carnegie Steel - then the world's largest corporation. In addition to being an entrepreneur and industrialist - he was a philanthropist who donated more than $300 million to charity during his lifetime.






33. After World War II - this organization workerd on developing more effective ways of usting nuclear material - such as uranium - in order to mass-produce nuclear weapons.






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






35. 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






36. Fought in Maryland on September 17 - 1863. Considered the single bloodiest day of the Civil War - casualties totalled more than 8 -000 dead and 18 -000 wounded. Although Union forces failed to defeat Lee and the Confederates - they did halt the Confe






37. 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.






38. The partnership of Great Britain - France - and Italy during World War I. The alliance was pitted against the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. In 1917 - the US joined the war on this side. During World War II - the coalition included Gr






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






40. Passed by Southerners in Congress in 1836. The rule tabled all abolitionist petitions in Congress and thereby prevented antislavery discussions. It was repealed in 1845 - under increased pressure from Northern abolitionists and those concerned with t






41. On June 3 and 4 - 1989 - China's communist army brutally crushed a pro-democracy protest here in Beijing. Diplomatic relations between the US and China significantly soured as a result of the attack.






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






43. Founded in 1886 - this organization sought to organize craft unions into a federation. The loose structure of the organization differed from its rival - the Knights of Labor - in that it allowed individual unions to remain autonomous. Eventually the






44. 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.






45. Primarily concerned with international espionage and information gathering. In the 1950s - this organization became heavily involved in many civil struggles in the Third World - supporting groups likely to cooperate with the US rather than the USSR.






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






47. 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






48. Granted freedmen a few basic rights but also enforced heavy civil restrictions based on race. They were enacted in Southern states under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan.






49. 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






50. 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