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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. 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.






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. Husband and wife who - in 1950 - were accused of spying for the Soviets. They countered the accusation on the grounds that their Jewish background and leftist beliefs made them easy targets for persecution. In a trial closely followed by the American






4. 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






5. 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.






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






7. 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.






8. The series of French and American naval conflicts occuring between 1798 and 1800.






9. 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."






10. In September 1939 - FDR persuaded Congress to pass a new - amended Neutrality Act - which allowed warring nations to purchase arms from the US as long as they paid in cash and carried the arms away on their own ships. This program allowed the US to a






11. 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.






12. Anarchist Italian immigrants who were charged with murder in Massachusetts in 1920 and sentenced to death. The case against them was circumstantial and poorly argued - although evidence now suggests that they were in fact guilty. It was significant -






13. 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






14. Was the leader of Iraq. In August 1990 - he lead an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait - sparking the Gulf War.






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






16. Founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent clergymen. Fought against segregation using nonviolent means.






17. 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






18. 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






19. 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






20. 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






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






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






23. 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."






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






25. 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






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






27. The last Soviet political leader. He became general secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the USSR in 1988. He helped ease tension between the US and the USSR- work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He oversaw the fal






28. 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






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. Issued in 1941 in response to German submarine attacks on American ships in the Atlantic ocean. The order authorized naval patrols to fire on any Axis ships found between the US and Iceland.






31. 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






32. 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






33. 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).






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






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






36. 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






37. 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






38. 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.






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






40. 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






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






42. Writer who satirized political leaders and American society in the 1920s. His magazine American Mercury served as the journalistic counterpart to the postwar disillusionment of the "lost generation."






43. 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.






44. 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.






45. 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






46. 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






47. The relaxation of tensions between the US and USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period - the two powers signed treaties limiting nuclear arms productions and opened up economic relations. one of the most famous advocates of this policy was Pre






48. 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.






49. 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






50. Passed by Congress in 1882 amid a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment among American workers. The act banned Chinese immigration for ten years.






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