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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. Influenced by the spirit of rationalism - these people believed that God - like a celestial clockmaker - had created a perfect universe and then stepped back to let it operate according to natural laws.






2. 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






3. 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






4. 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.






5. 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.






6. 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






7. 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.






8. 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






9. 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






10. 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."






11. 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.






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. 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






14. 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






15. 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.






16. 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.






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






19. 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






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






21. 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.






22. Son of John Adams and president from 1825 to 1829. As James Monroe's secretary of state - he workerd to expand the nation's borders and authorized the Monroe Doctrine. His presidency was largely ineffectie due to lack of popular support; Congress blo






23. 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 -






24. 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






25. 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






26. 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.






27. Organized in 1966 in Oakland - California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The group stressed black pride - economic self-sufficiency - and armed resistance to white oppression.






28. 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.






29. 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.






30. 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






31. 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.






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






33. 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






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






35. Signed in 1975 by Gerald Ford - Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev - and the leaders of thirty-one other states in a promise to solidify European boundaries - respect human rights - and permit freedom of travel.






36. 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






37. 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.






38. 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






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. 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.






41. 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






42. 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






43. 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






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






45. 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."






46. 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.






47. 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






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






49. 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.






50. 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