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






2. 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






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






4. 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.






5. 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






6. 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.






7. 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






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






9. 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.






10. 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.






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






12. 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






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






14. 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






15. 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






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






17. 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






18. 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.






19. 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






20. 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.






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






22. 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






23. 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






24. 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.






25. 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






26. 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






27. The English government's policy of not enforcing certain trade laws it imposed upon the American colonies throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The purpose of this policy was largely to ensure the loyalty of the colonies in






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






29. 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






30. 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






31. 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.






32. 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.






33. 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






34. Also the Compromise of 1820. Resolved the conflict surrounding the admission of Missouri to the Union as either a slave or free state. The compromise made Missouri a slave state - admitted Maine as a free state - and prohibited slavery in the remaind






35. 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






36. 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.






37. 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






38. 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






39. 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.






40. 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






41. 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.






42. 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.






43. A Frenchman who explored the Great Lakes and established the first French colony in North America at Quebec in 1608.






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






45. 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.






46. 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






47. 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.






48. 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






49. 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






50. 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