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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. 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.






2. 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






3. 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






4. 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






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






6. 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






7. 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






8. Defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union from the Northwest Territory. The ordinace forbade slavery in the territory but allowed citizens to vote on the legality of slavery once statehood had been established.






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






10. 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 -






11. 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."






12. President of the Russian Republic in 1991 - when hard-line Communists attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. After helping to repel these hard-liners - he and the leaders of the other Soviet republics declared an end to the USSR - forcing Gorbache






13. 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






14. 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






15. 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.






16. In June 1948 - the Soviets attempted to cut off Western access to Berlin by blockading all road and rail routes to the city. In response - the US airlifted supplies to the city - a campaign known as "Operation Vittles." The blockade lasted until May






17. A political group active in aiding the leftist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Prominent American intellectuals and writers - including Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos - joined the group.






18. 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






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






20. 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.






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






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






23. 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






24. 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.






25. 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






26. 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.






27. 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






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






29. 1795 treaty which provided for the removal of British troops from American land and opened up limited trade with the British West Indies - but said nothing about British seizure of American ships or the impressment of American sailors. While the Amer

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30. 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.






31. 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.






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






33. 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.






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






35. 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.






36. Nickname given to northerners who moved South during Reconstruction in search of political and economic opportunity. The term was coined by Southern Democrats - who said that these northern opportunists had left home so quickly that they were able to






37. 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.






38. 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






39. 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






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






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. 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.






43. 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






44. 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






45. 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






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






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






48. 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






49. 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.






50. Republican - vice president to Ronald Reagan - and president of the US from 1989 to 1993. His presidency was marked by economic recession and US involvement in the Gulf War.