Test your basic knowledge |

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. 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.






2. 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






3. 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






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






5. 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






6. 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






7. Delegates from five states met in Annapolis in September 1786 to discuss interstate commerce. However - discussions of weaknesses in the government led them to suggest to Congress a new convention to amend the Articles of Confederation.






8. Nonconformist writers such as Allan Ginsberg - the author of Howl (1956) - and Jack Kerouac - who penned On the Road (1957). They rejected uniform middle-class culture and sought to overturn the sexual and social conservatism of the period.






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






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






11. 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.






12. 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






13. 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






14. During ratification - these people opposed the Constitution on the grounds that it gave the federal government too much political - economic - and military control. They instead advocated a decentralized governmental structure that granted the most p






15. A report issued in 1957 by Truman's Presidential Committee on Civil Rights. The report called form the elimination of segregation.






16. 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.






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






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






19. Written by Thomas Paine; published in three parts between 1794 and 1807. A critique of organized religion - the book was criticized as a defense of Atheism. Paine's argument is a prime example of the rationalist approach to religion inspired by Enlig






20. Ronald Reagan's economic philosophy which held that a capitalist system free from taxation and government involvement would be most productive. Reagan believed that the prosperity of the rich upper class would "trickle down" to the poor.






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






22. Issued on August 14 - 1941 during a meeting between President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The charter outlined the ideal postwar world - condemned military aggression - asserted the right to national self-determination - a






23. 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






24. 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.






25. 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






26. 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






27. 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






28. The centerpiece of a congressional effort to restrict union activity. The act - passed in 1947 - banned certain union practices and allowed the president to call for an eighty-day cooling off period to delay strikes thought to pose risks to national






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

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


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






31. Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal - this organization pumped money into the economy by employing the destitute in conservation and other projects.






32. 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






33. 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






34. 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.






35. A reformer and pacifist best known for founding Hull House in 1889. Hull House provided educational services to poor immigrants.






36. 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






37. 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






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






39. 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






40. 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






41. 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






42. 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






43. 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






44. A radical Protestant group that sought to "purify" the Church of England from within. Persecuted for their beliefs - many of them fled to the New World in the early 1600s - where they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in present-day Boston. Th






45. 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.






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






47. 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.






48. 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.






49. 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.






50. 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