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SAT Subject Test: U.S. History Vocab

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. A type of colony that was settled by a group of investors and in which the governor of the colony was chosen by the proprietors.






2. A program providing health care for the needy (people who lived below the poverty level) who were not covered by Medicare.






3. Tax paid by those wishing to vote in several Southern states after Reconstruction. It was designed to limit political participation by African Americans.






4. An organization and discussion method employed by feminists in the late 1960s and early 1970s in which women would exchange experiences of discrimination - read radical analyses of oppression - and develop an understanding that the patriarchal or som






5. The series of laws designed to create separation between the races. These were by and large Southern state laws made constitutional by the Supreme Court decision Plessy. v Ferguson in 1896.






6. The process of acquiring new territories






7. Laws passed in the Southern states immediately after the Civil War to restrict the movements and limit the rights of African Americans.






8. A country whose affairs are partly controlled by a stronger country. The US established several protectorates - such as Cuba - in the 20th century.






9. Motion pictures with sound. The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first movie to use sound in a significant way.






10. The promotion of products in various media. Modern advertising - employing psychology - expert testimony - and other innovations developed in the 1920s.






11. A slogan used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to describe his goal of ending poverty in the United States.






12. A list of persons - often secretly circulated - who are disapproved of and are to be denied employment or other benefits.






13. A system of government in which the power to rule comes from the people.






14. A type of coal - noted for being hard and clean burning.






15. Reading tests required in some Southern states before people were allowed to register to vote. They were mainly intended to prevent African Americans from voting.






16. An indictment or formal charge brought by the legislative body against a government official - especially the president - in an attempt to remove the person from office. If the House of Representatives determines that a president has committed acts t






17. A slave owner in early Virginia or Maryland; later - according to the census - a man who owned 20 or more slaves.






18. A high tax placed on imports. Its purpose is to make domestic goods cheaper than foreign goods - thus "protecting" domestic industry.






19. Techniques used in industry to produce large quantities of goods using interchangeable parts and moving assembly lines. Elements of mass production were developed in the 19th century; the process was perfected by Henry Ford in the 1910s.






20. The political position that opposes abortion.






21. Provisions in the voting laws in Southern states following Reconstruction designed to allow whites who could not pass literacy tests to vote. The grandfather clause gave the right to vote to people whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote-a provi






22. The political position that claimed that we could have won the Vietnam War if we had declared war - put in more troops - had a more unified country - or given our generals free reign to fight. These positions are called revisionist because the consen






23. A treaty in which the parties agree not to attack each other unless attacked first.






24. A legislature composed of only one house or chamber.






25. A company that developed in the early 1600s in England wherein a group of investors pooled their money to finance exploration of the new World. The investor would receive a portion of the profits resulting from the exploration of the New World based






26. Umbrella term for biological - chemical - and nuclear weapons designed to kill large numbers of people.






27. The policy used by the British before the War of 1812 wherein the British stopped US vessels and removed sailors from them to be used on British naval vessels. it was also used to a limited extent by the French during this same period. It was one of






28. This clause - found in the last paragraph of Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution - allows Congress to make laws not specifically delegated to it by the Constitution but that may be "necessary and proper" to carry out its delegated powers. (Als






29. George W. Bush's belief in the propriety of using unilateral preemptive military strikes-essentially a preventive war- to fight terrorism.






30. Trade that takes place between states. Under the US Constitution - the power to regulate interstate commerce is delegated to the Congress.






31. Anti-communism crusade of the 1950s led by Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was characterized by irresponsible accusations and smear campaigns.






32. Lincoln's contention that the Union pre-existed the Constitution because it began with the Articles of Association in 1774-since the states had signed on to that document - the Union could not be broken. He discussed this theory in his first inaugura






33. Technique of the labor movement in the 1930s that entailed stopping work but not leaving the factory floor - as owners were not able to hire replacement workers so long as the workers occupied the shop floor.






34. Agricultural labor system in the South following the era of slavery wherein a sharecropper could farm a piece of land in return for giving the landowner a share - usually half - of the crop.






35. Machine-made or standardized parts that could be put together to make a product. Eli Whitney demonstrated to President John Adams in 1801 how a box of guns could be disassembled and reassembled randomly. Each part must be precision-made so that it wi






36. The term denoting the ongoing military battle of the US and its allies against terrorism - first used by George W. Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress following the terrorist attacks on September 11 - 2001.






37. Derisive term for US foreign policy in the early 20th century designed to protect the investments of US corporations in Latin America.






38. An economic system in which a colony exists for the good of the mother country. The colony's role is to provide raw materials for the mother country (especially products that the mother country cannot produce itself) and serve as a market for the goo






39. A term used to describe the ability of people to move within the social framework of a society. If the social system provides opportunities for a person born into a lower social class to move to an upper one - or vice versa - a characteristic of the






40. The political position that favors abortion on demand.






41. The belief that the United States should not be involved in world affairs.






42. Blacks who had been freed from slavery or were not born slaves. They lived in the cities and countryside in both the North and the South. In 1860 - there were about 500 -000 free blacks evenly distributed between the North and the South.






43. Progressive-era reform that created a mechanism for voters to approve or reject legislation placed on the ballot. It was designed to weaken the power of entrenched political machines.






44. A grouping of nations where each one pledges mutual support to the others. This support is usually defensive in nature. The formation of alliances was a nunderlying cause of WWI.






45. A type of government characterized by a loose alliance of states leading to a weak central government and strong state governments. This was the type of government that existed under the Articles of Confederation.






46. The exodus of white - middle-class families from cities to suburbia following WWII due to the migration of African Americans to urban centers.






47. An increase in number - volume - scope. In reference to the Vietnam War - it refers to the increase in the number of troops and the intensity of involvement by the United States.






48. 1) The political theory that the people hold the fundamental power in a democracy 2) The proposal by Steven Douglas in the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act stating that the people of the territory of Kansas and Nebraska could decide though their representati






49. The idea that the Constitution was created by the states and so the states could dissolve it. This was advocated first by Madison and Jefferson in 1798 in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and later by Robert Y Hayne in his debate with Daniel Web






50. A system of government in which the religious leaders rule. A church-state - where the church is the government - is an example.