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






2. The characteristic of a federal system of government in which power is distributed between central and local governments. This distribution of power usually is established through some outside source - often a constitution - as is the case in the Uni






3. A list - circulated among potential employers - of alleged "troublemakers" not to be hired.






4. The series of violent reactions to police brutality - poor living conditions - assassinations - and high unemployment from 1964-1968. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) called them a reaction to the rising expecta






5. A practice used in colonial America in which a person entered into a contract for a specified period of time with another in exchange for the payment of his or her passage to the New World. The indentured servant was sometimes promised some land afte






6. A machine that separates seeds from the cotton. The short-staple cotton that grew inland in the South's Black Belt could be cleaned profitably only with the cotton gin. The invention of the cotton gin allowed cotton cultivation to spread - enabling s






7. Derogatory term used by the labor movement to describe workers who cross picket lines






8. The Eisenhower-era theory that one communist country would infiltrate or influence its neighbors - supporting insurrection there and causing them to become communist too. They would fall like a series of dominoes standing close together. Kennedy - Jo






9. A type of economic system in which the state controls the production and distribution of certain products that it deems necessary for the good of the people.






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






11. Large plantation-type farm established by the Dutch along the Hudson River in the 1600s.






12. Cattle handlers who drove large herds across the southern Great Plains. The era of the cowboy lasted from 1870 to the late 1880s.






13. Laws enacted in many states based on religious bans of personal behavior deemed immoral; for example - law prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sundays.






14. The formal or official approval for a constitution or amendment.






15. The building of canals - railroads - and turnpikes at state or federal expense. These were part of the American Plan - which became an important part of the Whig program of the 1830s. Internal improvements were also supported by the National Republic






16. The condition when all male adults in a democracy are granted the right to vote.






17. The British policy of the 17th century in which the British were lax in the enforcement of laws in the colonies - thereby allowing the colonies to develop without much interference from the British government. After the French and Indian War - this p






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






19. 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






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






21. An agricultural system in which farm workers supply their own tools - rent land - and have more control over their work than agrarian wage workers.






22. Those who were pro-Vietnam war in the 1960s.






23. President Roosevelt's (FDR) attempt in 1936 to push a judicial reform bill through Congress that would allow him to appoint six new Supreme Court justices sympathetic to his New Deal.






24. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was called the "Second Reconstruction" because the first Reconstruction in the 1860s and 1870s had not brought equality for blacks.






25. Middle-class reform movement of the first decades of the 20th century which sought to widen political participation - eradicate corruption - and apply scientific and technological expertise to social ills.






26. 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






27. 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.






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






29. The theory that the path to economic growth is through tax cuts for the rich - who will then invest in new businesses and expand old ones - employing new workers as a result.






30. The economic state in which prices are rising (inflation) and unemployment is high - producing stagnation of growth.






31. Those who were against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.






32. A type of colony in which the people of the colony chose the governor of the colony. Rhode Island was a self-governing colony.






33. Found in the 10th Amendment - it provides that any powers not specifically given to the central government or specifically denied to the state governments by the Constitution are powers that the states are granted. For example - the power to develop






34. Cotton that grew inland in the Black Belt of the South - an area characterized by its dark soil. Short-staple cotton could not be grown profitably until the cotton gin was invented.






35. The political position advocated by Jerry Falwell - Pat Robertson - and other conservative Republicans emphasizing a life of religious observance along with no drugs - no divorce - no abortions - no homosexuality - no working mothers - and no sex bef






36. A defiant act of the colonies against the British government and its tea trade agreement with East India - which was causing colonial tea merchants to go bankrupt. Protesters dumped an entire shipment of tea into the Boston Harbor.






37. A type of democracy in which the people vote on the actions of the government - rather than electing representatives.






38. 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.






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






40. 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






41. Popular music genre - with roots in African American rhythm and blues and "doo-wop." It developed in the 1950s and was popularized by Elvis Presley.






42. The movement to form labor organizations that represent every worker in a single industry - regardless of his or her level of skill.






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






44. A tax placed on imports; its purpose is to make domestic goods cheaper to keep out foreign goods.






45. A political philosophy that promotes solving social issues through cooperation with private agencies rather than through direct government programs. It also stresses the personal responsibility and accountability as keys to success.






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






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






48. 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






49. Opposition to communism. Extreme anti-communism was manifested in the "Red Scare" of the 1920s and McCarthyism of the 1950s.






50. Journalists of the Progressive era who exposed urban poverty - unsafe working conditions - political corruption - and other social ills.