Test your basic knowledge |

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 method of mass production whereby the products are moved from worker to worker - with each person performing a small - repetitive task on the product and sending it to the next for a different task until the finished item is assembled. In the 18th






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






3. The traditions - language - and modes of behavior of the field hands who lived together in slave quarters. They practiced many forms of resistance to the wills of their masters - told each other African-derived tales - sand spirituals - and practiced






4. Derisive term for Northerners who went to the South during Reconstruction to promote reform or to profit from it.






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






6. The process of acquiring new territories






7. Perfected by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1844 - the telegraph allowed for communications over long distances by tapping out coded messages to be carried over wires.






8. 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.






9. 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






10. Worker organization formed to press for workplace demands - such as better wages and safer working conditions.






11. A term coined in the 1950s to describe illegal or undesirable behavior by teenagers.






12. The name used by the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson to describe its domestic programs.






13. 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.






14. A type of colony controlled by the king. The crown chose the governor to run the colony.






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






16. 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.






17. 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






18. Also called "applied Christianity -" this reform movement - driven by Christian teachings - sought to relieve the suffering of the poor.






19. 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.






20. 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






21. A type of adjustable-rate mortgage - often requiring no down payment - offered to customers with risky credit ratings. The lending institution makes money by steadily increasing interest payments.






22. The political advocacy of black-owned businesses and independent black political action. Stokely Carmichael first used the term in a position paper for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1965.






23. The political position that opposes abortion.






24. Labor in which the worker can leave whenever he or she wishes (as opposed to slave labor). Wage labor or work for pay is free labor.






25. The political and social conviction that only white Protestant Americans deserved civil rights and employment. Nativists tried to prevent the Irish and the new immigrants of the 1880's-1920's from becoming citizens or entering the country. The Know-N






26. The movement to end slavery. There were many points of view on the subject. Immediate abolitionism advocated ending slavery everywhere and refusing to cooperate with the political process (William Lloyd Garrison). Political abolitionism advocated an






27. 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






28. The practice of paying for goods at regular intervals - usually with interest added to the balance - associated with consumption in the 1920s.






29. Trade that takes place within the boundaries of a state. Under the US Constitution - the power to regulate intrastate commerce is delegated to the states.






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






31. The study of the environment.






32. The result of a general shift in society in the 1920s characterized by a greater emphasis on purchasing goods.






33. The policy of supplying government support for corporations when they are in severe financial trouble. The Chrysler Corporation - for example - got a $1.5 billion bailout in 1980 - and the savings and loan banks received at least $159 billion during






34. The policy practiced by the European nations prior to WWII wherein they made concessions to aggressive nations-particularly - Hitler's Germany-in hopes of satisfying the demands of that nation and ending further aggression.






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






36. 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.






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






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






39. The joining together of companies to control all aspects of the production process of an item - from the mining or growing of materials through production and distribution of the final product.






40. Philosophical movement - with deep roots in the United States - which holds that truth emerges from experimentation and experience rather than from abstract theory. it is associated with William James and John Dewey.






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






42. Organizations - such as the underground press - Students for a Democratic Society and its offshoots - and women's groups (like the Red Stockings) - that were interested in social change but uninterested in the debates over whether to support Russia a






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






44. 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






45. The name used by the administration of John F. Kennedy to describe its proposed programs for the nation.






46. Laws made by the British government restricting colonial trade of sugar and tobacco to any country other than England or by any means other than on British ships.






47. 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.






48. 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






49. The exodus of white - middle-class families from cities to suburbia following WWII - partially caused by the migration of African Americans to urban centers.






50. 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