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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. 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.






2. 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.






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






4. Bundles of subprime mortgages that are traded like stocks.






5. An invention of the 1870's - barbed wire enabled farmers to enclose land and prevent the long cattle drives that cowboys conducted.






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






7. 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






8. A tax on imports (goods coming into a country). Tariffs were advocated by Alexander Hamilton in 1792 and favored by the supporters of the American System to pay for internal improvements and protect US industry. Tariffs were often a main issue in Jac






9. 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






10. 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






11. A policy of empire building in which a nation conquers other nations or territories with the goal of increasing its power and expanding the area it controls. This was a cause of WWI.






12. 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.






13. 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.






14. Settlers who were granted plots in the West - usually of 160 acres - under the Homestead Act of 1862.






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






16. A legislature composed of two houses. The US Congress - composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives - is an example.






17. 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






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






19. The development of large military forces - not only for defense of the nation but for possible aggression into other nations. It was one of the causes of WWI.






20. The generation of children born between the end of WWII and 1964.






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






22. Critical term for the owners of the big business of the Gilded Age who accumulated great wealth and power.






23. 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






24. The joining together of companies engaged in similar business practices to create a virtual monopoly.






25. A political system dominated by two parties. Voters reluctance to support third parties reinforces the two-party system. The first two-party system - dating back to the 1970s - included the Federalist and Republican Parties. The current two-party sys






26. A form of educational protest at universities. The practice began in 1965 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor - when professors and students analyzed US foreign policy and debated with each other and-only in the earlier days of the war-with go






27. 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.






28. The conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States from the end of WWII until the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). It was characterized by harsh rhetoric - technological rivalry - an arms buildup - and proxy wars in developing countries.






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






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






31. The system built into the US Constitution in which the three branches of government (legislative - executive - and judicial) have separate and equal powers that are limited and dependent upon each other. It is also called checks and balances.






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






33. A court order stopping a specific act - often used against unions to end a strike.






34. A skilled worker who had learned a trade from a master as an apprentice. Shoemakers - bakers - blacksmiths. and carpenters were artisans.






35. 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.






36. The study of the environment.






37. A policy in which one people or a group within a nation attempts to destroy people whose ethnic background differs from theirs.






38. 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






39. Residential communities near large urban centers. Although suburbs existed in the 19th century - they became a widespread social phenomenon in the 1950s.






40. The idea that machinery eliminates the need for human employment-that the development of new machine-based methods of work can lead to workers' losing their jobs.






41. 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.






42. Art and literature that seek to depict the commonplace in a plausible and direct manner.






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






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






45. The idea that each member of the British Parliament represented all British subjects - regardless of location.






46. Powers given to the national/federal government that are specifically stated in the Constitution. They are found in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution and may also be known as expressed or enumerated powers.






47. A program providing health insurance and health care for people over the age of 65.






48. 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.






49. Lincoln's Civil War policy of treating runaway slaves as enemy war property. He accepted the slaves as a way to hurt the Southern cause. They were freed and employed as aides to the Union army until Lincoln started recruiting black troops after the E






50. 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