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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. Bundles of subprime mortgages that are traded like stocks.






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






3. 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.






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






5. 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






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






7. A body of advisers to a head of state. The US president's cabinet consists of the heads of the various departments plus other advisers.






8. 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.






9. A land policy developed in the 1600s in Virginia and Maryland designed to encourage settlement in the New World. It promised 50 acres to any person who paid his own passage to the New World. It also promised an additional 50 acres to any person who p






10. 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.






11. The railroad route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that was completed in 1869.






12. The process of acquiring new territories






13. The post-WWII US policy that sought to prevent the spread of communism.






14. Grangers - Populists - and agrarian activists of the late 19th century who advocated basing money o silver as well as gold. See Free Silverites.






15. 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.






16. 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






17. 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






18. People who illegally manufactured - sold - or transported alcoholic beverages during the Prohibition period.






19. 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.






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






21. 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






22. An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods is determined by individual consumer preference. It is characterized by the free-enterprise system - competition - profit motive - and pricing based on the laws of supply and demand






23. Persons who do not represent a state or nation who participate in military conflict and do not adhere to accepted rules of war. According to the Bush administration - unlawful combatants captured on the battlefield and detained off of US soil are not






24. The difference in the votes of men and women. Often men vote Republican in larger numbers that women - who are more likely to vote Democratic - producing a gender gap.






25. 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






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






27. 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.






28. 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






29. The political idea that the West should be free of slavery. In 1846 - David Wilmot wrote the proviso that there "shall be no slavery or involuntary servitude in any territory acquired from Mexico -" which galvanized the antislavery forces in Congress






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






31. 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






32. 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.






33. The mixed race of people that developed as a result of the intermarriage of the Spanish and Native American populations in the 16th and 17th centuries.






34. 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.






35. The political act of leaving the Union. The Southern states formed their own country during 1860-1861 after they seceded from the United States.






36. A term used to describe a person who believes that the Consitution must be interpreted word by word. Thomas Jefferson believed in strict construction of the Constitution.






37. 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.






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






39. 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






40. The practice of granting the firstborn son the right to all the inheritance of the parent's estate - rather than subdividing it and giving portions to all offspring.






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. The reaction of some whites to the Civil Rights Movement and the urban riots of the 1960s. The formerly solidly Democratic South started voting Republican following the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s - and many whites sent their kids






43. 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






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






45. A conference attended by leaders of two or more nations.






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






47. 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






48. 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






49. 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






50. 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.