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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 conference attended by leaders of two or more nations.






2. A person who believes in the broad interpretation of the US Constitution; that is - that the Constitution does not have to be interpreted word by word. Alexander Hamilton supported this idea.






3. Sensationalist - lurid - and often falsified accounts of events printed by newspapers and magazines to attract readers.






4. 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






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






6. Government policy of noninterference in business practices and in individuals economic affairs; literally translated as "to let do."






7. 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






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






10. Derisive term for white Southerners who cooperated with the Reconstruction governments.






11. The killing of African Americans - usually by hanging - carried out by white mobs primarily in the Southern states.






12. 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.






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






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






15. 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.






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






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. 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.






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






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






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






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






23. A form of nonviolent protest used by antiwar and antisegregation activists. Protesters would take over buildings - camp out in front of administration offices - or sit at lunch counters and demand to be served on an integrated basis. The first sit-in






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






25. 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.






26. The practice of buying stock on credit. People pay a small percentage of the price of the stock - hoping that it will go up in value and that they can use money from the sale to pay the balance they owe. This practice contributed to the stock market






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






28. Large corporations created by the consolidation of competing companies to form a monopoly or near monopoly.






29. 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.






30. The political position that opposes abortion.






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






32. 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






33. The political events of the 1960s divided the country in many ways. There were pro-Vietnam hawks and anti-Vietnam doves - those who supported the counterculture of liberated sex and drugs and those who did not - those who favored American involvement






34. 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






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






36. The political position advocating sending free blacks to Liberia in Africa to reduce the number of them in the country-the more blacks that were freed - the fewer there would be in America. It was seen as a way of alleviating the danger of slave insu






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






38. The political belief that America's obvious future was to "o'er spread the continent -" in the words of John O'Sullivan in 1846. A corollary was that Americans would bring democracy to the "ignorant and inferior" peoples of the West. The Mexican War






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






40. 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






41. 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






42. 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.






43. A term used to describe an investment with a reward that can be great-if the investment is successful. It contributed to the stock market crash of 1929.






44. 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






45. 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






46. A policy of empire building in which a nation conquers other nations with an aim toward increasing its power and controlling those nations. This was a cause of WWI.






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






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 formal or official approval for a constitution or amendment.






50. 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