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






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






3. 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.






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






5. 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.






6. 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






7. Agreements employers forced potential employees to sign in which the employees agreed not to join unions or go on strike.






8. A tax that is added onto the price of goods produced - sold - or distributed within a country; for example - sales tax.






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






10. 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






11. 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






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






13. 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






14. A belief in the ability of people to achieve success in difficult times by calling on their own abilities and resources without the interference of the government. Herbert Hoover subscribed to this notion; it affected the development of governmental






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






16. The principal that the Supreme Court has the power to review laws passed by Congress and actions taken by the president to determine whether or not they are consistent with the Constitution. The Supreme Court can declare a law or presidential action






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






18. 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






19. 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






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






21. The belief the the US should not be involved in world affairs.






22. The process of acquiring new territories






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






24. The practice of victorious candidates distributing government jobs to friends and supporters rather than to the most qualified people. Andre Jackson gave his supporters the spoils of victory - whereas John Quincy Adams by and large did not.






25. Hit and run tactics combined with hiding and ambushing the enemy. The soldier would live off the land and population in an area so that he or she need not carry many supplies. The Americans learned this from the Indians in colonial times and used it






26. A global pact initiated in 1997 and put into force in 2005 designed to reduce greenhouse emissions to levels that would avoid climate change. The United States is not one of the 187 nations who have ratified the pact.






27. The policy used by the British before the War of 1812 wherein the British stopped US vessels and removed sailors from them to be used on British naval vessels. it was also used to a limited extent by the French during this same period. It was one of






28. 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 separation of powers.






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






30. A type of government characterized by a loose alliance of states leading to a weak central government and strong state governments. This was the type of government that existed under the Articles of Confederation.






31. An indictment or formal charge brought by the legislative body against a government official - especially the president - in an attempt to remove him or her from office. If the House of Representatives determines that a president has committed acts t






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






33. 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.






34. 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






35. 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






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






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






38. A prosecutor chosen by a panel of three judges (appointed by the attorney general) to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch. Established after the Watergate Scandal - the role was designed to prevent conflict of interest within the executive






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






40. 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






41. 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.






42. 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






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






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






45. 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






46. 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.






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






48. Teenagers - as an identifiable social group - emerged in the 1950s. Teenagers were seen both as a problematic - rebellious group - as well as a target for new products and cultural offerings.






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






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