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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. Progressive-era reform that created a mechanism for voters to approve or reject legislation placed on the ballot. It was designed to weaken the power of entrenched political machines.






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






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






4. A policy developed by the Spanish in the 1500s in which the Spanish settlers in the New World were permitted to use Native American labor if the settlers promised to attempt to Christianize them. It led to the exploitation of the Native Americans






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






6. 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.






7. 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.






8. Coins or gold and silver money - also called "hard money."






9. 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.






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






11. The economic state in which prices are rising (inflation) and unemployment is high - producing stagnation of growth.






12. 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






13. 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.






14. 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.






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






16. 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






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






18. 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.






19. 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.






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






21. Blacks who had been freed from slavery or were not born slaves. They lived in the cities and countryside in both the North and the South. In 1860 - there were about 500 -000 free blacks evenly distributed between the North and the South.






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






23. 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






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






25. 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.






26. 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.






27. Populists and "Silver Democrats" who in the 1890s argued in favor of an immense increase in silver coinage as a way of stimulating a faltering economy. See Bimetallists.






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






29. 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






30. 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






31. 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






32. 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






33. 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






34. The study of the environment.






35. The political position that opposes abortion.






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






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






38. 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






39. 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






40. 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






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






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






43. 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






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






45. 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.






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






47. 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






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






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






50. 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