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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. Political party organizations that run cities and are often associated with corruption and undemocratic practices. The most notorious example was New York's Tammary Hall Democratic club of the Gilded age.






2. The 19th and early 20th century movement to limit or outlaw the drinking of alcoholic beverages. The movement achieved its ultimate success with the passage of the 18th Amendment-or Prohibition- which went into effect in 1920.






3. An element of President Truman's 1947 Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program - which was designed to weed out communists and other "subversives" from government employment.






4. 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.






5. Trade that takes place between states. Under the US Constitution - the power to regulate interstate commerce is delegated to the Congress.






6. 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.






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






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






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






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






11. The policy of supplying government support for corporations when they are in severe financial trouble. The Chrysler Corporation - for example - got a $1.5 billion bailout in 1980 - and the savings and loan banks received at least $159 billion during






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






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






14. The political position that favors abortion on demand.






15. 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






16. 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.






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






18. The power of the president to reject legislation. The US Congress can override a veto by the US president if it can pass the legislation by a two-thirds majority.






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






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






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






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






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






24. 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






25. A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's nation. For people under the control of a foreign power - nationalism is expressed as a desire that one's nation should become a free and independent country. For people who already live in an indepe






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






27. The movement to form labor organizations made up of skilled wokrers within a particular field.






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






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. 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






31. 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






32. George W. Bush's belief in the propriety of using unilateral preemptive military strikes-essentially a preventive war- to fight terrorism.






33. An economic system in which a colony exists for the good of the mother country. The colony's role is to provide raw materials for the mother country (especially products that the mother country cannot produce itself) and serve as a market for the goo






34. 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






35. Popular music genre - with roots in African American rhythm and blues and "doo-wop." It developed in the 1950s and was popularized by Elvis Presley.






36. 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






37. 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.






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






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






40. 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.






41. 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






42. 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






43. 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






44. 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.






45. 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.






46. 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






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






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






49. A list - circulated among potential employers - of alleged "troublemakers" not to be hired.






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