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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 slogan used by President Lyndon B. Johnson to describe his goal of ending poverty in the United States.






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






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






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






5. Powers given to the national/federal government that are specifically stated in the Constitution. They are found in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution and may also be known as expressed or enumerated powers.






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






7. Critical term for the owners of the big business of the Gilded Age who accumulated great wealth and power.






8. A political philosophy that promotes solving social issues through cooperation with private agencies rather than through direct government programs. It also stresses the personal responsibility and accountability as keys to success.






9. The belief that the United States should not be involved in world affairs.






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






11. 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






12. Derogatory term used by the labor movement to describe workers who cross picket lines






13. 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.






14. 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.






15. 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






16. 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.






17. A machine that separates seeds from the cotton. The short-staple cotton that grew inland in the South's Black Belt could be cleaned profitably only with the cotton gin. The invention of the cotton gin allowed cotton cultivation to spread - enabling s






18. 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






19. 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.






20. 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






21. 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.






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






23. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was called the "Second Reconstruction" because the first Reconstruction in the 1860s and 1870s had not brought equality for blacks.






24. 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






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






26. 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.






27. A company that developed in the early 1600s in England wherein a group of investors pooled their money to finance exploration of the new World. The investor would receive a portion of the profits resulting from the exploration of the New World based






28. A grouping of nations where each one pledges mutual support to the others. This support is usually defensive in nature. The formation of alliances was a nunderlying cause of WWI.






29. 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.






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






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






32. 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.






33. 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






34. 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






35. 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.






36. 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.






37. 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






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






39. A form of educational protest at universities. The practice began in 1965 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor - when professors and students analyzed US foreign policy and debated with each other and-only in the earlier days of the war-with go






40. The building of canals - railroads - and turnpikes at state or federal expense. These were part of the American Plan - which became an important part of the Whig program of the 1830s. Internal improvements were also supported by the National Republic






41. 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.






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






43. An economic system in which the state controls the production and distribution of certain products deemed necessary for the good of the people






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. 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.






46. 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






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






48. 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






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






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