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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. 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






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






3. A type of coal - noted for being hard and clean burning.






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






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






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






7. Anti-communism crusade of the 1950s led by Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was characterized by irresponsible accusations and smear campaigns.






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






9. Philosophical movement - with deep roots in the United States - which holds that truth emerges from experimentation and experience rather than from abstract theory. it is associated with William James and John Dewey.






10. 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.






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. 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






13. 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.






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






15. President Roosevelt's (FDR) attempt in 1936 to push a judicial reform bill through Congress that would allow him to appoint six new Supreme Court justices sympathetic to his New Deal.






16. 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






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






18. A legislature composed of only one house or chamber.






19. 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.






20. 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






21. 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.






22. The wave of immigration from the 1880s to the 1920s of Eastern and Southern Europeans - contrasted with the "old" immigration of Northern and Western Europeans.






23. A conference attended by leaders of two or more nations.






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






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






26. 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






27. 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.






28. Illegal bars and saloons that operated during Prohibition.






29. 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






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






31. 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.






32. 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.






33. 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.






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






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






36. The British policy of the 17th century in which the British were lax in the enforcement of laws in the colonies - thereby allowing the colonies to develop without much interference from the British government. After the French and Indian War - this p






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






38. 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






39. 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






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






41. 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.






42. 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






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






44. 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.






45. The difference in the votes of men and women. Often men vote Republican in larger numbers that women - who are more likely to vote Democratic - producing a gender gap.






46. 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.






47. A system of government in which the power to rule comes from the people.






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






49. 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






50. Laws made by the British government restricting colonial trade of sugar and tobacco to any country other than England or by any means other than on British ships.