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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. 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






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






3. Government policy of noninterference in business practices and in individuals economic affairs; literally translated as "to let do."






4. 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






5. 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






6. 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.






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






8. 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






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






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






11. 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.






12. Historiography is the study of how history is written. Historians in the 1950s-consensus historians-in general argued that America was the world's great democracy that only did good in the world and had no conflicts at home. Largely due to the effort






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






14. 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






15. Technique of the labor movement in the 1930s that entailed stopping work but not leaving the factory floor - as owners were not able to hire replacement workers so long as the workers occupied the shop floor.






16. A tax placed on imports; its purpose is to make domestic goods cheaper to keep out foreign goods.






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






18. A legislature composed of two houses. The US Congress - composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives - is an example.






19. Progressive political reform in the early 1900s that enabled voters to introduce legislation.






20. 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






21. 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.






22. 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






23. 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.






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






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






26. 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






27. 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.






28. A skilled worker who had learned a trade from a master as an apprentice. Shoemakers - bakers - blacksmiths. and carpenters were artisans.






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






30. 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






31. 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






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






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






34. 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.






35. 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 checks and balances.






36. 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.






37. A term used to describe the ability of people to move within the social framework of a society. If the social system provides opportunities for a person born into a lower social class to move to an upper one - or vice versa - a characteristic of the






38. 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.






39. 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.






40. 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.






41. A type of colony controlled by the king. The crown chose the governor to run the colony.






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






44. Labor in which the worker can leave whenever he or she wishes (as opposed to slave labor). Wage labor or work for pay is free labor.






45. 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






46. 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.






47. 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.






48. The movement to end slavery. There were many points of view on the subject. Immediate abolitionism advocated ending slavery everywhere and refusing to cooperate with the political process (William Lloyd Garrison). Political abolitionism advocated an






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






50. 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.