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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. 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






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






3. The traditions - language - and modes of behavior of the field hands who lived together in slave quarters. They practiced many forms of resistance to the wills of their masters - told each other African-derived tales - sand spirituals - and practiced






4. 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.






5. 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






6. 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






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






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






9. 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






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






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






12. 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






13. Agricultural labor system in the South following the era of slavery wherein a sharecropper could farm a piece of land in return for giving the landowner a share - usually half - of the crop.






14. The practice of paying for goods at regular intervals - usually with interest added to the balance - associated with consumption in the 1920s.






15. 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 separation of powers.






16. 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






17. 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






18. 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.






19. 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.






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






21. 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






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






23. A prosecutor chosen by a panel of three judges (appointed by the attorney general) to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch. Established after the Watergate Scandal - the role was designed to prevent conflict of interest within the executive






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






25. 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






26. 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.






27. 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.






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






29. 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






30. 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






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






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






34. A body of advisers to a head of state. The US president's cabinet consists of the heads of the various departments plus other advisers.






35. 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.






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






37. 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.






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






39. 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.






40. 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.






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






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






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






44. 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.






45. 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






46. The process of acquiring new territories






47. 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






48. 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






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






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