THE Team
Created in 2008 by:
· Central Organizer: I
Ivor Fazlic
· Multiple Choice coordinator:
Zach Lopatin
· Document Based Question coordinator:
Ivor Fazlic
· Essay coordinator:
Prasant Muralidhar
UNITED STATES HISTORY
SECTION I
Time – 55 minutes
80 Questions
Directions: Each of the questions or incomplete statements below is followed by five suggested answers or completions. Select the one that is best in each case and then fill in the corresponding oval on the answer sheet.
1. The colonists who ultimately embraced the vision of America as an independent nation had in common all of the following characteristics except:
a. the desire to create an agricultural society.
b. learning to live lives unfettered by the tyrannies of royal authority.
c. learning to live lives unfettered by the tyrannies of official religion.
d. an unwillingness to subjugate others.
e. learning to live lives unfettered by the tyrannies of social hierarchies.
2. When the new government was launched in 1789:
a. the nation’s population was doubling about every twenty-five years.
b. most people lived in the fast-growing cities.
c. most people lived west of the Allegheny Mountains.
d. New York was the largest city in the nation.
e. Great Britain refused to establish diplomatic relations with the United States.
3. In the 1820s and 1830s the public’s attitude regarding political parties:
a. grew more negative.
b. saw little change from the early years of our nation.
c. reinforced the belief of the Era of Good Feelings.
d. accepted the sometimes wild contentiousness of political life.
e. none of the above.
4. The debate over slavery in the Mexican Cession:
a. threatened to split national politics along North-South lines.
b. nearly resulted in the return of the territory to Mexico.
c. resulted in the formation of the Republican party.
d. resulted in strong hostility to further expansionism.
e. all of the above.
5. In the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that:
a. African-Americans could be denied the right to vote.
b. segregation was unconstitutional.
c. “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional.
d. the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to African-Americans.
e. literacy tests for voting were constitutional.
6. By the 1890s, the United States was bursting with a new sense of power generated by an increase in:
a. population.
b. wealth.
c. industrial production.
d. all of the above.
e. none of the above.
7. Which of the following individuals was considered one of the “worst minds” of President Harding’s cabinet?
a. Herbert Hoover
b. Calvin Coolidge
c. Andrew Mellon
d. Charles Evans Hughes
e. Albert Fall
8. Richard Nixon was selected as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice-presidential running mate in 1952 as a concession to the:
a. isolationists.
b. liberal Republicans.
c. hard-line anticommunists.
d. moderate Republicans.
e. southern Republicans.
9. Government in New France (Canada) was:
a. almost completely autocratic.
b. democratic.
c. similar to that of the English colonies.
d. noted for its trial by jury.
e. free from the king’s control.
10. Andrew Jackson’s political philosophy was based on his:
a. support of a strong central government.
b. advocacy of the American System.
c. suspicion of the federal government.
d. opposition to the old antifederalist ideals.
e. family’s economic status.
11. In the Compromise of 1850, Congress determined that slavery in the New Mexico and Utah territories was:
a. to be banned.
b. protected by federal law.
c. to be decided by popular sovereignty.
d. to be ignored until either territory applied for admission to statehood.
e. to be decided by the Mormon Church.
12. The Chinese word tong means:
a. criminal organization.
b. meeting hall.
c. labor union.
d. family.
e. cooking utensil.
13. The question of the annexation of touched off the first major imperialistic debate in American history.
a. Hawaii
b. Cuba
c. the Philippines
d. Puerto Rico
e. the Virgin Islands.
14. As a result of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930:
a. American industry grew more secure.
b. duties on agricultural products decreased.
c. American economic isolationism ended.
d. campaign promises to labor were fulfilled.
e. the worldwide depression deepened.
15. The Pentagon Papers, published in 1971:
a. revealed President Nixon’s role in the Watergate scandal.
b. documented the North Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.
c. exposed President Nixon’s secret bombing war of Cambodia.
d. was the first the American public knew of the Nixon Doctrine.
e. exposed the deception that had led the United States into the Vietnam War.
16. England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada:
a. led to a Franco-Spanish alliance that prevented England from establishing its own American colonies.
b. allowed England to take control of Spain’s American colonies.
c. demonstrated that Spanish Catholicism was inferior to English Prot.
d. helped to ensure England’s naval dominance in the North Atlantic.
e. occurred despite weather conditions which favored Spain.
17. All of the following are guarantees provided by the Bill of Rights except:
a. the right to vote for all citizens.
b. freedom of speech.
c. freedom of religion.
d. freedom of the press.
e. right to a trial by a jury.
18. The “Tippecanoe” in the Whigs’ 1840 campaign slogan was:
a. Daniel Webster.
b. Martin Van Buren.
c. William Harrison.
d. Nicholas Biddle.
e. Henry Clay.
19. For a short time in the 1850s, an American seized control of:
a. Nicaragua.
b. Cuba.
c. Japan.
d. El Salvador.
e. Puerto Rico.
20. The United States changed to standard time zones when:
a. Congress passed a law establishing this system.
b. the major rail lines decreed the division of the continent into four time zones so that they could keep schedules and avoid wrecks.
c. factories demanded standard time schedules.
d. long-distance telephones required standard time coordination.
e. all of the above.
21. Construction of an isthmian canal was motivated mainly by:
a. a desire to improve the defense of the United States.
b. the Panamanian Revolution.
c. continued volcanic activity in Nicaragua.
d. the British rejection of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.
e. American economic interests in Central America.
22. President Hoover’s public image was severely damaged by his:
a. decision to abandon the principle of “rugged individualism.”
b. construction of “Hoovervilles” for the homeless.
c. agreement to provide a federal dole to the unemployed.
d. refusal to do anything to try to solve the Great Depression.
e. handling of the dispersal of the Bonus Army.
23. In response to Senator McCarthy, President Eisenhower:
a. publicly denounced him when he attacked General George Marshall.
b. urged him to continue his attacks on Democrats.
c. publicly opposed his ruthless tactics and privately disliked him.
d. allowed him to control personnel policy at the State Department.
e. privately supported him but publicly kept his distance.
24. The disunity that existed in the colonies before the French and Indian War can be attributed to:
a. the enormous distances between the colonies.
b. geographical barriers like rivers.
c. conflicting religions.
d. varied nationalities.
e. all of the above.
25. The Amendment might rightly be called “states’ rights” amendment.
a. First
b. Sixth
c. Ninth
d. Tenth
e. Eighth
26. Life on the frontier was:
a. fairly comfortable for women but not for men.
b. downright grim for most pioneer families.
c. free of disease and premature death.
d. rarely portrayed in popular literature.
e. based on tight-knit communities.
27. In 1855, proslavery southerners regarded Kansas as:
a. territory governed by the Missouri Compromise.
b. slave territory.
c. geographically unsuitable for slavery.
d. too close to free states for slavery to be practical.
e. a test for slavery in wheat-growing areas.
28. The steel industry owed much to the inventive genius of:
a. Jay Gould.
b. Henry Bessemer.
c. John P. Altgeld.
d. Thomas Edison.
e. Henry Clay Frick.
29. The “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that Teddy Roosevelt worked out with the Japanese:
a. concluded the Russo-Japanese War.
b. helped him to win the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.
c. caused Japan to halt the flow of laborers to America in return for the repeal of a racist school decree by the San Francisco School Board.
d. put a stop to the racist “yellow journalism” being practiced in the United States.
e. restricted Japanese immigration to upper-class gentlemen.
30. The phrase “Hundred Days” refers to:
a. the worst months of the Great Depression.
b. the time it took for Congress to begin acting on President Roosevelt’s plans for combating the Great Depression.
c. the first months of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency.
d. the “lame-duck” period between Franklin Roosevelt’s election and his inauguration.
e. the time that all banks were closed by FDR.
31. Ronald Reagan differed from Franklin D. Roosevelt in that Roosevelt:
a. saw big government as the foe of the common man, while Reagan named big business as the foe.
b. appealed to the working class, while Reagan appealed only to the rich.
c. advocated a “populist” political philosophy, while Reagan did not.
d. branded big business as the enemy of the common man, while Reagan depicted big government as the foe.
e. made effective use of the media to promote his message.
32. The average age of the American colonists in 1775 was:
a. 25.
b. 30.
c. 40.
d. 20.
e. 16.
33. The Amendment might rightly be called “states’ rights” amendment.
a. First
b. Sixth
c. Ninth
d. Tenth
e. Eighth
34. In the case of Commonwealth v. Hunt, the supreme court of Massachusetts ruled that:
a. corporations were unconstitutional.
b. labor unions were legal.
c. labor strikes were illegal.
d. the Boston Associates’ employment of young women in their factories was inhumane.
e. the state could regulate factory wages and working conditions.
35. The government of the Confederate States of America was first organized in:
a. Atlanta, Georgia.
b. Montgomery, Alabama.
c. Richmond, Virginia
d. Knoxville, Tennessee
e. Charleston, South Carolina.
36. The group most affected by the new industrial age was:
a. Native Americans.
b. African-Americans.
c. women.
d. southerners.
e. small town residents.
37. The two key goals pursued by progressives were to curb the threats posed by on the one hand and on the other ______.
a. New Immigrants; blacks
b. feminists; patriarchal males
c. the social gospel; the gospel of wealth
d. the Old Guard; muckrakers
e. trusts; socialists
38. The Glass-Steagall Act:
a. took the United States off the gold standard.
b. empowered President Roosevelt to close all banks temporarily.
c. created the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock exchange.
d. permitted commercial banks to engage in Wall Street financial dealings.
e. created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to insure individual bank deposits.
39. As president, Dwight Eisenhower supported:
a. military budget cuts.
b. the transfer of control over offshore oil from the states to the federal government.
c. the dismissal of his secretary of health, education, and welfare for condemning free distribution on the Salk polio vaccine as “socialized medicine.”
d. the continuation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
e. a stronger voice for organized labor.
40. The Proclamation of 1763 was issued mainly to:
a. oppress the colonists.
b. punish the Indians.
c. show the power of Parliament.
d. allow western settlement by the colonists.
e. work out a fair settlement of the Indian problem.
41. Thomas Jefferson received the bulk of his support from the:
a. South and West.
b. North.
c. cities.
d. areas where only the wealthy could vote.
e. New England.
42. With Thomas Jefferson’s election as president, the Democratic-Republican party:
a. grew stronger and more unified.
b. removed many Federalists from government jobs.
c. soon resented its leaders’ lavish life-style.
d. grew less unified as the Federalist party began to fade and lose power.
e. sought to extend the Alien and Sedition Acts to punish their enemies.
43. The Mormon religion originated in:
a. Utah.
b. New England.
c. Nauvoo, Illinois.
d. Ireland.
e. the Burned-Over District of New York.
44. The immense debt owed to northern creditors by the South was:
a. repaid immediately after the Civil War.
b. repudiated by the South.
c. paid by pro-Union southerners during the war.
d. not repaid until the twentieth century.
e. converted into long-term Confederate bonds.
45. In the 1890s, positions for women as secretaries, department store clerks, and telephone operators were largely reserved for:
a. Jews.
b. Irish.
c. African-Americans.
d. the college-educated.
e. the native born.
46. Passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act was facilitated by the publication of:
a. Theodore Dreiser’s The Titan.
b. Jack London’s Call of the Wild.
c. Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth Against Commonwealth.
d. Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives.
e. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
47. In September 1938 in Munich, Germany:
a. Britain and France consented to Germany’s taking the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
b. Hitler declared his intention to take Austria.
c. Hitler signed the Axis Alliance Treaty with Japan.
d. Britain and France acquiesced to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland.
e. Britain and France declared that an invasion of Poland would mean war.
48. The Alliance for Progress was intended to improve the level of economic well-being in:
a. Latin America.
b. Africa.
c. Southeast Asia.
d. Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.
e. Western Europe.
49. Which of the following is not among the reasons that Mexican immigrants were for a long time slow to become American citizens?