2. Since the 1960s, Americans’ trust in their government has generally
A.
3. The belief that you can influence how your government acts is called
D.
4. Which of the following is not a reason given to explain American citizens’ increased political apathy?
B.
5. Survey data shows that the level of Americans’ political knowledge is
A.
6. What aspect of citizenship was most important for the ancient Greeks?
C.
7. According to the text, which of the following is the most important act of a citizen?
C.
8. It is important for Americans to have knowledge of democratic principles so that they
C.
9. According to a 2007 poll, compared to readers of major newspaper Web sites, the audience of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report had __________ political knowledge.
B.
10. Of the nearly 200 governments in the world, what is the estimate of the number of actual constitutional democracies?
B.
11. Government can best be defined as
A.
12. What is the principle difference between an autocracy and an oligarchy?
A.
13. A government that accepts no legal limits on its power but may accept the restraint of other social institutions, such as churches, is known as
A.
14. If the government were controlled by a small group of wealthy landowners and corporate leaders, this would be best described as
A.
15. An autocracy exists when
D.
16. Which of the following is not an example of a public good?
C.
17. Which of the following is not an example given by the text of a totalitarian regime?
C.
18. Who said that the best government was the one that “governed least”?
D.
19. The willingness to be restrained by the power of social institutions, but not political or legal institutions, is a hallmark of a(n) __________ regime.
C.
20. According to the text, what is the main benefit of a constitutional government?
C.
21. A government that is formally limited by laws and rules is called
A.
22. Before the eighteenth century,
A.
23. Which major changes in Western governments led to the establishment of constitutional government?
B.
24. The demand that there be no taxation without representation is a good example of what political reform of the eighteenth century?
D.
25. Historically, what were the most effective intermediaries for increasing political participation?
D.
26. John Locke and John Stuart Mill are important philosophers for which of the following ideologies?
B.
27. Which of the following is an instrument of direct democracy?
C.
28. Why did the Progressives support women’s suffrage in the early twentieth century?
B.
29. According to the text, what is the goal of politics?
C.
30. Direct democracy is best defined as
D.
31. Having some share or say in the composition of a government’s leadership, how it is organized, or what its policies are going to be is called
D.
32. Political culture refers to
B.
33. Throughout American history, the concept of liberty has been linked to
C.
34. What are the three core values of American politics?
B.
35. In American political culture, economic freedom means
B.
36. “One person, one vote” reflects the principle of
D.
37. The term laissez-faire means
B.
38. The belief that political authority should rest with the people themselves is called
D.
39. The Constitution’s Preamble, beginning with the words “We the People . . .,” is an illustration of what principle?
B.
40. Political rights are a protection against
D.
41. The existence of slavery in the United States is a good example of how
A.
42. The separate but equal doctrine was introduced in what Supreme Court case?
B.
43. Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education reveal two very different visions of what political value?
A.
44. Disputes over affirmative action demonstrate that
A.
45. Which of the following statements is true?
A.
46. According to the text, the United States did not become a fully democratic nation until
A.
47. Which of the following was not once a restriction placed on the right to vote?
D.
48. In __________ women were granted the constitutional right to vote.
A.
49. Low voter turnout and political apathy endanger
A.
50. Political apathy among Americans hurts which core political value the most?
B.
51. The American value of pluralism was identified most clearly by which Founder?
C.
52. Which statement is most closely associated with James Madison?
B.
53. What led the British to raise taxes on the American colonists during the 1760s?
A.
54. Colonial protesters of the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act rallied around what famous political slogan?
D.
55. Who orchestrated the Boston Tea Party?
D.
56. A ___________ is a system of government in which states retain sovereign authority except for powers expressly delegated to a national government.
C.
57. Who was not appointed to help draft the Declaration of Independence?
D.
58. The first written constitution for the United States was called
A.
59. Under the United States’ first constitution,
B.
60. How was power in Congress divided under the Articles of Confederation?
C.
61. As a constitution, the Articles of Confederation were concerned primarily with
a. creating a national government that had significant power and authority.
b. creating a federal form of government.
c. creating a form of government in which the states were largely subservient to the national government. d. limiting the powers of the central government.
D
62. Under the Articles of Confederation, it was left to the __________ to execute the laws passed by Congress.
B.
63. What was the purpose of the Annapolis Convention?
C.
64. Shays’s Rebellion was an attempt to
B.
65. The 1787 convention to draft a new constitution was held in
B.
66. Shays’s Rebellion was significant because it
B.
67. The Virginia Plan of the Constitutional Convention proposed a system of representation in the national legislature that was based upon
C.
68. According to historian Charles Beard, the framers of the Constitution were most concerned with
B.
69. At the Constitutional Convention, the plan to create a Congress where representation was distributed according to population was called the
D.
70. What did the New Jersey Plan propose for Congress?
A.
71. The Great Compromise led to the
B.
72. The issue of representation, which threatened to wreck the entire Constitutional Convention, was resolved by the Great Compromise, also called the
B.
73. During the Philadelphia Convention, in order to win concessions from large states, representatives from smaller states like Delaware threatened to
B.
74. Bicameralism is a constitutional principle that means the
a. division of national government into two branches.
b. division of the powers of the Executive
Branch between two individuals: the president and the vice president.
c. division of the powers of the Executive Branch between two individuals: the Head of State and the Head of Government.
d. division of Congress into two chambers.
D
75. James Madison believed that in the Constitutional Convention the greatest conflict of interests was between
B.
76. The ability of the president to veto a bill passed by Congress is a good example of what principle of limited government?
A.
77. Which of the following was designed by the framers to be an office directly elected by the people?
A.
78. Procedures outlining how to amend the Constitution are found in Article
C.
79. Only one-third of the Senate is up for re-election during any single election year, because the framers believed that
D.
80. Alexander Hamilton argued that the chief executive office should possess
A.
81. Judicial review is the power of
A.
82. What is the term length of a federal judge?
A.
83. The framers of the Constitution intended to create a presidency capable of
A.
84. The principle of giving each branch of government its own constituency is what Montesquieu calls a
B.
85. Compared with the Articles of Confederation, federalism under the Constitution has led to
D.
86. Who was not one of the writers of the Federalist Papers?
B.
87. Brutus and Federal Farmer are two pseudonyms used by the
C.
88. Each of the following was an Antifederalist, except
D.
89. Which constitutional principle of the United States has been most frequently imitated by other nations?
B.
90. The essential dilemma of a limited government raised by the ratification debates is that
A.
91. The idea of a “living constitution” means
D.
92. In a federal system a majority of governmental responsibilities are
C.
93. Which of the following is the best example of a unitary system of government?
A.
94. The federal system can be best defined as
government.
d. the sharing of legislative powers between an upper and lower house.
B.
95. The specific powers granted to the national government in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution are called the
B.
96. The source of an implied power under the Constitution is the _________ clause.
B.
97. Which of the following is an example of the police powers of state government?
D.
98. What is the purpose of the Tenth Amendment?
A.
99. A state’s authority to regulate the safety, health, and morals of its citizens is called _________ power.
D.
100. When both state and national governments possess a certain level of authority, it is called
C.
101. What constitutional clause affirms that national laws and treaties, made under the authority of the Constitution, are the supreme law of the land?
B.
102. Chartering banks is a _________ power, because both federal and state governments have the authority to do it.
A.
103. Why was Massachusetts’s decision to recognize gay and lesbian marriages such a controversial issue of federalism?
A.
104. The __________ clause of the Constitution requires that states should normally recognize the laws, acts, and judicial decisions of other states.
A.
105. When Alaska passed a law in the 1970s that gave state residents preference over nonresidents in obtaining work on oil pipelines, this law violated the
D.
106. What is the main purpose behind the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV?
D.
107. Why were local governments important during the early years of the Republic?
A.
108. According to the text, when was the era of dual federalism?
B.
109. Which of the following was not a function of government most commonly performed by state governments during the era of dual federalism?
A.
110. During the era of dual federalism, what was the primary goal of the federal government’s domestic policies?
D.
111. Which level of government writes the majority of criminal laws?
D.
112. How did the traditional system of dual federalism establish a “commercial republic”?
C.
113. How has the structure of federalism made way for the longevity of the U.S. government?
a. It has allowed for many divisive policy decisions to be made by states, rather than the national
government.
b. It has kept the national government small and aloof throughout most of America’s history.
c. It has allowed states to develop in numerous and different ways.
d. all of the above
D
114. What was one effect of dual federalism during the early Republic?
a. The national government was spared the task of making difficult policy decisions, such as the
regulation of slavery, because the states did it themselves.
b. The national government was unable to raise sufficient amounts of money through taxes and tariffs.
c. The number of federal criminal laws expanded rapidly, while state criminal laws decreased.
d. All of the above were effects of dual federalism.
A
115. Which clause of the Constitution has been critical in allowing the growth of national power?
A.
116. What was the overall importance of the Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland?
B.
117. The commerce clause explicitly gives Congress the power to regulate all of the following types of commerce, except that
B.
118. During most of the nineteenth century, Congress used its powers to __________ commerce.
B.
119. What economic policy was the national government not allowed to implement during the nineteenth century?
B.
120. In __________, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the commerce clause, changing it from a check on national power to a source of national power.
A.
121. The constitutional idea of states’ rights was strongest during which historical period?
A.
122. Those seeking to restrain the powers of the national government look to what part of the Constitution?
B.
123. Which Supreme Court case has not limited federal power?
C.
124. Which constitutional amendment has been used to restrict the scope of authority by the federal government over the states?
B.
125. During the Great Depression, a camp of unemployed individuals who had lost their homes was referred to as
C.
126. A federal grant for states to afford increasing health care facilities would be an example of a
B.
127. A __________ grant requires state and local governments to submit proposals to the federal government and compete for funding.
A.
128. What was a major reason for the declining importance of state governments during the 1960s?
A.
129. When the federal government sets environmental standards that every state must follow, it is an example of
A.
130. The principle of __________ grants the federal government the power to override any state or local law in one particular area of policy.
B.
131. Disapproval over unfunded mandates is most common among those who want
A.
132. Which president was the first to promote New Federalism?
B.
133. Block grants are designed to
B.
134. Using block grants to return power to states was part of the Nixon and Reagan administrations’
D.
135. What have many political scientists called “laboratories of democracy”?
C.
136. Many of the debates concerning federalism reflect
B.
137. The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution addresses
D.
138. Federal laws concerning crime mostly deal with
A.
139. Who wrote the Supreme Court opinions in both McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden?
B.
140. Congressional grants paid for __________ percent of the development of an interstate highway after World War II.
