7
Public Opinion,
Ideology, Participation,
and Voting
Multiple–Choice Questions
1. Over time, people are most likely to change their beliefs about
which of the following?
a. banking regulations
b. liberty and freedom
c. abortion
d. the death penalty
Topic: Forming Political Opinions and Values
Learning Objective: LO 7.1: Identify the forces that create and
shape individuals’ political attitudes.
Page Reference: 196 – 197
Skill Level: Apply What You Know
Diiculty Level: Diicult
2. Voters who carefully follow public afairs are known as which of
the following?
a. attentive electorate
b. attentive public
c. active public
d. active electorate
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Topic: Forming Political Opinions and Values
Learning Objective: LO 7.1: Identify the forces that create and
shape individuals’ political attitudes.
Page Reference: 198
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
3. An individual’s propensity to perceive, interpret, or act toward a
particular object in a particular way is a(n) ___________.
a. ideology
b. belief
c. value
d. attitude
Topic: Forming Political Opinions and Values
Learning Objective: LO 7.1: Identify the forces that create and
shape individuals’ political attitudes.
Page Reference: 195
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
4. An election in which voters elect oiceholders is which type of
election?
a. general
b. primary
c. presidential
d. midterm
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 213
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
5. An election in which voters determine party nominees is which
type of election?
202
a. general
b caucus
c. primary
d. midterm
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 213
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
6. What is the term for the proportion of the voting-age public that
votes?
a. participatory segment
b. electoral segment
c. turnout
d. mobilization
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 213
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
7. An informal and subjective ailiation with a political party that
most people acquire over the course of their lifetime is known
as what?
a. party identiication
b. voter identity
c. electoral socialization
d. platform identiication
Topic: Voting Choices
203
Learning Objective: LO 7.5: Analyze why people vote the way
they do in elections.
Page Reference: 218
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
8. In public opinion research, the _________ is the group of people
whose preferences the researcher wants to measure.
a. subject group
b. demographic group
c. sample
d. universe
Topic: Public Opinion: Taking the Pulse of the People
Learning Objective: LO 7.2: Describe the key dimensions of
public opinion, how public opinion is measured, and the
relationship between public opinion and public policy.
Page Reference: 200
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
9. Which American president once said, “What I want is to get
done what the people desire to be done, and the question for me
is how to ind that out exactly.”
a. Andrew Jackson
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. Theodore Roosevelt
d. Bill Clinton
Topic: Public Opinion: Taking the Pulse of the People
Learning Objective: LO 7.2: Describe the key dimensions of
public opinion, how public opinion is measured, and the
relationship between public opinion and public policy.
Page Reference: 202
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
10. Two major schools of political ideology dominate American
politics. What are they?
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a. conservatism and liberalism
b. conservatism and libertarianism
c. liberalism and progressivism
d. socialism and nationalism
Topic: Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Government
Learning Objective: LO 7.3: Compare and contrast political
ideologies and evaluate the critiques of each ideology.
Page Reference: 202
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
11. What percentage of Americans currently view themselves as
extremely conservative?
a. 2 to 4 percent
b. 4 to 8 percent
c. 8 to 12 percent
d. 12 to 16 percent
Topic: Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Government
Learning Objective: LO 7.3: Compare and contrast political
ideologies and evaluate the critiques of each ideology.
Page Reference: 207
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
12. Typically, how many people attempt to inluence how another
person votes?
a. less than 1 percent
b. fewer than one in ten
c. about 10 percent
d. fewer than one in four
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 208
205
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
13. How are intensity of public opinion and salience related?
a. They are often correlated on the same issue.
b. They are essentially the same.
c. As intensity increases, salience goes down.
d. Intensity is a precondition for salience.
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.2: Describe the key dimensions of
public opinion, how public opinion is measured, and the
relationship between public opinion and public policy.
Page Reference: 200
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts
Diiculty Level: Moderate
14. When is voter turnout lowest?
a. municipal primaries
b. midterm primary elections
c. midterm general elections
d. special elections
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 213
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
15. Issues that people believe are important to them are __________.
a. intense
b. core values
c. salient
d. ideological issues
206
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.2: Describe the key dimensions of
public opinion, how public opinion is measured, and the
relationship between public opinion and public policy.
Page Reference: 200
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
16. Which of the following is the most inluential factor when voters
develop the political attitudes they take into elections?
a. family
b. school
c. mass media
d. self-relection
Topic: Forming Political Opinions and Values
Learning Objective: LO 7.1: Identify the forces that create and
shape individuals’ political attitudes.
Page Reference: 195
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts
Diiculty Level: Moderate
17. Voters who hold the belief that government can bring about
justice and equality of opportunity subscribe to what political
ideology?
a. liberalism
b. conservatism
c. libertarianism
d. socialism
Topic: Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Government
Learning Objective: LO 7.3: Compare and contrast political
ideologies and evaluate the critiques of each ideology.
Page Reference: 203
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts
Diiculty Level: Moderate
18. Voters who hold beliefs in private property rights and free
enterprise, and who want to enhance individual liberty by
keeping government small, subscribe to what political ideology?
207
a. liberalism
b. conservatism
c. communism
d. fascism
Topic: Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Government
Learning Objective: LO 7.3: Compare and contrast political
ideologies and evaluate the critiques of each ideology.
Page Reference: 204
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts
Diiculty Level: Moderate
19. Social conservatives difer from traditional conservatives in that
they support which of the following?
a. social controls
b. economic controls
c. deregulation
d. military expenditures
Topic: Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Government
Learning Objective: LO 7.3: Compare and contrast political
ideologies and evaluate the critiques of each ideology.
Page Reference: 205 – 206
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts
Diiculty Level: Moderate
20. Why do conservatives favor cutting taxes for the wealthy?
a. They believe the wealthy will spend and invest more money,
beneiting the economy.
b. They believe the wealthy will contribute more to charity,
beneiting people in need.
c. They believe that all taxes should be eliminated.
d. They believe the wealthy will contribute more to political
campaigns, thus helping to elect conservatives.
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
208
Learning Objective: LO 7.3: Compare and contrast political
ideologies and evaluate the critiques of each ideology.
Page Reference: 206
Skill Level: Analyze It
Diiculty Level: Diicult
21. Which state was the irst to grant women’s sufrage?
a. Pennsylvania
b. Wyoming
c. Texas
d. Rhode Island
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 210
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
22. Which U.S. constitutional amendment granted women the right
to vote on the national level?
a. Sixth
c. Twelfth
d. Nineteenth
e. Twenty-Third
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 210
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
23. Congress granted citizenship and voting rights to which group
in 1924?
a. ex-Confederate soldiers
b. Japanese immigrants
209
c. Native Americans
d. railroad workers
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 210
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
24. Voting was extended to those 18 years of age or older through
which constitutional amendment?
a. Ninth
b. Twenty-Sixth
c. Twenty-First
d. Fifteenth
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 210
Skill Level: Remember the Facts
Diiculty Level: Easy
25. Federal law prevents a state from closing voter registration
more than __________ before a federal election.
a. 15 days
b. 30 days
c. 2 months
d. 6 months
Topic: Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
Learning Objective: LO 7.4: Identify forms of political
participation, and assess the efect on voter turnout of
demographic, legal, and electioneering factors.
Page Reference: 211
210