Which of the following best characterizes Martin Van Buren?
A) He was a stoic and staunch advocate for Southern planters.
B) He was a gregarious New Yorker who avoided partisanship.
C) He served brilliantly under President Monroe as Secretary of State.
D) A senator from Kentucky, he found ways to connect Northerners and Southerners on
western issues.
The British reasoned that either Parliament was sovereign in the colonies or not and
therefore any distinction between tax legislation and any other form of legislation was
__________.
A) virtual
B) absolute
C) artificial
D) reasonable
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points included which of the following?
A) freedom of the seas
B) ending European imperialism
C) world disarmament
D) industrial development of the Third World
What did Jefferson describe as the “handmaid” of the American economy?
A) agriculture
B) commerce
C) manufacturing
D) government
Who was Washington Gladden?
A) the most influential preacher of the Social Gospel Movement
B) the inventor of baseball
C) the architect of the Brooklyn Bridge
D) the man who introduced the streetcar to Richmond, Virginia
When the Whigs nominated Henry Clay for the presidency in 1844, their platform
__________.
A) came out strongly for the annexation of Texas
B) ignored the question of Texas
C) supported the acquisition of Oregon
D) condemned all expansion
Which of the following was one cause of poverty after 1945?
A) The percentage of the population with disabling mental, physical, or emotional
conditions increased dramatically.
B) White racism became increasingly entrenched in both the North and the South.
C) Many white ethnic groups in America were traditionally opposed to wage labor.
D) Technological advancements raised job requirements and made it harder for those
without educational or special skills to earn a living.
The “conquest of the frontier” was __________.
A) mythical because Americans were always finding new frontiers
B) by and large invisible to Americans of the day and never really captured the
imagination of Americans
C) a way to evade the destructive consequences of national policies by making them
seem to be an expression of human progress
D) one of the most brutal examples of imperialism in world history
Under the terms of the January 1973 peace settlement, the North Vietnamese
__________.
A) agreed to cut off all military and economic ties to the Soviets and Chinese
B) guaranteed the future security of a pro-American government in South Vietnam if
the United Nations would send an international peacekeeping force
C) were promised massive postwar aid to rebuild their country
D) retained large portions of South Vietnam in exchange for releasing American
prisoners of war within sixty days
Why did Prince Henry end up in the Canaries?
A) He was hoping to establish the slave trade there.
B) He had heard of the profitable sugar plantations on the islands.
C) He was on his way westward to find a new route to Asia.
D) He got lost as he was trying to trace the steps of Christopher Columbus.
Which of the following concepts was central to Alexander Hamilton’s vision for the
nation’s economic future?
A) laissez-faire capitalism
B) social justice
C) diversification
D) fiscal conservatism
Over the course of the war __________.
A) Southern troop strength caught up with that of the North
B) the number of Northern soldiers available for combat declined
C) Southern and Northern troop strength remained remarkably equal
D) Northern troop strength grew from double to three times that of the South
Which of the following events did President Obama call the “worst environmental
disaster America has faced”?
A) the Midwestern drought of 2013
B) Hurricane Katrina
C) the explosion of a British Petroleum oil well in the Gulf of Mexico
D) Hurricane Sandy
Which of the following were central to the pedagogy of American teachers prior to the
1890s?
A) group work and discussion
B) service learning and practicums
C) rote learning and strict discipline
D) book discussions and critical reading exercises
How did the Civil War affect women and their “proper spheres”?
A) Only northern women expanded their “proper spheres” by working as army nurses
and replacing male workers.
B) Both northern and southern women expanded their “proper spheres” by serving in
their respective armies in combat roles.
C) Both northern and southern women expanded their “proper spheres” by working as
army nurses and replacing male workers.
D) Only southern women expanded their “proper spheres” by working as army nurses
and replacing male workers.
Which of the following best characterizes the works of Walt Whitman?
A) They were the most authentically American of any writer of the period.
B) Rejected by the reading public during his lifetime, they only gained critics’ attention
in the 1960s.
C) His work was quickly accepted by readers and reviewers.
D) His writing combined learned simplicity with discipline and modesty.
Before 1860, about three-fourths of all the money invested in railroads came from
__________.
A) private investors
B) state governments
C) the federal government
D) foreign investors
Reconstruction was a period of __________.
A) judicial supremacy
B) political inaction and indifference
C) congressional supremacy
D) executive privilege
Which former Democrat was placed on the Lincoln ticket to assure victory in 1864?
A) Joseph E. Johnston
B) George B. McClellan
C) Stephen A. Douglas
D) Andrew Johnson
In the War of 1812, Captain Isaac Hull commanded the USS __________ to a brilliant
victory over the HMS Guerrire.
A) Chesapeake
B) Constitution
C) Leopard
D) United States
Who was the most prominent leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement?
A) James Farmer
B) Malcolm X
C) Stokely Carmichael
D) Martin Luther King Jr.
Who was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
A) Edward Winslow
B) William Bradford
C) John Smith
D) John Winthrop
Under __________, exports were totally prohibited from and only foreign vessels were
allowed to import goods to America.
A) the Non-Intercourse Act
B) the Embargo Act
C) Macon’s Bill Number Two
D) the Berlin and Milan Decrees
By the 1890s, how did most Americans respond to the changes of industrialization and
urbanization?
A) They feared the country worshipped material success as its god.
B) They were disgusted by the lawlessness and power of modern corporations.
C) They continued to be optimistic and uncritical admirers of American civilization.
D) They blamed these changes for the increasing rates of divorce, heart disease, and
mental illness.
Most workers in the earliest textile factories were which of the following?
A) women and children
B) former hand spinners and hand weavers
C) immigrants
D) displaced farmers
What was the importance of Frederick Jackson Turner’s work?
A) its proof of frontier democracy
B) its complete explanation of American development
C) its purely political viewpoint
D) its encouragement of the study of social and economic subjects
Where was the first electric trolley car line in America installed?
A) Brooklyn, New York
B) Richmond, Virginia
C) Boston, Massachusetts
D) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Probably America’s most popular novelist of the 1920s, __________ satirized
contemporary society in Main Street.
A) H. L. Mencken
B) Sinclair Lewis
C) Ernest Hemingway
D) F. Scott Fitzgerald
What is one reason for the increased participation in online education?
A) It spares commuters from having to find parking on college campuses.
B) Most students prefer to not interact with real people in classrooms.
C) The lack of face-to-face contact tends to increase test scores.
D) Its cost to students is minimal.
Why did Alexander Hamilton promise to locate the nation’s permanent capital on the
Potomac River?
A) to secure southern states’ approval for the federal assumption of state debts
B) to convince Maryland delegates to approve his Report on the Public Credit.
C) to appease Virginia’s elite after the election of the John Adams, who was from
Massachusetts
D) to provide the federal government with close access to the nation’s most important
commercial trade routes
__________ was President Nixon’s lawyer who provided key testimony against him
during the Watergate scandal.
A) John Dean III
B) Richard Kleindeinst
C) L. Patrick Gray
D) H. R. Haldeman