SOC 96143 | Course Paper

Unlock access to all the studying documents.

View Full Document

The United States is among the few countries that does not tax their exports because

a. it does not need the money.

b. exportation is a natural right.

c. the South obtained a promise that export taxes would not be imposed.

d. the World Trade Organization prohibits it from doing so.

e. the president of the United States of America vetoed the bill.

Which of the following best describes judicial activism?

a. The Supreme Court should review as many cases as they can.

b. The federal judiciary should actively check the activities of governmental bodies

when they exceed their authority.

c. The Supreme Court exercises judicial review.

d. The courts should not play politics.

e. that the members of the Supreme Court should “go public” as much as possible.

The American Bar Association and the American Medical Association are examples of

a. interest groups that do not engage in lobbying.

b. interest groups with small memberships (less than 1,000 members).

c. interest groups with relatively little influence.

d. interest groups of professionals.

e. public-interest groups.

Which President introduced the concept of “preemptive war.”

a. Ronald Reagan

b. George Bush

c. George W. Bush

d. Lyndon B. Johnson

e. Bill Clinton

A major development in the run-up to the 2010 elections was the growth of the ______

movement.

a. Tea Party

b. Socialist

c. Atheist

d. Neo-Whig

e. Labor

Polls consistently report that the majority of Americans support

a. “big government.”

b. “less government.”

c. removing protections for endangered species.

d. defunding Medicare.

e. eliminating most social programs.

The concept of political socialization refers to

a. the process by which political beliefs and values are transmitted to individuals.

b. direct payments to individuals from the government through Social Security.

c. individuals who are opposed to the development of a socialistic government.

d. the gradual development of social programs within our national government.

e. the government taking over the economic sector of the country.

Libel is

a. the amount of insurance one must have on a motor vehicle.

b. defamation in writing.

c. printed material that cannot be proved true.

d. untrue rumors spread by word-of-mouth.

e. another word for slander.

After the Speaker of the House, the next person in the line of succession to the

presidency is the

a. Senate president pro tempore.

b. Secretary of State.

c. Chief of Staff.

d. Attorney General.

e. Secretary of Homeland Security.

The units of organization inside a bureaucracy are divided

a. by Congressional committee jurisdiction.

b. by Congressional mandate.

c. according to the desires of the President.

d. according to the specialization and expertise of the employees.

e. along the pay grade of the employees.

Regulatory agencies and commissions perform

a. only executive functions.

b. only legislative functions.

c. only judicial functions.

d. some functions of all branches of governmentlegislative, executive, and judicial.

e. private corporate functions.

All of the following are true of the Supreme Court EXCEPT

a. the Supreme Court’s term begins on the first Monday in October.

b. of all the cases decided each year in U.S. courts, the number of cases reviewed by the

Supreme Court represent less than one in four thousand.

c. decisions of the Supreme Court profoundly affect our lives.

d. the Supreme Court has never heard a case involving the issue of capital punishment.

e. the Supreme Court has decided cases involving freedom of speech, the right to bear

arms, campaign finance, and abortion.

Perhaps the closest the United States and the Soviet Union came to a nuclear

confrontation was the

a. Cuban missile crisis.

b. Battle of the Bulge.

c. Tet Offensive.

d. Khmer Rouge massacre.

e. Warsaw standoff.

The two major parties prefer a(n) ______ ballot because it encourages straight-ticket

voting.

a. absentee

b. oral

c. open

d. party-column

e. office-block ballot

A whistleblower is

a. a worker who does not accomplish his or her tasks by the end of a day.

b. someone who brings public attention to gross governmental inefficiency or illegal

action.

c. a worker hired in excess of the labor requirements of an agency.

d. an ombudsman.

e. someone who leaks the contents of a presidential speech to the press before it is

given.

______ occurs when an employee is subjected to sexual conduct or comments that

interfere with the employee’s job performance.

a. Gender discrimination

b. Wage discrimination

c. Hostile-environment harassment

d. Suffrage

e. Criminal sexual assault

Which of the following best describes bias?

a. An inclination or preference that interferes with impartial judgment

b. Information that is the personal property of someone

c. The news media injecting opinions into reporting to reflect the political attitudes of

its consumers

d. Networks such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

e. None of the above

______ controlled the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein.

a. Kurds

b. Sunnis

c. Shiites

d. Sunnis and Shiites

e. al Qaeda

An independent is a

a. contrarian voter.

b. voter or a candidate who does not identify with a political party.

c. voter or a candidate who votes Democratic.

d. voter or a candidate who votes Republican.

e. voter or a candidate who votes Libertarian.

Which of the following best describes the internationally recognized solution to the

Israeli-Palestinian dispute?

a. The Palestinians should be resettled in Israel with full compensation.

b. Israel yields the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in return for security

guarantees and Palestinian abandonment of any right of return to Israel proper.

c. Israelis and Palestinians should both be part of a single state in which both enjoy

equal rights.

d. Israel should cease to exist, because its creation happened illegally.

e. Israel should yield up all territory not granted to it by the UN in 1948, including all of

Jerusalem.

Which of the following agencies is the initial central personnel agency of the national

government?

a. The Civil Service Commission

b. The Office of Personnel Management

c. The Department of Social Services

d. The Plum Agency

e. Department of Human Resources

Which of the following statements about the Medicare system is false?

a. It pays for hospital and physician bills for U.S. residents aged 65 years or over.

b. It pays part of elderly people’s prescription drug benefits.

c. Some health-care providers have become reluctant to accept Medicare patients,

because the Federal Government has cut back on reimbursement rates.

d. Reimbursement rates and caps are set according to international standards.

e. It is funded by taxes on wages and salaries.

Independent expenditures by special interests are

a. coordinated by law with a candidate’s campaign.

b. unregulated political expenditures by PACs, organizations, and individuals that are

not coordinated with candidate campaigns or political parties.

c. only allowed by labor and agricultural interests, not business interests.

d. less important in the 2004 elections than in previous election years.

e. no longer visible during modern political campaigns.

The Pendleton Act established

a. federal civil service protections to the states.

b. the judicial appointment system.

c. the maximum number of government employees selected by the spoils system.

d. the principle of employment on the basis of open, competitive examinations.

e. a merit system during the Civil War.

The division of a legislature into two separate assemblies is called

a. representative democracy.

b. checks and balances.

c. a two-party system.

d. bicameralism.

e. dual executives.

For a political party, the national committee

a. is not authorized to play any role in financing the party’s activities.

b. is the strongest and most powerful part of the party.

c. is dissolved after presidential elections.

d. chooses the party’s nominee for president.

e. directs and coordinates party activities between national party conventions.

During the Cold War, there was

a. a continuous diplomatic exchange between U.S. and Soviet military advisors.

b. never any direct military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

c. an occasional exchange of artillery fire across the East German/West German border.

d. direct fighting between U.S. and Soviet ground troops during the Korean War.

e. occasional dogfights between U.S. and Soviet fighter planes over Europe.

Legitimacy in government is

a. the condition of having no government.

b. only applicable to democratic governments.

c. popular acceptance of the right and power of a government or other entity to exercise

authority.

d. only needed in times of emergency.

e. useful to control immigration.

The merit system refers to

a. job appointment based on competitive examinations.

b. a system of checks on Congress intended to prevent discrimination.

c. a process of selecting policies based on their value.

d. a system that was used for hiring bureaucrats under Andrew Jackson.

e. using work experience in lieu of educational qualifications when applying for federal

positions.

Which of the following statements about executive agreements is true?

a. They are unconstitutional.

b. They are only used when the World Court rejected a treaty.

c. They accounted for almost 95 percent of the understandings reached between the

United States and other nations.

d. The House and the Senate overwhelmingly ratifies them.

e. They are obsolete.

The organization established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to assist the president

in carrying out major duties is called

a. the kitchen cabinet.

b. the cabinet.

c. the Executive Office of the President.

d. the Council of Presidential Advisors.

e. the system of checks on executive power.

Which of the following best describes indirect techniques employed by an interest

group?

a. Testifying before a Congressional committee

b. Lobbying for legislation that the members of a group might not approve of

c. Using the general public or individual constituents to influence government officials

d. Approaching officials personally to try to influence them

e. Suggesting nominations for federal appointments

Which of the following statements about political officeholders is true?

a. Officeholders represent the general public.

b. Officeholders are fairly evenly divided between men and women.

c. Officeholders are mostly white and male.

d. Officeholders are diverse, racially and ethnically speaking.

e. Officeholders are Roman Catholics.

Public opinion can serve as a check on the judiciary because

a. people have the ability to vote federal judges out of office if they do not approve of

the rulings of the courts.

b. a court may lose stature if it decides a case in a way that markedly diverges from

public opinion.

c. the Supreme Court typically polls the public as a basis for their decisions.

d. the president will veto a Supreme Court decision if it is politically unpopular.

e. Congress will override a decision of the Supreme Court with a majority vote in both

houses.

How did the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education impact

education? Did it create any new problems? If so, what were they, and why?