American Political Institutions
Exam Preparation Guide
Course Introduction
This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the fundamental structures and processes of American political institutions, including the Congress, Presidency, and Supreme Court. Students will examine how these institutions interact within the broader framework of the U.S. Constitution and federalism, and analyze their roles in shaping public policy, upholding democratic principles, and responding to social and political challenges. The course also considers the influence of political parties, interest groups, and the media within the institutional landscape, fostering a deeper understanding of the complexities and dynamics of American governance.
Recommended Textbook
American Government Stories of a Nation 1st Edition Scott F. Abernathy
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18 Chapters
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Page 2
Chapter 1: American Political Stories
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129 Verified Questions
129 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) European settlement and exploration were accepted by indigenous peoples without opposition.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) The belief in the special character of the United States as a uniquely free nation based on the ideals of democracy and individual liberty is best described as A)the American Dream.
B)American exceptionalism.
C)rugged individualism.
D)the pursuit of happiness.
Answer: B
Q3) Initially, British colonists depended upon ______ of native people for their own survival.
A)technological ignorance and cultural diversity
B)political leadership and a lack of weapons
C)adaptive technologies and agricultural advances
D)ineffective agriculture and a lack of weaponry
Answer: C
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Page 3
Chapter 2: The Constitution of the United States
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Sample Questions
Q1) The grassroots popular uprising against the government of Massachusetts that frightened many states into researching a new Constitution was called Answer: Shay's Rebellion, Shays's Rebellion
Q2) States selected their representatives to the unicameral legislature and could choose the number of representatives they sent under the Articles of Confederation.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) James Madison was concerned about groups of people who would collectively try to use the government to get what they wanted.He called these groups
A)factions.
B)lobbies.
C)PACs.
D)parties.
Answer: A
Q4) What form of government did the United States have prior to adopting the Constitution?
Answer: confederal, confederation
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Chapter 3: Federalism
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the 1830s, South Carolina Senator John Calhoun argued for the rights of states to
A)decide form themselves the issue of slavery.
B)secede from the Union.
C)nullify federal laws.
D)maintain sovereignty over the national government.
Answer: C
Q2) Under a ______ system, the structures of government are placed entirely in the hands of a national government.
A)federal
B)confederal
C)unitary
D)monarchy
Answer: C
Q3) Federal systems divide the sovereignty of citizens between two or more levels of government
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 4: Civil Liberties
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Sample Questions
Q1) Federalist arguments in response to Antifederalist concerns over the Bill of Rights were included in ______ by Alexander Hamilton.
A)Federalist 10
B)Federalist 11
C)Federalist 51
D)Federalist 84
Q2) The case of Board of Education v.Allen (1968)dealt with which of the following issues?
A)paying for transportation to private schools with public money
B)establishing mandatory prayer in public schools
C)providing private religious schools with textbooks at public expense
D)prohibiting any religious celebrations, assemblies, or performances
Q3) How many amendments were originally proposed for the Bill of Rights?
A)Nine
B)10
C)11
D)12
Q4) The case through which the Fourth Amendment's protections were incorporated to the states was ______.
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Securing Civil Rights
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Q1) The 2015 Supreme Court Case of ______ established marriage equality through the nation.
A)Obergfell v. Hodges
B)Tanko v. Haslam
C)DeBoer v. Snyder
D)Bourke v. Beshear
Q2) By 2010, the number of people self-identifying with multiple races had increased to about ______ Americans.
A)one million
B)three million
C)six million
D)nine million
Q3) Justice Felix Frankfurter was considered to be a sharp critic of Chief Justice Vinson's refusal to be more
A)active in the protection of civil rights
B)affirmative in the quest for civil liberties
C)decisive in civil rights cases before the Court
D)defensive of the Court's separate but equal policy
Q4) Judith Heumann was refused entry to elementary school because she was a "______."
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Political Participation
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Sample
Questions
Q1) When comparing voter turnout as a percentage of registered voters, the United States
A)ranks well below most other OECD nations.
B)ranks well above most other OECD nations.
C)ranks along with or above most other OECD nations.
D)cannot be ranked with other OECD nations.
Q2) Which of the following best defines suffrage?
A)the right to vote
B)the requirement to register
C)partisan political activity
D)nonpartisan political action
Q3) Landen Gambill circulated a petition to multiple state legislatures arguing against allowing campus carry policies.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Voting, volunteering, protesting, and organizing are all examples of A)civic action.
B)political participation.
C)civil dissonance.
D)partisan activity.
Page 8
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Chapter 7: Public Opinion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following best defines public opinion?
A)the sum of individual attitudes about governmental policies and issues
B)a representative sampling of public attitudes and opinions
C)the feelings and attitudes of an individual respondent
D)the results of a brief political poll conducted by a single candidate
Q2) Immediately following the death of Michael Brown, the Pew Research Center organized a survey by
A)conducting a random sample of 1,000 American adults using landlines and cell phones.
B)posting a self-selected survey on a public Internet site titled DoBlackLivesMatter.org.
C)going to Ferguson and personally interviewing more than 2,000 active protesters.
D)recording the opinions of callers who responded on local talk radio programs.
Q3) In November 2014, a grand jury announced Officer Wilson would ______.
A)face disciplinary charges
B)be indicted for aggravated murder
C)not be indicted for the shooting
D)resign his position as a police officer
Q4) Explain the role of accurate and reliable information in the political process.
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Page 9
Chapter 8: The Media
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Q1) According to research presented in a 2013 Pew Research Center poll, Internet news consumption has overtaken that of television news media.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A major problem with the rise in milblogs was an inability to
A)properly train soldiers on the effective use of Internet resources.
B)censor or control the online actions of military personnel that might place operations at risk.
C)keep families in the loop of important information impacting them.
D)maintain esprit de corps (morale)within and between the ranks of the armed forces.
Q3) The collective group of news providers that people increasingly depend upon is called
A)mass media.
B)social media.
C)news media.
D)radical media.
Q4) In his writings in 1922, Journalist Walter Lippmann viewed the media as having a ______ on the public.
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Page 10
Chapter 9: Political Parties
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Sample Questions
Q1) Who traditionally chooses the national chair of his/her party?
A)the Speaker of the House
B)the president
C)the exiting chairperson
D)the presumptive nominee
Q2) In 2016, former New York City Mayor ______ publicly toyed with the idea of running a third-party campaign.
A)H. Ross Perot
B)Michael Bloomberg
C)Fiorello La Guardia
D)Fred Koch
Q3) The third-party system saw the issue of ______ as its most important cause for realignment.
Q4) During the Sixth Party Period, Democrats were focused on vigorous ______ government and Republicans were focused on ______ government.
A)federal, smaller
B)international, federal
C)state, large
D)federal, international
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Chapter 10: Campaigns and Elections Multiple Choice
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Sample Questions
Q1) Organizations that are permitted to make campaign contributions within legal limits are known as ______.
Q2) Rather than voting directly for president, voters in a national election are selecting A)delegates to represent them.
B)partisan choices for the national stage.
C)a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for the winning nominee.
D)members of the electoral college, who will then vote their conscience.
Q3) Senators were originally chosen by
A)the chief executive.
B)the state legislatures.
C)the national legislature.
D)the judiciary.
Q4) In an effort to effectively control the ballooning growth of campaign contributions, Congress passed the ______
A)Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.
B)Federal Election Campaign Act.
C)Citizens United Campaign Reform Bill.
D)Multiparty Campaign Financing Law.
Q5) What impact does money have on today's national election process?
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Chapter 11: Interest Groups and Social Movements
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Sample Questions
Q1) Organizations that act to secure the interests of local, state, or foreign governments in the political process are known as A)economic interest groups.
B)public interest groups.
C)governmental interest groups.
D)professional interest groups.
Q2) Since 2000, the lobbying influence over Congress has A)increased.
B)decreased.
C)remained stable.
D)not been measured.
Q3) The power elite is limited to the top-ranking elected officials in government. A)True B)False
Q4) In the American political system, elected leaders are tasked with A)countering the effects of factions.
B)speaking on behalf of the people.
C)voting their conscience at all times.
D)analyzing and changing regulations.
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Chapter 12: Congress
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Sample Questions
Q1) The event that crystalized the commitment of women to run for Congress in 1992 was
A)the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment.
B)the rise of the National Organization of Women.
C)the growing population of women in the United States.
D)the Senate confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas.
Q2) The agency whose role is to provide information and estimates of the likely budgetary consequences of funding the agencies and programs created by Congress is the Office of ______.
A)General Accounting Oversight
B)Legislative Review
C)Congressional Representation
D)Management and Budget
Q3) The ______ allows committee members to make changes to a bill before the committee reports it to the floor.
A)concurrent meeting
B)assistive process
C)collective delegation
D)markup session
Q4) The act of "standing for" one's constituents in government is defined as ______.
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Chapter 13: The American Presidency
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Sample Questions
Q1) Teddy Roosevelt carried a "big stick" in
A)domestic policy.
B)foreign affairs.
C)economic legislation.
D)military dominance.
Q2) Which executive official serves as president of the Senate and assumes the office of president of the United States in case of death, resignation, or impeachment?
A)the Speaker of the House
B)the Senate Majority Leader
C)the Majority Whip
D)the Vice President
Q3) In his written statement before a federal courtroom in Baltimore, Maryland, Roger Taney demanded the body, alive and in person, of
A)John Wilkes Booth.
B)John Merryman.
C)John Brown.
D)John Jay.
Q4) The ______ remains the bloodiest and costliest conflict in the nation's history.
Q5) The president is required to give Congress Information on the ______.
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Chapter 14: The Federal Bureaucracy
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Sample Questions
Q1) President ______ had desired to work on bureaucratic reforms in his administration but was shot down by an assassin in 1881 who was an unsuccessful office seeker.
A)Benjamin Harrison
B)James Garfield
C)William McKinley
D)Woodrow Wilson
Q2) Federal employees with higher-level supervisory and administrative responsibilities who are paid and treated more like vice presidents of businesses than political figures are
A)civil service supervisors.
B)privately hired managers.
C)executive political appointees.
D)senior executive service members.
Q3) Amtrak is an example of a
A)government department.
B)regulatory agency.
C)government corporation.
D)private enterprise.
Q4) Define bureaucracy and describe its defining characteristics.
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Chapter 15: The Federal Judiciary
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Sample Questions
Q1) Those who argue that the Court should use the power of judicial review only rarely and, when possible, defer to the judgment of the legislative and executive branches in decisions they have made are considered proponents of A)judicial restraint.
B)countermajoritarianism.
C)judicial activism.
D)legal policymaking.
Q2) The model that focuses on the political actions of individual justices as they try to make the best use of personal and official resources in order to obtain a specific set of policy objectives is called the A)strategic model.
B)classical model.
C)legal model.
D)attitudinal model.
Q3) Proponents of ______ argue that justices should be willing to step in and overturn laws when they see the need to, especially when they perceive those laws as trampling on individual rights and liberties.
Q4) Describe the structure of the American legal system and the federal judiciary.
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Chapter 16: The Politics of Promoting the General Welfare
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Sample Questions
Q1) The decision and authority to formally terminate a policy usually lies in
A)Congress or a state legislature.
B)federal department level leaders.
C)civil service supervisors.
D)the Government Accountability Office.
Q2) At its core, social welfare policy involves
A)planning for population growth.
B)redistribution of resources.
C)providing free services to citizens.
D)supplying necessary resources to states.
Q3) In 1965, the FHA was folded into the Department of ______.
Q4) In his majority opinion in the Zelman case, Chief Justice Rehnquist stated that the program was enacted for a ______ purpose and therefore was Constitutional.
A)partisan
B)secular
C)political
D)foundational
Q5) The No Child Left Behind policy remains unchanged and still in effect.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: Economic Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) Inflation is best described as
A)a period of declining consumer prices (CPI).
B)a period of declining gross domestic product (GDP).
C)a period of rising unemployment.
D)a period of rising consumer prices (CPI).
Q2) Managing the nation's economy can be complicated by the myriad of competing variables involved.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The United States has a pure laissez-faire form of economy.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A type of economic policy in which many economic decisions are left to individuals and businesses but also in which the federal government plays a role in using its power to shape those economic decisions is best described as a
A)laissez-faire economy.
B)command-and-control economy.
C)mixed economy.
D)socialist economy.
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Chapter 18: Foreign Policy
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Q1) In 2003, the United States invaded ______ even though it had not been deemed immediately responsible for the September 11 attacks.
A)Iran
B)Iraq
C)Afghanistan
D)North Korea
Q2) Congress has the power to exert considerable influence over foreign policy through its power of/to
A)declare war.
B)advice and consent.
C)separated institutions.
D)legislative authority.
Q3) The first cabinet position didn't appear until the presidency of Thomas Jefferson.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the wake of the September 11 attacks, President Bush involved the nation in a ______ war in which military might was used to challenge adversaries before they launched attacks upon the United States.
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