Contemporary Issues in American Government Study Guide Questions
Course Introduction
This course explores the most pressing and debated topics currently shaping American government and politics. Students will examine issues such as political polarization, the role of the media, evolving civil rights debates, campaign finance, immigration policy, the challenges facing federalism, and the impact of social movements. Through critical analysis of scholarly research, current events, and public policy, students will develop an in-depth understanding of how contemporary challenges influence the functioning of American political institutions and affect citizens lives. The course emphasizes the connections between theory and practice, encouraging informed discussion and thoughtful engagement with the dynamics of American democracy.
Recommended Textbook
American Government 14th Edition by Stephen Ansolabehere
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17 Chapters
2281 Verified Questions
2281 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: Five Principles of Politics
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Sample Questions
Q1) When the Speaker of the House exercises his or her authority to keep a bill from even being discussed, it exemplifies the Speaker's ability to exert A)veto power.
B)agenda power.
C)docket authority.
D)termination authority.
E)discharge action.
Answer: B
Q2) When France was ruled by King Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte, and then Louis XVIII, it exemplified the governmental system known as A)a unigarchy.
B)an oligarchy.
C)an autocracy.
D)totalitarianism.
E)a democracy.
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Constructing a Government: the Founding and the Constitution
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145 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Constitution does not explicitly mention the principle of the separation of powers. A)True
B)False Answer: True
Q2) The radicals led by Samuel Adams hoped that the Boston Tea Party would goad the British into strong reprisals.Which principle does this strategy illustrate?
A)rationality principle
B)institution principle
C)collective action principle
D)policy principle
E)history principle
Answer: A
Q3) Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government was based entirely in Congress.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: Federalism and the Separation of Powers
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Sample Questions
Q1) The condition in American government in which the presidency is controlled by one party while the opposing party controls one or both houses of Congress is known as A)bicameralism.
B)dual control.
C)a split system.
D)divided government.
E)oligarchy.
Answer: D
Q2) The first Supreme Court case that clearly defined interstate commerce was A)Hicklin v.Orbeck.
B)Gibbons v.Ogden.
C)Marbury v.Madison.
D)Printz v.United States.
E)City of Boerne v.Flores.
Answer: B
Q3) Local governments have always been mere conveniences of the states.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Civil Liberties
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the Supreme Court case Buckley v.Valeo, the Court declared that since campaign spending was not a form of speech, the First Amendment did not protect it.
A)True
B)False
Q2) When the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not block the publication of secret Defense Department documents in the New York Times, it did so because of the doctrine preventing A)prior restraint.
B)libel.
C)slander.
D)fighting words.
E)intrusive searches.
Q3) In Gideon v.Wainwright, the Supreme Court ruled that persons under arrest must be informed of their legal rights, including the right to counsel.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Contrast the role of the courts in nationalizing the commerce clause with the role of the courts in nationalizing the Bill of Rights.
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Chapter 5: Civil Rights
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Sample Questions
Q1) In response to court-ordered desegregation, the states of the Deep South responded with a carefully planned tactic known as
A)the MacArthur Plan.
B)the Beauregard Solution.
C)the Atlanta model.
D)massive resistance.
E)the defiance initiative.
Q2) The Supreme Court signaled the lower courts to disengage from desegregation efforts in Missouri v.Jenkins.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Supreme Court case Regents of the University of California v.Bakke effectively outlawed
A)strict quotas.
B)affirmative action.
C)race-conscious decisions.
D)the goal of diversity in a university setting.
E)any preferential treatment of minorities.
Q4) Should affirmative action be continued? Why or why not?
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Chapter 6: Congress: the First Branch
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Sample Questions
Q1) Voting in the U.S.House and Senate has become more partisan since 1970.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The incumbency advantage makes it harder for women to increase their numbers in Congress.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What influence do political parties exercise in the lawmaking activities of Congress?
Q4) Because of many campaign finance regulations passed to level the playing field, the gap between incumbent and challenger spending has narrowed considerably over the past quarter century.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How do the House of Representatives and the Senate check and balance each other's power?
Q6) After policies are passed, Congress does not need to spend much time overseeing implementation of the policies.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 7: The Presidency As an Institution
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160 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States today, Congress continues to be the constitutional source of policy.
A)True
B)False
Q2) How have presidents used the mass media to their advantage? What role has changing technology played?
Q3) Prior to the New Deal, and consistent with the intent of the Constitution's framers, what was the strongest branch of the government?
A)legislative
B)executive
C)judicial
D)bureaucratic
E)county governments
Q4) Explain the role of the vice president.How are vice presidents selected? Discuss the relationships that specific vice presidents have had with their presidents.
Q5) What are the primary administrative tools that presidents use to shape policy? How can Congress respond to these tactics?
Q6) How does the history principle help explain changes in presidential power?
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Chapter 8: The Executive Branch: Bureaucracy in a Democracy
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Department of Justice is an agency for internal security.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Elections have negligible effect on the conditions for employment of bureaucrats in the United States.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Career civil servants and high-level political appointees are politicians.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Congress often deliberately delegates the responsibility of lawmaking to an administrative agency.
A)True
B)False
Q5) If you were hired as a public relations expert by the U.S.government to improve the public image of the American bureaucracy, what specific recommendations would you make?
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Q6) Describe a personal experience you have had with a federal bureaucratic agency.Overall, was your experience pleasant or unpleasant? Helpful or unhelpful?
Chapter 9: The Federal Courts
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Sample Questions
Q1) In Citizens United v.Federal Election Commission (2010), the Supreme Court held that corporations and unions could not be restricted from financial participation in elections.The Court's decision to expand corporate and union participation in elections best exemplifies which of the following judicial philosophies?
A)judicial restraint
B)judicial ideology
C)judicial objection
D)judicial activism
E)judicial impartiality
Q2) The U.S.Courts of Appeals are divided into three geographic circuits.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In United States v.Nixon, the Supreme Court rejected the president's refusal to turn over tapes to congressional investigators.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Most cases are settled before trial.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Public Opinion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe the major methods for measuring public opinion.What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method?
Q2) Identities are both psychological and sociological.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Membership in social groups affects public opinion
A)when membership is voluntary only.
B)when membership is involuntary only.
C)if a person's family is in the same group only.
D)for neither voluntary nor involuntary groups.
E)for both voluntary and involuntary groups.
Q4) Discuss the role of identity in U.S.politics and political behavior.To what extent does identity shape our opinions and attitudes toward politics?
Q5) Presidential news events typically receive much more news media coverage than similar events by congressional leaders.
A)True
B)False
Q6) What factors account for differences in public opinion?
Q7) In a democracy, what should be the role of public opinion?
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Elections
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Sample Questions
Q1) Local decisions regarding the location and staffing of polling places can influence the outcome of elections.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Elected officials in the United States today are generally selected from single-member districts.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The choice of a ballot format is usually made by the A)state.
B)county.
C)city.
D)U.S.Congress.
E)Federal Elections Commission.
Q4) While it would be good for more voters to exercise their right to vote, it does not seem likely that increased voter turnout would alter election outcomes.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How does government regulate the electoral process?
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Chapter 12: Political Parties
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Sample Questions
Q1) Individuals who do not identify with a major party derive no information from party labels.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The New Deal Coalition most closely associates with which of the following party systems?
A)first-party system
B)third-party system
C)fourth-party system
D)fifth-party system
E)sixth-party system
Q3) During the 1964 presidential election, arguments in favor of substantially reduced levels of taxation and spending, less government regulation of the economy, and elimination of many federal social programs were advanced by
A)Milton Friedman, author of a book titled Free to Choose.
B)Richard M.Nixon, author of a book titled Hope and Peace.
C)John F.Kennedy, author of a book titled Profiles in Courage.
D)Barry Goldwater, author of a book titled The Conscience of a Conservative.
E)Ronald Reagan, author of a book titled The Right Course for America.
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Chapter 13: Groups and Interests
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is going public, and what do interest groups hope to achieve when using this strategy? How has it been used successfully in the past?
Q2) In the prisoner's dilemma, adherence to self-interest in accordance with the rationality principle
A)helps an individual gain freedom.
B)only helps the other individual in gaining freedom.
C)makes both individuals worse off.
D)makes both individuals slightly better off.
E)makes both individuals much better off.
Q3) Interest groups provide funds for candidates but are rarely involved in other aspects of political campaigns.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Groups seeking access to birth control and abortion avoided using the courts as a significant strategy to advance their goals after the 1970s.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How do interest groups attempt to influence elections?
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Chapter 14: The Media
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Sample Questions
Q1) When the pharmaceutical company Pfizer wrote a story about one of its drugs in the style of a newspaper and then distributed it to news reporters and invited them to publish it under their own names with only minor revisions, Pfizer exemplified the use of
A)the news leak.
B)earned media.
C)the news template.
D)the ghosted story.
E)the press release.
Q2) Liberals have had less success than conservatives in the world of talk radio.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Per broadcast hour, radio stations usually devote how much time to coverage of the news?
A)five minutes
B)eleven minutes
C)seventeen minutes
D)twenty-five minutes
E)fifty-five minutes
Q4) Would our democracy function effectively without the critical role of the press?
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Chapter 15: Economic Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) List and define the prerequisites for a market economy.
Q2) Because a growing proportion of the annual federal budget is consumed by nondiscretionary spending, what specific recommendations would you make in terms of government priorities in an era of increasing national debt and continued risk of shocks to the national economy?
Q3) The power of government to set conditions on companies seeking to sell goods or services to government agencies is called contracting power.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The federal government spends more on Social Security than it does on national defense.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The collapse of a major bubble almost always leads to A)higher prices for securities that were not a part of the bubble.
B)decreases in the price of gold.
C)calls for freedom from government regulation.
D)demands for government intervention.
E)a secondary bubble in the same market.
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Chapter 16: Social Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) The president who promised to "end welfare as we know it" was A)Bill Clinton.
B)Richard Nixon.
C)Ronald Reagan.
D)George H.W.Bush.
E)Barack Obama.
Q2) One argument against the welfare system is that it lays most of the blame for society's woes on A)racism.
B)the economic and political system.
C)the program.
D)the individual.
E)divorcees.
Q3) The Department of Agriculture administers the largest in-kind benefits program, called the
A)Farm Credit program.
B)Food Stamps program/SNAP.
C)Commodity Distribution System.
D)Emergency Food Assistance program.
E)Women, Infants, and Children program.
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Chapter 17: Foreign Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) How did the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, change U.S.foreign policy?
Q2) A relatively small but quite influential example of a human rights interest group is
A)Amnesty International.
B)Global Oppression Watch.
C)Citizens Against Genocide Conference.
D)World Commission on Crimes Against Humanity.
E)Human Rights Watch.
Q3) Which international institution was established to provide short-term flow of money to help overcome temporary trade deficits?
A)World Bank
B)World Finance Institute
C)International Monetary Fund
D)International Development Organization
E)Manhattan Transfer Authority
Q4) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to counter the perceived threat of the Soviet Union.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Describe the structure and purpose of the United Nations.
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