Foundations of American History Exam Practice Tests
Course Introduction
Foundations of American History explores the key events, ideas, and figures that shaped the development of the United States from pre-Columbian times to the early nineteenth century. The course examines indigenous cultures, European colonization, the evolution of colonial societies, the struggle for independence, the formation of the Constitution, and the growth of the early republic. Students will analyze primary and secondary sources to understand the social, political, and economic forces that contributed to the emergence of American identity and institutions, fostering a deeper appreciation for the complexities and legacies of the nation's formative years.
Recommended Textbook
The Brief American Pageant A History of the Republic Volume I To 1877 9th Edition by David M. Kennedy
Available Study Resources on Quizplus
22 Chapters
2557 Verified Questions
2557 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/1018 Page 2
Chapter 1: New World Beginnings
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
110 Verified Questions
110 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20175
Sample Questions
Q1) What occurred in the centuries after Columbus's arrival in the New World?
A) Europeans were ravaged by new diseases.
B) Native Americans were successfully cultivating the European crop of tobacco.
C) Native Americans had developed a taste for sugar.
D) The Apache and Sioux tribes were wiped out by warfare with European explorers.
E) Roughly 90 percent of the Native American population perished.
Answer: E
Q2) Where was early Native American (Indian)civilization least developed?
A) North America
B) Mexico
C) Central America
D) Peru
E) Latin America
Answer: A
Q3) caravel
Answer: Answers will vary.
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Page 3
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
125 Verified Questions
125 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20176
Sample Questions
Q1) Which phrase best describes England's interest in the early 1500s in establishing overseas colonies?
A) Fervent and religiously motivated
B) Tepid, with limited forays into colonization
C) Virtually non-existent
D) Incredibly strong
E) Dangerously overambitious
Answer: C
Q2) The colony of Georgia was established in order to provide
A) profits for the investors of a joint-stock company.
B) a defensive buffer for South Carolina.
C) a model of interracial cooperation between English settlers and freed slaves.
D) territory for the creation of royal sugar plantations.
E) reservation land for Indian resettlement.
Answer: B
Q3) In many ways,North Carolina was the least typical of the five plantation colonies.Describe the unique features of colonial North Carolina,and explain why this colony was so unlike its southern neighbors.
Answer: NOT ANSWERED
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Page 4
Chapter 3: Settling the Northern Colonies,1619-1700
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20177
Sample Questions
Q1) "Bible Commonwealth"
Answer: Answers will vary.
Q2) What was the end result of King Philip's War?
A) The lasting defeat of New England's Indians
B) France's moving into Canada
C) The formation of a powerful alliance among the Indians to resist the English
D) The last victory for the Indians
E) The rapid expansion of English settlement throughout New England
Answer: A
Q3) Which statement is NOT a characteristic of the Massachusetts Bay enterprise?
A) It was well equipped, with eleven vessels carrying nearly a thousand immigrants.
B) It started out on a larger scale than any of the other English settlements.
C) It experienced additional immigration due to continuing turmoil in England.
D) It merged with the Plymouth Bay Colony in 1691.
E) It began when Charles I dismissed Archbishop William Laud, a sympathizer with Puritanism.
Answer: E
Q4) King Philip´s War
Answer: Answers will vary.
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 5
Chapter 4: American Life in the Seventeenth
Century,1607-1692
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
98 Verified Questions
98 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20178
Sample Questions
Q1) Why did colonial masters first adopt the institution of indentured servitude rather than Indian or black slavery to meet their demands for labor? Why,then,did black slavery replace indentured servitude? How did race and racism come to shape slavery?
Q2) Bacon's Rebellion
Q3) New Englanders' relationship to the land differed from that of Native Americans in all of the following ways EXCEPT for their shared
A) reliance on the technique of burning woodlands to restore forest growth.
B) belief in the right to own land.
C) sense of duty to improve the land.
D) efforts to reshape the land to meet their needs.
E) desire to build permanent settlements.
Q4) midwifery
Q5) Most of the inhabitants of the colonial American South were
A) slave-owning planters.
B) small landowning farmers.
C) landless farm laborers.
D) black slaves.
E) urban wage earners.
Q6) tidewater plantations
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 6
Chapter 5: Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution,1700-1775
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
107 Verified Questions
107 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20179
Sample Questions
Q1) taverns
Q2) The main reason that Puritan churches were struggling in the early eighteenth century was because
A) parishioners found their theological doctrines too elaborate and sermons too tedious.
B) parishioners thought that ministers had gone too soft in their preaching.
C) church members embraced the notion of predestination.
D) they banned their predominantly female membership from any leadership positions.
E) the Anglican Church successfully competed for church members.
Q3) The prevalent Scots-Irish attitude toward government was that they
A) showed remarkable willingness to follow authority.
B) displayed great loyalty to Britain.
C) cherished no love for the British or any other government.
D) liked colonial American assemblies better than the British Parliament.
E) identified with American Indians' tribal way of life.
Q4) Gullah
Q5) proprietary colonies
Q6) John Trumbull
Q7) George Whitefield
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 7
Chapter 6: The Duel for North America,1608-1763
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
100 Verified Questions
100 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20180
Sample Questions
Q1) Proclamation of 1763
Q2) France had to give up its vision of a North American New France when
A) the settlers in Québec demanded independence.
B) farming proved to be unprofitable.
C) King Louis XIV died.
D) it was defeated and driven off the continent in 1763.
E) it could not entice enough settlers to America.
Q3) Edict of Nantes
Q4) Iroquois
Q5) New France
Q6) What did the Peace of Utrecht accomplish?
A) It halted settlement in British territory west of the Appalachians, inflaming colonial resentment.
B) It inaugurated a long peace in Europe that lasted throughout the eighteenth century.
C) It transferred Acadia (Nova Scotia), Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay from French to British control.
D) It gave Spanish Florida to the British.
E) It ceded to the Dutch all of France´s island colonies in the Caribbean.
Q7) coureurs de bois
Page 8
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 7: The Road to Revolution 1763-1775
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
124 Verified Questions
124 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20181
Sample Questions
Q1) boycott
Q2) If the colonists' fundamental principle was "no taxation without representation," why did moderate proposals for American representation in the British Parliament fail to succeed?
Q3) The colonists faced all of the following weaknesses in the War for Independence EXCEPT
A) poor organization.
B) colonial disunity and weak central authority.
C) a weak economy and lack of military supplies.
D) the necessity of employing European officers.
E) a poorly trained militia and few professional soldiers.
Q4) Hessians
Q5) Despite the benefits of the mercantile system,the American colonists disliked the system because it
A) forced the South to adopt a one-crop economy.
B) favored the northern over the southern colonies.
C) reinforced class differences in the colonies.
D) reinforced dependence on the mother country and stifled economic initiative.
E) encouraged harsh repression by British officials.
Q6) nonimportation agreements
Page 9
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 8: America Secedes from the Empire,1775-1783
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
132 Verified Questions
132 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20182
Sample Questions
Q1) To what extent was the outcome of the American Revolution determined by actions taken in neither America nor Britain?
Q2) Iroquois Confederacy
Q3) Loyalists probably accounted for about _____ percent of the American population.
A) 5
B) 15
C) 35
D) 50
E) 60
Q4) Battles of Brandywine Creek and Germantown
Q5) The most important contribution of the U.S.navy and the American privateers during the Revolutionary War was
A) successfully running the British blockade with supplies.
B) conducting raids on the British West Indies.
C) capturing hundreds of British merchant ships.
D) fighting the British navy to a standstill.
E) providing assistance to the French navy at Yorktown.
Q6) George Washington
Q7) evacuation of Boston
Q8) William Howe
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 10
Chapter 9: The Confederation and the Constitution,1776-1790
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
126 Verified Questions
126 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20183
Sample Questions
Q1) If you had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention,what one or two features of the document would you have altered or eliminated? What one or two provisions would you have added?
Q2) George Washington
Q3) runaway inflation
Q4) Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
Q5) All of these foreign powers attempted to interfere with American trade and independence after the revolutionary war EXCEPT
A) Dey of Algiers
B) Spain
C) France
D) Portugal
E) Britain
Q6) Consider the proposition that both the Revolutionary War and the Constitution were engineered by minorities.Does it change the meaning of American republican democracy that these two critical developments in our nation´s founding were not products of the majority´s will,but rather the work of minorities? Why or why not?
Page 11
Q7) "We the people "
Q8) republican motherhood
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 12
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
140 Verified Questions
140 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20184
Sample Questions
Q1) The discussion of "nullification" in Jefferson´s Kentucky resolutions
A) was a brilliant statement in favor of a powerful central government.
B) helped established the isolationist tendency in American foreign policy.
C) was used by the Jeffersonians to throw out the results of the 1798 elections.
D) would later be taken up by southerners to defend nullification and ultimately secession.
E) was used by the Jeffersonians to overturn the hated excise tax on whiskey.
Q2) Summarize the central argument of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions.Explain why they are key documents in American history.
Q3) Even though Alexander Hamilton was a more dominant personality and assertive administrator than Thomas Jefferson,Americans commonly speak of ours as a "Jeffersonian democracy" rather than a "Hamiltonian republic." Why did the principles and ideals of Jefferson somehow become more deeply ingrained in American political culture and society than Hamilton's? Are Jefferson's ideals still as appealing today,even if his particular policies are no longer adhered to?
Q4) loose construction
Q5) Thomas Jefferson
Q6) Alexander Hamilton
Q7) implied powers
Page 13
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter
11: The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian
Republic,1800-1812
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
113 Verified Questions
113 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20185
Sample Questions
Q1) With Thomas Jefferson's election as president,the Federalist Party
A) grew stronger and more unified.
B) revised its ideology to gain more supporters.
C) warned of the dangers of Jefferson´s decadent life-style.
D) began its slow decline.
E) extended the Alien and Sedition Acts indefinitely before turning over the reins of power.
Q2) deposit privileges
Q3) The Non-Intercourse Act of 1809
A) declared a trade war on Britain.
B) replaced Jefferson´s blanket embargo on foreign trade with a ban on trade specifically with Britain and France.
C) outlawed any trade with Indians along the frontier.
D) prohibited the importation of all European luxury items.
E) closed American ports to European immigrants until the war in Europe ended.
Q4) Jefferson and Madison were both great scholars and theorists of American democracy as well as "Fathers" of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.How do their presidencies match up to their other achievements? Which of the two was the more skilled president,and why?
Page 14
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 12: The Second War for Independence and the Upsurge
of Nationalism,1812-1824
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
143 Verified Questions
143 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20186
Sample Questions
Q1) internal improvements
Q2) "Virginia dynasty"
Q3) The Battle of New Orleans
A) was won by Andrew Jackson and a rag-tag force of soldiers, sailors, pirates, and Frenchmen.
B) was fought by ill-trained British soldiers and Indian allies against an organized, disciplined American force.
C) enabled Americans to gain huge concessions from the British in the subsequent peace treaty.
D) led the defeated Spanish to hand over Florida to the United States.
E) resulted in Louisiana becoming part of the United States.
Q4) Write your definition of national independence.Then use this definition to argue that the War of 1812 should or should not be called the Second War for American Independence.
Q5) American System
Q6) Fort McHenry
Q7) Latin American republics
Q8) James Monroe
Q9) sectionalism
Page 15
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Page 16
Chapter 13: The Rise of a Mass Democracy 1824-1840
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
151 Verified Questions
151 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20187
Sample Questions
Q1) What were the causes of the Panic of 1837? Could this downturn have been prevented,or was it evidence of the problems inherent in a free-market economy? What solutions were proposed to alleviate the crisis?
Q2) How did the Sauk and Fox tribes respond to the planned eviction of Native Americans from their homelands under the Indian Removal Act of 1830?
A) They appealed to Congress to let them stay where they were.
B) They resisted and were crushed by federal troops.
C) They tried to assimilate into white society.
D) They took their case to the state and later U.S. Supreme Court.
E) They led a violent assault on Washington D.C.
Q3) Texas Revolution
Q4) Lone Star
Q5) Bank War
Q6) Americans who moved to Texas defied which aspect of their agreement with Mexico?
A) That they arrive as families
B) That they abstain from alcohol
C) That they do not bring slaves into Mexico
D) That they denounce Spain
E) That they agree to dual citizenship
Page 17
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
125 Verified Questions
125 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20188
Sample Questions
Q1) By 1830 the early,painful efforts at organizing workers resulted in
A) successful strikes in nearly every industry.
B) a nationwide labor movement that held considerable political power.
C) virtually no gains at all.
D) a growing number of state laws that prohibited child labor.
E) 300,000 trade unionists.
Q2) McCormick's reaper
Q3) German immigrants to the United States
A) quickly became a powerful political force.
B) left their homeland to escape economic hardships and autocratic government.
C) were as poor as the Irish.
D) were generally welcomed by native-born Americans.
E) were almost all Catholics.
Q4) Compare and contrast the economic development of the Northeast with that of the South.What were some of the reasons that those differences developed?
Q5) Cyrus McCormick
Q6) Isaac Singer
Q7) Ancient Order of Hibernians
Q8) Clermont
Q9) Robert Fulton Page 18
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Page 19
Chapter 15: The Ferment of Reform and Culture,1790-1860
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
151 Verified Questions
151 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20189
Sample Questions
Q1) The Second Great Awakening
A) resulted in very few conversions.
B) encouraged the religious to ignore society´s ills.
C) strengthened democratic denominations like the Baptists and Methodists.
D) was a celebration of the growing liberalism in religion.
E) was not as large as the First Great Awakening.
Q2) Oberlin College
Q3) North American Review
Q4) In early-nineteenth-century America,
A) the lines between male and female roles in society were becoming blurred.
B) women could vote in many states, but not hold office.
C) married women could not retain ownership of their property.
D) women began associating more with men than with women only.
E) women turned away from patriarchal religion.
Q5) Amelia Bloomer
Q6) Why did the communitarian movement flourish in the early nineteenth century? What were communitarians trying to prove? Why did most fail?
Q7) How did educational opportunities increase in number and quality for early-nineteenth-century Americans? Who did not benefit from these expanded opportunities?
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 20
Chapter 16: The South and the Slavery
Controversy,1793-1860
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
103 Verified Questions
103 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20190
Sample Questions
Q1) "third race"
Q2) By 1860,in some counties of the deep South,especially along the lower Mississippi River,blacks accounted for more than ____ percent of the population.
A) 25
B) 40
C) 50
D) 75
E) 90
Q3) Plantation mistresses
A) had little contact with slaves.
B) were often active in the women's rights movement.
C) frequently had moral doubts about slavery.
D) commanded a sizable household staff of mostly female slaves.
E) tended to be harsh in their treatment of slaves.
Q4) Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by
A) Susan B. Anthony.
B) Lucretia Mott.
C) Harriet Beecher Stowe.
D) Margaret Fuller.
E) Harriet Tubman.
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 21
Chapter 17: Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy,1841-1848
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
106 Verified Questions
106 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20191
Sample Questions
Q1) Battle of Buena Vista
Q2) One consequence of the Mexican War for the United States was
A) increased international respect for its victorious armed forces.
B) a quenching of the expansionist thirst for the next several years.
C) a newfound appreciation for Mexican culture and the Spanish language.
D) an unforeseen plague of boll weevils that spread from former Mexican territories to Gulf state plantations.
E) the imminent death of the Democratic party.
Q3) The Mexican War resulted in
A) a tripling of the territorial size of the United States.
B) combat experience for those who would lead the armies in the Civil War.
C) an embarrassing show of America´s poor naval capabilities.
D) friendlier relations between the United States and Latin American nations.
E) a temporary lull in sectional tensions over slavery.
Q4) Webster-Ashburton Treaty
Q5) David Wilmot
Q6) Walker Tariff
Q7) Zachary Taylor
Q8) John C.Frémont
Q9) Tariff of 1842
Page 22
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Page 23
Chapter 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle,1848-1854
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
110 Verified Questions
110 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20192
Sample Questions
Q1) filibustering
Q2) The new Free Soil party in 1848 found major support from those who
A) favored the Wilmot Proviso.
B) wanted to abolish slavery in the South.
C) thought that slavery distorted America´s diplomatic dealings with European powers.
D) wanted to keep slavery from ever spreading to the North.
E) thought that popular sovereignty was the best approach to slavery.
Q3) Assess the validity of the following statement: "The Compromise of 1850 contributed to the Union victory in the Civil War."
Q4) Fugitive Slave Law
Q5) Harriet Tubman gained fame
A) by helping slaves to escape to Canada.
B) in the gold fields of California.
C) as an African American antislavery novelist.
D) as a public opponent of the Fugitive Slave Law.
E) by urging white women to oppose slavery.
Q6) popular sovereignty
Q7) Treaty of Kanagawa (1854)
Q8) John P.Hale
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 24
Chapter 19: Drifting Toward Disunion,1854-1861
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
98 Verified Questions
98 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20193
Sample Questions
Q1) The panic of 1857 was most significant in its
A) severity as the worst economic downturn of the century.
B) duration as the longest economic downturn of the 1800s.
C) sectional character and psychological impact, pushing the North and South further apart.
D) devastation in the plantation strongholds of the South.
E) promotion of national unity in the face of hardship.
Q2) Freeport question
Q3) Constitutional Union party
Q4) The proposed Crittenden Compromise sought to end the secession crisis by
A) allowing slavery north of the line 36 30'.
B) establishing popular sovereignty as the means to determine the question of slavery in all current and future territories.
C) revising the Fugitive Slave Law to ensure tougher enforcement in the North.
D) mandating equal representation between slave and free states in the Senate.
E) permitting the expansion of slavery into new territories south of 36 30'.
Q5) John J.Crittenden
Q6) Harpers Ferry
Q7) William H.Seward
Q8) Tariff of 1857
Page 25
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above.
Chapter 20: Girding for War: The North and the
South,1861-1865
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
81 Verified Questions
81 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20194
Sample Questions
Q1) Explain the significance of the Border States to both the North and the South.How did they influence the shaping of Union strategy?
Q2) A supposed asset for the South at the beginning of the Civil War that never materialized to its advantage was
A) effective military leadership.
B) intervention by Britain and France.
C) the fighting skill of Southern males.
D) its ability to fight on its own soil.
E) its belief that it was defending its way of life.
Q3) In what ways was the economic and social impact of the war similar in both North and South,and it what ways was it different?
Q4) Critics dubbed Lincoln a tyrant partly because he
A) raised taxes without Congressional authorization.
B) surrounded himself with "yes men" in his cabinet.
C) tried to bully the British over freedom of the seas.
D) suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
E) implemented a draft long before the Union army exhausted the potential supply of volunteers.
Q5) Clara Barton
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 26
Chapter 21: The Furnace of Civil War,1861-1865
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
91 Verified Questions
91 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20195
Sample Questions
Q1) How much did the Union's prosecution of the war reflect the idea of "total war"? In which Union campaign(s)was the practice of total war most evident?
Q2) What was one of the reasons that the Union victory at Vicksburg was of major importance?
A) It reopened the Ohio River to Northern trade.
B) It began to deflate the South's overconfidence.
C) It showed the strategic importance of ironclad warships.
D) It cut off the supply of cattle and other goods from Texas and Louisiana to the main Confederate forces.
E) It showed the genius of General George McClellan's wait-and-see approach.
Q3) The North's "victory" at Antietam allowed President Lincoln to A) issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
B) demand that Britain stop aiding the Confederacy.
C) force the Border States to remain in the Union.
D) keep General McClellan as commander of the Union forces.
E) suppress Copperhead opposition in the North.
Q4) Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War
Q5) George B.McClellan
Q6) siege of Vicksburg
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 27
Available Study Resources on Quizplus for this Chatper
103 Verified Questions
103 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20196
Sample Questions
Q1) From 1878 to 1880,some twenty-five thousand blacks from Louisiana,Texas,and Mississippi
A) moved North to work in industry.
B) immigrated to Africa.
C) migrated to the Caribbean.
D) moved into Kansas and formed communities there.
E) joined the Union Army to fight Plains Indians in the West.
Q2) In post-emancipation black communities,the Union League served several vital functions,including
A) educating blacks in their civic duties and campaigning for Republican candidates.
B) organizing cooperative farming schemes as an alternative to sharecropping.
C) helping blacks migrate from the South to the North.
D) helping ex-slaves claim their land grants of forty acres.
E) promoting women's suffrage.
Q3) What four basic questions did the nation face after the Civil War? Which were addressed most successfully over the course of Reconstruction,and which the least?
Q4) Thirteenth Amendment
Q5) Alexander Stephens
To view all questions and flashcards with answers, click on the resource link above. Page 28