Introduction to American Government Study Guide Questions
Course Introduction
Introduction to American Government provides an overview of the structures, functions, and principles of the United States government. This course examines the Constitution, federalism, the roles of Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary, as well as the influences of political parties, interest groups, and the media. Students will explore how laws and policies are made and implemented, and analyze the dynamic relationship between the government and its citizens. Through this course, students will develop a foundational understanding of American political institutions and contemporary issues in governance.
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American Government Stories of a Nation 1st Edition Scott F. Abernathy
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Page 2
Chapter 1: American Political Stories
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Q1) The United States of America is, institutionally and fundamentally, a ______.
A)direct democracy
B)limited democracy
C)representative democracy
D)constitutional republic
Answer: D
Q2) In April of 1773, a group of ______ in Massachusetts petitioned the government for a redress of their grievances, expressing their own natural rights as a reason for their freedom.
A)indentured servants
B)colonial patriots
C)colonial l
D)African Americans
Answer: D
Q3) The vast majority of conflicts over power in America are handled through a system of direct democracy.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 3
Chapter 2: The Constitution of the United States
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Q1) The Constitution is written so as to make it easy to amend it by popular vote.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) The founders have been described as being guided by their own ______ and accused of creating a system that preserved distinctions of ______.
A)hubris | social stratification
B)interests | faction and party
C)privilege | wealth and class
D)scholarship | knowledge and philosophy
Answer: C
Q3) Antifederalists called for a ______ to be included in the Constitution.
A)Statement of Authority
B)Bill of Rights
C)Guarantee of Sovereignty
D)Declaration of Independence
Answer: B
Q4) What form of government did the United States have prior to adopting the Constitution?
Answer: confederal, confederation
Page 4
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Chapter 3: Federalism
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Q1) The expansion of national power under Roosevelt's New Deal led to a new period of cooperative federalism.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) For much of the history of the American republic, the model of the relationship between states and nation was one of
A)coercive federalism.
B)unitary federalism.
C)dual federalism.
D)cooperative federalism.
Answer: C
Q3) During the entire decade of the 1930s, America's heartland experienced A)a period of agricultural prosperity.
B)the worst drought in American history.
C)social and political unrest.
D)transition from agriculture to industrialism.
Answer: B
Q4) In order to operate, local governments get their power from the ______.
Answer: state, states
Page 5
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Chapter 4: Civil Liberties
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Q1) The most recently incorporated rights brought down to the states involved the Third Amendment.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The 2015 case of ______ resulted in the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act and the legalization of same-sex marriage across the country.
Q3) The Supreme Court case that incorporated the Second-Amendment right to bear arms to the states was ______.
Q4) The right to just compensation when a person's private property is taken for public use can be found in which part of the Bill of Rights?
A)First Amendment
B)Second Amendment
C)Fifth Amendment
D)Eighth Amendment
Q5) The main supporters of a federal Bill of Rights were the Federalists.
A)True
B)False
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Securing Civil Rights
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Q1) In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton stated that the judiciary is ______.
A)the strongest of the three departments of power
B)without comparison to the three departments of power
C)the weakest of the three departments of power
D)not one of the three departments of power
Q2) Which of the following best describes the outcome of the Seneca Falls Convention?
A)recognition of women's rights
B)granting of female enfranchisement
C)correction of gender-based discrimination
D)a "cascade" of women's rights conventions
Q3) The central purpose of representative government is found in the Declaration of Independence.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following would be an example of a Jim Crow law?
A)literacy tests
B)prohibition of poll taxes
C)mandatory voter registration
D)intense desegregation efforts
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Chapter 6: Political Participation
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Questions
Q1) Discuss factors and barriers the impact American voting behavior and their effect on voter turnout rates in the United States.
Q2) One of the clearest themes that emerged in researching the 2016 presidential election cycle was a concern for the effect of the ______ following the financial crisis of 2008 as well as the higher levels of student debt carried by young-adult voters.
Q3) Which of the following organizations backed Amanda Collins in her fight for concealed weapons on college campuses?
A)NRA
B)NOW
C)NSA
D)NBC
Q4) 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.
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Chapter 7: Public Opinion
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Q1) In an essay, journalist Touré noted that the main issue was not Mr.Brown's past behavior but "How______?"
A)is the public supposed to react to ongoing racism
B)are police officers supposed to treat citizens
C)are black youth supposed to react when stopped by police
D)do we keep this tragedy from happening again
Q2) In terms of measuring the preferences of constituents, the deeper challenge with elections is that they tend to
A)involve issues that are important to the candidates but have no relevance to the voters.
B)revolve around a small set of issues for which voters have intense preferences.
C)measure only a snapshot of public opinion at one particular point in time.
D)fail to take into account the reasons people vote in the first place.
Q3) Individual political opinions are considered set in stone at an early age.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Explain the role of accurate and reliable information in the political process.
Q5) The primary source of political socialization is considered to be the ______.
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Chapter 8: The Media
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Q1) Forms of electronic communications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking are called
A)weblogs.
B)social media.
C)milblogs.
D)Internet sites.
Q2) Many critics of the American news media argue that the nation's largest newspapers and mainstream news outlets demonstrate a ______ bias.
Q3) Which of the following terms is used to refer to all of the various digital platforms through which individuals receive, share, and produce content?
A)niche journalism
B)new media
C)traditional media
D)citizen journalism
Q4) One of the consequences of media deregulation has been the need to shape media coverage to attract as wide an audience as possible.
A)True
B)False
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Page 10
Chapter 9: Political Parties
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Q1) To take advantage of the benefits of holding an early primary or caucus, many states try to engage in a process known as ______.
A)rear-ending
B)caucus stacking
C)bulldozing
D)front-loading
Q2) At their most basic level, caucuses are organized by
A)national elections.
B)statewide party conventions.
C)countywide voting patterns.
D)voting precincts within cities and towns.
Q3) Because of their complexity, caucuses tend to draw
A)national attention.
B)fewer participants.
C)more participants.
D)party leaders.
Q4) Third-party candidates tend to focus on a ______ issue that they don't think the major parties are emphasizing enough.
Q5) What do you see as the future of third parties in the American political system?
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Chapter 10: Campaigns and Elections Multiple Choice
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Q1) Party electors who change their mind between the general election and voting in the electoral college are termed ______.
Q2) In a parliamentary, system, the ______ has the choice of when to "call" an election.
A)chief executive
B)national legislature
C)judiciary
D)state legislature
Q3) A phenomenon that occurs when a presidential candidate's increasing popularity results in increased support for congressional leaders of the same party is known as a ______.
A)personality defect
B)coattail effect
C)selection bias
D)landslide election
Q4) Political scientist Larry Bartells has described momentum or "Big Mo" as the most important resource that a candidate for national office can have.
A)True
B)False
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Interest Groups and Social Movements
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Q1) When agencies tasked with regulating businesses, industries, or other interest groups are populated by individuals with close ties to the very firms that they are supposed to regulate, it is described as
A)inside lobbying.
B)purposive lobbying.
C)agency capture.
D)executive collusion.
Q2) Members of interest groups and social movements often resort to ______ to achieve their goals.
A)membership dues
B)recruitment efforts
C)GOTV activities
D)different tactics
Q3) How did members of the financial industry as well as members of government use the threat of serious economic consequences to advance their agenda? What did many ordinary citizens do in response?
Q4) If a group member is rewarded simply by the satisfaction of working with others to achieve a common goal or purpose, he/she would be receiving a ______ benefit.
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Chapter 12: Congress
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Q1) If a president chooses not to sign or veto a piece of legislation, the president's third option is to
A)return the bill unsigned.
B)request further revision.
C)pocket veto the legislation.
D)ask for another floor vote.
Q2) In what ways can we learn from the efforts of women to obtain elected positions in the House and the Senate? What does the demographic description of the House and the Senate say about who is most likely to get elected to Congress today?
Q3) Unorthodox lawmaking has become increasingly rarely used, particularly with regard to major legislation.
A)True
B)False
Q4) How do the rules of the House and the Senate shape the legislative outcomes of these two bodies?
Q5) How does the structure of Congress demonstrate the intended differences that the framers devised in separating between the House and the Senate?
Q6) 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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Q1) The framers of the Constitution feared A)any executive would be rejected by the states.
B)the executive office would become a puppet for Congress.
C)the office of the president might become too powerful.
D)they had not given the presidential office enough power.
Q2) Under the Constitution, the limitations of presidential power were placed primarily in the hands of
A)the people.
B)Congress.
C)his/her party.
D)the judiciary.
Q3) As head of the executive branch, the president is responsible for A)all actions and branches of government.
B)carrying out the laws of the nation.
C)making the laws of the nation.
D)interpreting the laws of the nation.
Q4) How do the examples of Anwar al-Awlaki and John Merryman demonstrate the ability of the president to expand his/her powers in time of war or national emergency? Why do you think it is important to understand these particular examples?
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Chapter 14: The Federal Bureaucracy
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Q1) In settling on how executive branch officers were selected, the most contentious question facing the delegates was how these people would be ______.
A)selected
B)managed
C)paid
D)removed
Q2) A problem that occurs when a bureaucrat's own interests are more closely aligned with the targets of regulation than the mission of the agency, thus undermining effective regulation, is known as agency ______.
A)deliberation
B)drift
C)gridlock
D)capture
Q3) In his inaugural address in 1829, President Jackson railed against A)a highly unqualified bureaucratic system.
B)the exertion of bureaucratic power over the people.
C)an inability to exercise external control over the bureaucracy.
D)"ownership" of important administrative positions.
Q4) Define bureaucracy and describe its defining characteristics.
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Chapter 15: The Federal Judiciary
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Q1) The legal doctrine that requires justices to follow precedents set before them is called
A)amicus curiae.
B)corpus juris.
C)stare decisis.
D)habeas corpus.
Q2) Those who argue that justices should be willing to step in and overturn laws when they see a need to are described as supporting A)judicial restraint.
B)countermajoritarianism.
C)judicial activism.
D)legal policymaking.
Q3) The process through which the political and policy preferences of individual justices shape their votes on cases rather than a neutral weighing of the facts and the law is described as the
A)strategic model.
B)classical model.
C)legal model.
D)attitudinal model.
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Page 17
Chapter 16: The Politics of Promoting the General Welfare
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Q1) The No Child Left Behind policy remains unchanged and still in effect.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Policy aimed at improving social welfare and economic opportunities for Americans is best described as
A)domestic policy.
B)social policy.
C)welfare policy.
D)economic policy.
Q3) In order to ensure that individual schools did not "encourage" or allow lower-scoring students not to show up for required annual tests, No Child Left Behind holds schools accountable for
A)student attendance.
B)academic proficiency.
C)graduation rates.
D)test participation rates.
Q4) Policy experts call counties without adequate access to supermarkets "______."
Q5) Do you believe vouchers are a positive or negative tool to promote improvement in America's schools? Explain your answer.
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Chapter 17: Economic Policy
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Q1) Except for a time during the Civil War under President Abraham Lincoln's administration, individual incomes
A)have always been taxed.
B)were not measured.
C)were taxed at a flat rate.
D)were not taxed until 1913.
Q2) The United States has a pure laissez-faire form of economy.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Why may student loan forgiveness be a "bad policy"? Do you agree or disagree with arguments made in your textbook? Explain your answer.
Q4) An economic system in which governments intrude as little as possible in the economic transactions between citizens and businesses in both decisions about taxation and spending is known as a
A)laissez-faire economy.
B)command-and-control economy.
C)mixed economy.
D)socialist economy.
Q5) By the end of 2015, the ______ continued to grow to nearly $19 trillion.
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Chapter 18: Foreign Policy
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Q1) Most current American efforts to coordinate international economic policy focus on fostering
A)protectionism.
B)command policies.
C)mixed economics.
D)free trade.
Q2) The period of time between 1945 and 1991 characterized by nonviolent political hostility between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies is defined as the
A)Cold War.
B)Spy War.
C)Red Scare.
D)Communist Period.
Q3) Jefferson and Washington's Treasury Secretary was
A)Benjamin Franklin.
B)Alexander Hamilton.
C)Thomas Paine.
D)John Adams.
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