Introduction to Political Science Test Questions
Course Introduction
Introduction to Political Science offers students a foundational understanding of the core concepts, theories, and methodologies used to analyze political systems, behaviors, and institutions. The course explores the fundamental structures of government, the role of political actors, the nature of power and authority, and the relationship between citizens and the state. By examining different political ideologies, comparative systems, and contemporary issues, students will develop critical thinking skills and an appreciation for the complexities and dynamics of politics at the local, national, and global levels.
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Government in America 2014 Elections and Updates 16th Edition by by George C. Edwards III
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1676 Verified Questions
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Chapter 1: Introducing Government in America
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Sample Questions
Q1) Hyperpluralism maintains that who holds office in Washington is of marginal consequence; the corporate giants always have the power.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) The media usually focus on the substance of politics and government.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) Congress,the presidency,and the courts are all policymaking institutions.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) What is an example of a collective good?
A) clean air
B) medical care
C) a college education
D) food stamps
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: The Constitution
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Q1) The Constitution limits the government's ability to suspend writs of habeas corpus. What does this protect individuals against?
A) free speech infringement
B) taxation of private property
C) unlawful incarceration
D) infringement of religious freedom
Answer: C
Q2) The __________ favored a weak national government and strong state governments.
Answer: Anti-Federalists
Q3) Which of the following philosophers greatly influenced the colonists' views on the role of government?
A) Daniel Shays
B) John Locke
C) John Boehner
D) Gramm Rudman
Answer: B
Q4) The New Jersey Plan proposed a powerful central government with three branches. A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Page 4
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Chapter 3: Federalism
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Sample Questions
Q1) Define unfunded mandates. Why do states find unfunded mandates problematic?
Answer: 1. Define unfunded mandates.
2. Note that Congress often imposes significant obligations on the states without providing any money enabling the states to comply.
3. Discuss how states dislike being required to do something without being given enough money to accomplish the task.
Q2) Describe the primary strengths of a federal system.
Answer: 1. Explain that a federal system controls tyranny by decentralizing power.
2. Explain that a federal system allows for local solutions to national problems.
3. Explain that the federal system avoided centralizing power in one institution.
4. Explain that the federal system was designed to make government more accountable to the people.
Q3) Most disputes over policy are handled at the state and local levels. A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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5
Chapter 4: Civil Liberties and Public Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the 1960s,the Supreme Court aroused the wrath of many Americans with rulings like that in Engel v. Vitale regarding which controversial religious issue?
A) displays of religious symbols on government buildings
B) teaching of evolution in school
C) displays of religious symbols during holidays
D) recitation of prayer and Bible passages in school
Q2) Writs of habeas corpus are laws declaring an act illegal without a judicial trial.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia,how many people have been executed in the United States?
A) 6
B) 1,100
C) 2,900
D) 12,400
Q4) How does the Lemon test examine the constitutionality of religious establishment issues?
Q5) How has the Supreme Court applied the exclusionary rule?
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Chapter 5: Civil Rights and Public Policy
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Q1) Which of the following arguments would most likely be made by an opponent of affirmative action policies?
A) Unaddressed past discrimination causes perpetual inequality.
B) Discrimination is a natural part of the human experience.
C) Affirmative action discriminates on the basis of race.
D) Diversity helps Americans better understand each other.
Q2) Which of the following laws would be the most likely to be examined by the Supreme Court using the inherently suspect standard to determine its constitutionality?
A) Male and female student athletes cannot compete on the same basketball team at the university level.
B) Businesses cannot discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring and promotion decisions.
C) Those without a college degree are not eligible for upper-level civil service jobs.
D) Government contracts must be awarded to a contractor who is a racial minority whenever at least 10 percent of the bidders are minority-owned businesses.
Q3) The __________ Amendment guarantees African Americans the right to vote.
Q4) Jim Crow laws required __________ of African Americans and whites.
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Chapter 6: Public Opinion and Political Action
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Q1) Perhaps surprisingly,no __________ gap is evident on the issue of abortion.
Q2) What are Election Day exit polls,and why have they been criticized?
Q3) According to Ronald Reagan,what was the cause of society's problems?
A) urban decay
B) tax evasion
C) government
D) scofflaws and miscreants
Q4) Explain why some critics contend that public opinion polls weaken American democracy.
Q5) How does the textbook define political participation?
A) all the activities used by citizens to socialize their children to the political process
B) all the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue
C) a measure of the minimum requirements needed to vote
D) the capacity of individuals (or groups) to exert their own political will
Q6) How was it possible that the Literary Digest erroneously predicted that Republican Alf Landon would beat incumbent Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in his 1936 bid for reelection,despite having obtained over 2 million responses to its poll?
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Chapter 7: The Mass Media and the Political Agenda
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Q1) In what ways are the news media as a whole biased? Evaluate the evidence that there might be an ideological bias in the media.
Q2) How has the Internet changed news reporting? How has it changed political campaigns and elections? What effect does the Internet have on other news media?
Q3) What do network executives blame for the superficiality in media reporting?
A) cable news
B) social media
C) the Internet
D) the public
Q4) What are media events,and how are they used?
Q5) What are sound bites? How does their use influence the nature of the news?
Q6) As technology has enabled the media to pass along information with greater speed,news coverage has become __________.
A) more homogenous
B) less thorough
C) more objective
D) less biased
Q7) Press conferences are meetings of __________ with reporters.
Q8) The __________ Amendment guarantees freedom of the press.
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Chapter 8: Political Parties
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Questions
Q1) Provide a detailed analysis of Anthony Downs's rational-choice model. What are its core propositions? What does it say about voter behavior? How do political parties attract the most votes? Do you feel Down's theory is entirely valid? Why or why not?
Q2) The New Deal coalition signaled a definitive period of electoral __________ in which power transfers from one party to another.
Q3) Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley ruled one of the most powerful political __________ in U.S. history.
Q4) In the machine politics era,patronage jobs were given out to buy votes and to enrich party bosses.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The years 1860-1928 saw the dominance of which party?
A) Democratic-Republicans
B) Democrats
C) Federalists
D) Republicans
Q6) What is party image? How does it influence elections?
Q7) What is the responsible party model? Should the United States adopt it?
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Campaigns and Voting Behavior
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Q1) What is frontloading? What is the incentive for states to participate in frontloading? What are the consequences of frontloading?
Q2) How does party identification simplify the voting process?
A) It enables voters to select from a wider array of candidates.
B) It provides a cue as to which candidate a voter is more likely to prefer.
C) It eliminates the need to produce a photo ID in order to vote.
D) It reduces the policy differences between the candidates.
Q3) How do age,education,race and ethnicity,gender,marital status,and being a government employee affect one's likelihood of voting? For three of these demographic characteristics,explain why it affects turnout.
Q4) If there is no majority winner in the Electoral College,then the president is selected by the __________.
Q5) What are the main functions of national party conventions? Are national party conventions still relevant?
Q6) Reporters need news,and a good pollster can help them make their deadlines by writing stories that the campaign would like to see reported.
A)True B)False
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Chapter 10: Interest Groups
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Q1) Lobbying is a way that groups make their interests known to government officials.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In which of the following might political action committees (PACs)invest their contributions in order to maximize their political influence?
A) members of the minority party in Congress
B) challengers
C) incumbents
D) presidential candidates
Q3) What is a political action committee (PAC)?
A) an organization within a political party that coordinates campaign events
B) an organizations that focuses on grassroots lobbying
C) an organization that conducts voter registration drives
D) an organization that solicits campaign contributions from individuals and distributes them to political candidates
Q4) Distinguish between public interest lobbies and economic groups. Provide examples of each.
Q5) Anti-Vietnam War activists formed __________ interest groups.
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Chapter 11: Congress
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Q1) What is substantive representation?
A) representing groups that provide subsistence for their campaign coffers and not for their policy preferences
B) representing the interests of groups of which they themselves are not members
C) representing people and interests that they like personally by voting for legislation that benefits those people
D) representing constituents by mirroring their personal, politically relevant characteristics
Q2) Position taking is more likely to affect the outcome of a House race than a Senate race.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Discuss the formal responsibilities and informal powers held today by the Speaker of the House.
Q4) Most states have a bicameral legislature.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The Speaker's principal partisan ally in the House is the __________.
Q6) Weigh the pros and cons of incumbency on politicians and society.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: The Presidency
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why did Congress enact the War Powers Resolution?
A) to expand the powers of the president in the conduct of war
B) to make Congress the sole actor in the conduct of war
C) to limit the powers of the president in the conduct of war
D) to empower the president to act unilaterally when American troops are in harm's way
Q2) How has the role of the vice presidency changed over time?
Q3) Historically,vice presidential candidates have often been chosen to __________.
A) help set the president's agenda
B) mentor the president
C) placate symbolic constituency
D) ensure that the president's party will have a good chance of winning the next presidential election
Q4) Rosemary Austin wants to run for president. She is a natural-born citizen of the United States. She is 45 years old. She has been a resident of the United States for 10 years. Therefore,she meets the requirements to become president.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Compare the White House staff and the cabinet.
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Chapter 13: The Budget: the Politics of Taxing and Spending
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Q1) A(n)__________ is an act of Congress that establishes or changes a government program.
A) authorization bill
B) appropriations bill
C) continuing resolution
D) budget resolution
Q2) Authorization bills establish or modify government programs; __________ bills allocate money for authorized programs.
Q3) Which of the following is a tax expenditure given primarily to college students?
A) American Opportunity Credit
B) private student loans
C) private scholarships
D) research grants
Q4) The increase in __________ threatens the viability of the intergenerational system for funding Social Security.
A) birthrates
B) life expectancy
C) social insurance taxes
D) the size of the working population
Q5) What is an omnibus bill? How do omnibus bills affect the budgetary process?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: The Federal Bureaucracy
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Q1) The Environmental Protection Agency is subject to less oversight than the Federal Reserve Board.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The civil service system was introduced with the passage of what law?
A) the Hatch Act
B) the Pendleton Act
C) the Administrative Procedures Act
D) the Freedom of Information Act
Q3) One function of __________ is to provide services that are in the public interest but that could be provided by the private sector.
Q4) What role is the Environmental Protection Agency taking when it sets limits on air pollution from power plants?
A) regulation
B) adjudication
C) oversight
D) deliberation
Q5) If a cabinet department is not implementing a policy supported by the president,what tools can the president use to influence the department?
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Chapter 15: The Federal Courts
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Sample Questions
Q1) How many district courts are in the federal system?
A) five
B) 16
C) 91
D) 412
Q2) The __________ Act of 1789 established the basic three-tiered structure of the federal court system.
A) Federal Courts
B) Appellate
C) Confirmation
D) Judiciary
Q3) Who decides whether to appeal a case that the government has lost to the Supreme Court?
A) the president of the Senate
B) the solicitor general
C) the Supreme Court clerk of courts
D) the chief justice of the United States
Q4) What are class action lawsuits?
Q5) The __________ decided to sue the school board of Topeka,Kansas,on behalf of Linda Brown.
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Chapter 16: Economic and Social Welfare Policymaking
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Sample Questions
Q1) The percentage of Americans who are seeking work but unable to find it is called
A) the entitlement rate
B) the workforce rate
C) the unemployment rate
D) the underemployment rate
Q2) What is the main purpose of monetary policy?
A) to control the supply of money and credit
B) to control the amount of public debt sold to foreign states
C) to control the interest rates on money lent to foreign states
D) to equalize income disparity among citizens
Q3) Tax cuts are a key tool of the __________ economic approach.
Q4) Federal income taxes are progressive.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How does the U.S. Census Bureau determine the poverty line? Explain how this official statistic is calculated,and describe how scholars today believe it should be adjusted.
Q6) What is the extent of economic inequality in America? How can the government lessen this inequality?
Page 18
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Chapter 17: Policymaking for Health Care, the Environment, and Energy
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Q1) What proportion of Americans have private health insurance of some kind-either through an employer or purchased individually?
A) one-third
B) one-half
C) two-thirds
D) three-fourths
Q2) How much do Americans spend on health care each year?
A) $2.9 million
B) $29 million
C) $2.9 billion
D) $2.9 trillion
Q3) Which of the following is an argument for why regulations designed to protect manatees should be relaxed?
A) The manatee has been on the endangered species list for a long time.
B) The manatee population has been increasing.
C) Manatees have no natural predators.
D) Manatees are often injured by boat propellers.
Q4) Advances in medicine have contributed to recent increases in health care costs.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 18: National Security Policymaking
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Q1) Which of the following best describes the conflict that has sometimes existed between the National Security Council (NSC)and others within the national security establishment?
A) Because the NCS always integrates advice from other cabinet departments, most advisers in national security see the council as having little independent value.
B) The NSC has sometimes conspired with the State and Defense departments in covert operations, such as the Iran-Contra affair.
C) Because the NCS was created after September 11, 2001, many in the departments of State and Defense do not respect the limited experience of this newcomer.
D) The NSC has sometimes competed with, rather than integrated advice from, cabinet departments such as State and Defense, and it also has become involved in covert operations such as the Iran-Contra affair.
Q2) What is the primary responsibility of the secretary of defense?
A) homeland security
B) military policy
C) domestic security
D) commander in chief of the armed forces
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