U.S. Political Institutions
Exam Practice Tests
Course Introduction
This course offers an in-depth examination of the major political institutions in the United States, including the Congress, Presidency, federal courts, and bureaucracy. Students will explore the historical development, structure, functions, and interrelations of these institutions, as well as their roles in the policy-making process. The course considers the impact of federalism, political parties, interest groups, and the media on institutional behavior and outcomes. Through case studies and current events, students will analyze how these institutions shape and are shaped by American political culture, legal principles, and contemporary challenges.
Recommended Textbook
We the People 11th Essentials Edition by Benjamin Ginsberg
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1101 Verified Questions
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Chapter 1: Introduction: the Citizen and Government
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the main benefit of a constitutional government?
A) The government is limited by the rule of law.
B) The government will distribute social goods equally.
C) The government is stable.
D) The government will produce high levels of economic growth.
Answer: A
Q2) In order to increase political efficacy, it is necessary to
A) increase political knowledge.
B) decrease political knowledge.
C) reduce political participation.
D) eliminate trust in government.
Answer: A
Q3) Individual political rights are a protection against A) pluralism.
B) the tyranny of the majority.
C) the tyranny of the minority.
D) socialism.
Answer: B
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3
Chapter 2: The Founding and the Constitution
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Q1) Which of the following statements about national defense under the Articles of Confederation is FALSE?
A) Congress was given the power to declare war.
B) Congress was given the power to make treaties and form alliances with other countries.
C) The nation's armed forces were composed entirely of the state militias.
D) The president served as commander in chief of the nation's armed forces.
Answer: D
Q2) The Land Ordinance of 1785 was significant because it
A) imposed large tariffs on luxury goods arriving on American lands through East Coast ports.
B) established the principles of land surveying and landownership that governed America's westward expansion.
C) redistributed the property of British loyalists to small farmers who supported the revolution.
D) provided 40 acres of free land to all immigrants from western and northern European countries.
Answer: B
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Chapter 3: Federalism
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Sample Questions
Q1) Federalism is best defined as a system of government
A) where member nations meet in a multinational conference.
B) in which power is divided between a national government and lower level governments.
C) in which the national government is funded through direct taxation of local governments.
D) in which authority is divided into separate branches and each individual branch is given some power over the other branches.
Answer: B
Q2) The number of categorical grants in the United States increased dramatically during the
A) Progressive era.
B) 1950s.
C) 1960s.
D) 1980s.
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
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Sample Questions
Q1) Desegregating schools in northern states proved to be difficult because A) very few minorities lived in the North.
B) segregation in the North was generally de facto and hard to prove.
C) discrimination in the South was so visible and pervasive that little attention had been given to other parts of the country.
D) there was less tax revenue to fund integration efforts in the North.
Q2) The process by which the Supreme Court has expanded specific parts of the Bill of Rights to protect citizens against state and federal actions is called A) habeas corpus.
B) selective incorporation.
C) the incorporation clause.
D) cooperative federalism.
Q3) Many advances in civil rights have been accomplished through federal legislation. Describe the different parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. What have these two laws accomplished?
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Chapter 5: Public Opinion
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Sample Questions
Q1) A wealthy businessperson who is very liberal is an example of the
A) fact that group memberships can fully explain all of an individual's political views.
B) fact that group memberships never fully explain all of an individual's political views.
C) power of the bandwagon effect.
D) negative consequences of the power of the mass media.
Q2) In international affairs, conservatism has come to mean
A) support for military intervention and the maintenance of American military power.
B) opposition to military intervention and the ramping down of American military power.
C) opposition to the United States' membership in the United Nations.
D) opposition to the continued existence of the European Union.
Q3) ________ generally support abortion rights and oppose state involvement with religious institutions.
A) Liberals
B) Conservatives
C) Socialists
D) Internationalists
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Chapter 6: The Media
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Sample Questions
Q1) Evaluate the three types of traditional (i.e., nondigital) news sources in the United States. What are some of the distinct characteristics of each medium? How do the sources differ from each other in terms of the ways in which they disseminate news as well as the audiences they reach?
Q2) Which of the following best describes the relationship between the government and the media in the United States today?
A) The government controls most media content through regulations and tightly controlled press briefings.
B) The government owns, but does not control, the major sources of media.
C) The government does not own but regulates the content and ownership of broadcast media.
D) The government heavily regulates print media but imposes no regulations on radio and television broadcasts.
Q3) Which media source is regulated by the federal government?
A) newspapers
B) television
C) magazines
D) the Internet
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8
Chapter 7: Political Parties, Participation, and Elections
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Sample Questions
Q1) Third parties in the United States typically represent
A) extremist religious groups.
B) recent immigrants.
C) the political interests of America's allies who attempt to influence the American decision-making process because U.S. policies can affect their futures.
D) social and economic interests that are disregarded by the two major parties for certain reasons.
Q2) Write an essay that explains why people vote. In your answer, be sure to cite specific evidence to show how the factors you mention are related to voter turnout.
Q3) America's ________ developed during the early nineteenth century.
A) single-party mandate
B) two-party system
C) multiparty system
D) 527 committees
Q4) Elections are ultimately about the choices that citizens make in a democracy. Describe the three factors that influence voters' decisions. In your answer, be sure to provide examples from recent elections of the role that each of these three factors played in determining how people voted.
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Chapter 8: Interest Groups
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Sample Questions
Q1) Interest groups are permitted to spend as much money as they want on issue advocacy during a campaign season, as long as they
A) do not coordinate their efforts with a candidate's own campaign organization.
B) are willing to publicize their membership lists.
C) present both sides of the issue in their issue advocacy ads.
D) do not employ any person who has formerly worked on a political campaign.
Q2) The practice of lobbying is protected by
A) the First Amendment.
B) state and federal laws dating from the 1930s.
C) internal rules of Congress.
D) a 1961 Supreme Court decision.
Q3) A grassroots lobbying campaign occurs when
A) an interest group mobilizes its members and their families throughout the country to write their representatives in support of the group's position.
B) a spontaneous show of political support for a particular position manifests itself.
C) interest groups organize to support a dark-horse presidential candidate.
D) an interest group buys advertisements in newspapers around the country in order to publicize an issue.
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Chapter 9: Congress
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements about the impeachment process is most accurate?
A) It is a nonpartisan exercise.
B) It is one where all legislators have a common understanding of the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
C) It is a partisan exercise.
D) It is carried out entirely by the Senate, and the House has no role to play.
Q2) Why does the House typically have greater party unity than the Senate?
A) Representatives have more partisan constituents than senators.
B) House leaders have more organizational control over the actions of representatives than Senate leaders.
C) There is, in fact, no real difference in levels of party unity between the House and the Senate.
D) Interest groups are less influential in the House than in the Senate.
Q3) There are many different ways that members of Congress can represent the American people. Define and discuss the differences between sociological and agency representation. Which type of representation do you think the U.S. Congress provides best? Why?
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Chapter 10: The Presidency
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Sample Questions
Q1) Presidential spouses are an important resource for the president in order to carry out the duty of
A) head of government.
B) head of state.
C) commander in chief.
D) chief diplomat.
Q2) ________ was the first first lady to seek public office on her own.
A) Dolley Madison
B) Eleanor Roosevelt
C) Hillary Clinton
D) Laura Bush
Q3) The last time Congress exercised its constitutional power to declare war was during A) World War II.
B) the Korean War.
C) the Vietnam War.
D) the Iraq War.
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Chapter 11: Bureaucracy
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 was significant because it
A) ended the "spoils system."
B) was the first major revamping of the federal civil service since its creation in 1883.
C) reinstated the "spoils system."
D) cut the federal workforce by 20 percent.
Q2) What was the mission of the National Performance Review?
A) to reorganize the federal bureaucracy to make it more efficient, more accountable, and less wasteful
B) to review each administrative agency every four years to determine whether it is necessary
C) to analyze the job performance of federal employees
D) to make recommendations to Congress on government reforms
Q3) Describe the organizational structure of the federal bureaucracy. Specifically, what are the differences between departments, agencies, and bureaus, and what are the lines of authority within the executive branch? How is the federal bureaucracy staffed, and how has this changed since the nineteenth century?
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Chapter 12: The Federal Courts
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Administrative Procedure Act is important in civil law because it
A) governs agency rule making.
B) defines the jurisdiction of the various state court systems.
C) sets the procedures for filing appellate cases in the federal court system.
D) sets the procedures for filing appellate cases in the various state court systems.
Q2) In ________ cases, the losers cannot be fined or incarcerated by the state.
A) appellate
B) criminal law
C) civil law
D) common law
Q3) Civil cases involving the citizens of more than one state and in which more than $75,000 is at stake
A) must always be heard in federal district court.
B) must always be heard in a state court.
C) must always be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court.
D) may be heard in either the federal or the state courts, usually depending on the preference of the plaintiff.
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Chapter 13: Domestic Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) During the New Deal, ________ theory that a government could boost employment by stimulating demand became quite influential.
A) Adam Smith's
B) Milton Friedman's
C) Friedrich Hayek's
D) John Maynard Keynes's
Q2) Which of the following is the strongest factor in predicting which groups in society receive the most benefits from government's social policies?
A) groups that make up the largest percentage of the population
B) groups that are the most politically powerful
C) groups that have the largest membership
D) groups that are made up of people who cannot help themselves, like children or the elderly
Q3) The American welfare system has evolved considerably over time. Describe some of the key moments in this evolution. In your answer, be sure to discuss (1) the social welfare system before the Great Depression, (2) the Social Security Act of 1935, (3) Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and (4) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
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Chapter 14: Foreign Policy
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Sample Questions
Q1) The old adage "politics stops at the water's edge" means that A) debates about irrigation policy should be settled by making reference to the Constitution, not by voting in Congress.
B) all Americans will suffer if we fail to work together to protect our nation's political, economic, and security interests in the wider world.
C) the United States should not have policy disagreements with other countries.
D) Democrats and Republicans should only disagree with each other on foreign policy issues and not on matters of domestic policy.
Q2) The nineteenth-century policy of ________ was based on the geographic distance of the United States from other countries.
A) idealism
B) isolationism
C) internationalism
D) sovereign dominance
Q3) Discuss how security policy has evolved over the course of American history. What were the key policy approaches during the nineteenth century, during the Cold War, and in the post-Cold War era (including the Bush and Obama administrations)? Explain.
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