CLEP American Government (Practice Test 1) Graded A

CLEP American Government (Practice Test 1) Graded A The Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 ordered the racial desegregation of public schools A person who votes based on what a candidate says he or she will do in the future is said to be engaging in prospective voting Should presidential candidates receive an equal number of electoral votes, the election is decided by the House of Representatives enter graph here***** "A form of government in which the people (defined broadly to include all adults or narrowly to exclude women and slaves, for examples) are the ultimate political authority." These words best define what political arrangement? Democracy New England's town meetings are examples of direct democracy Under the pen name "Publius," Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers In the seventeenth century, the signers of which of the following documents agreed to live under the colony's recognized authority and to wait for a royal charter, such as the Virginians had? The Mayflower Compact A person who believes that the government should do what the majority of people in the country want to do is advocating majoritarianism The purpose of the electoral college is to choose the U.S. president In the debates over the Constitution, federalists and anti-federalists spoke of factions the way we today speak of interest groups The U.S. Constitution requires that political authority be divided among the three branches of government. This is referred to as the separation of power The English philosopher whose words are heavily drawn on in the Declaration of Independence was John Locke Insofar as the Constitution is concerned, members of Congress receive payment for their work from the U.S. Treasury The vice president of the United States is the president of what government body? Senate What is the minimum age specified in the Constitution for member of the House of Representatives? 25 The Constitution specifically empowers Congress to coin money, declare war, and admit new states into the Union. These powers are referred to as enumerated powers In which of the nation's founding documents could one point to an "elastic clause" to justify the existence of large government agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services? The Constitution THe Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states that government powers "not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States," are reserved for the state legislatures and the people The term administrative discretion refers to which of the following? Congress sets guidelines for government agencies to follow The Real ID Act of 2005 was an example of an unfunded mandate Senators have the power to "talk a bill to death." What is the formal term for this procedure? Filibuster A piece of legislation proposed to Congress is called a bill What do unanimous consent agreements accomplish? they end debate in the Senate When voting for presidential candidates, residents of the states are saying that they want their state's Electoral College votes to go to that candidate. This is an example of indirect democracy An interest group perceives a problem and then works to encourage legislation that addresses the problem. Interest groups can legally promote their agendas by doing all of the following EXCEPT paying a legislator in exchange for a vote in favor of the interest group When a bill has passed through a subcommittee, a full committee, and both Congressional houses, the president can still kill the bill via veto. What must happen for a presidential veto to be overturned? A two-thirds vote must occur in both Congressional chambers If the president neither signs nor vetoes a bill within 10 days while Congress is in session, what becomes of the bill? It becomes law Gerrymandering referes to the creation of a Congressional district to ensure the election of a person from a certain political party or ethnic or racial group Which of the following can most easily practice home style? Members of the House of Representatives A Congressperson's franking privileges pertain to official mail Agreements between the United States and foreign nations can be made by a president's administration, but for the agreement to go into effect it must have the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate alone The highest person in the military's chain of command is the U.S. president A state's representation in the electoral college most directly reflects the combined number of the state's U.S. representatives and senators Through the years, different presidents have held different levels of power vis-a-vis Congress, but the Constitution's framers wanted the U.S. president to have power that could check, but also could be checked by, other branches of government Presidents can shape the nations legislative agenda in all of the following ways EXCEPT requiring the vice president, as president of the Senate, to participate in Senate votes insert chart here*** In times of national emergency, or when the government needs to act quickly and flexibly, Congress has done what with its federal powers? Delegated them to the president According to the Constitution, the vice president gains the presidency if the president dies or is incapacitated. According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, if both the president and vice president are incapacitated, who rises to the presidency? The speaker of the House of Representatives insert chart here** According to a Supreme Court devision in 2008, the Second Amendment should be understood to apply to individuals and their right to possess firearms The Bill of Rights' establishment clause prohibits the federal government from promoting one religion as the religion of the state The Supreme Court case Engel v. Vitale (1962) eliminated prayer organized by public schools Charles Schenck was arrested and charged with the federal crime of trying to inhibit military recruitment in a time of war. What was the Supreme Court's decision in the resulting case, Schneck v. United States (1919)? A sharply divided court allowed Schneck's antiwar speech in the abstract but not when aimed at individuals who might be recruited Which of the following acts, signed by President Bill Clinton, resulted in a balanced budget and a surplus for the first time since the end of the 1960s? Balanced Budget Act The effect of the Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland was to strengthen federal power at the expense of state power The theory of sampling relies on which of the following key factors? Random selection, sample size, and variation Each of the following is a kind of third party EXCEPT a verification party By tradition, before a president nominates a person to serve as a federal judge, the president ensures that the senators from the candidate's home state support his or her nomination. This is referred to as senatorial courtesy The Grand Old Party (GOP) is a lesser-used name for what political party? Republican Which of the following presidential candidates from the last two decades of the twentieth century is most closely associated with raising the issue of the federal government's budget deficit? Ross Perot The State's Rights Democratic Party, also called the Dixiecrat Party, split from the Democratic Party in 1948 because it opposed racial desegregation All of the following are reasons two major parties dominate American politics EXCEPT Several state constitutions prohibit more than two political parties What twentieth-century presidential candidate received fewer votes than his opponent but still won the election? George W. Bush Marble-cake federalism is a term political scientists use to describe cooperative federalism Which act forbade discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, or national origin? Civil Right Act of 1964 What Supreme Court case nullified state laws that made first-trimester abortion illegal? Roe v. Wade Who was the first female speaker of the House of Representatives? Nancy Pelosi The tendency of different races to live in separate communities and, therefore, to attend different schools is referred to as de facto segregation The political system that divides political power between states and a federal government is referred to as federalism The Fifteenth Amendment made it unconstitutional to prevent citizens from voting based on race or skin color. Which of the following is an example of an initiative set up by some states to continue to prevent African Americans from voting? poll taxes