GOVERNMENT FINAL EXAMName:
STUDY GUIDEDate: Hour:
CHAPTER 1
1) What are some duties of a citizen?
2) What are some responsibilities of a citizen?
3) What is social contract theory? divine right? force?
4) Know what each of the six purposes of the Preamble and meaning of each.
5) How does a state differ than a nation?
6) What happens when businesses compete with each other in a free enterprise system?
7) Democracy and free enterprise systems are based on the concept of what?
8) What are the differences between federal, unitary, and confederate governments?
9) Who chooses the chief executive in a parliamentary and presidential government?
10) Who has legislative powers? judicial powers? executive powers?
11) What are some characteristics of a dictatorship?
12 Why aren’t states in the U.S. considered a state?
13) What is an indirect and direct democracy? What are the different names for each?
14) What kinds of problems would a parliamentary and presidential government try to avoid?
15) What are the five basic concepts of democracy? What is a characteristic of each?
16) What does it mean for a state to be sovereign?
17) What characteristics must a state have in order to be considered a state?
18) Why would there be fewer conflicts in a parliamentary government than a presidential government?
19) What kind of role does the government have in the economic system in the United States?
20) What is the main goal of businesses in a free enterprise system?
CHAPTER 2
21) Define the following: due process, charter, bicameral, unicameral, proprietary, representative government, limited government
22) The Revolution may not have happened if all the colonies enjoyed the same freedoms. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?
23) Describe the limitations on the monarchy imposed by the following documents: Magna Carta, Petition of Rights, English Bill of Rights
24) What rights did the U.S. Bill of Rights add to their own document after including rights from the Magna Carta and English Bill of Rights?
25) A man has been accused of robbing a department store based on witness accounts. The rights to trial by jury and due process do not exist. What would happen or could happen to this man since these rights do not exist? Explain your answer.
26) What kind of government and individual rights do you think Americans would have today if there weren’t any previous ideas and influences brought over from the British throughout colonial times? Explain your answer.
27) Know the following: Albany Plan, delegate, popular sovereignty, duty, ablest, repeal, boycott, unalienable
28) What was rejected by the Crown and colonies?
29) Why did Parliament enact the Intolerable Acts?
30) Who was the main author of the Declaration of Independence?
31) Each branch given powers with which to check is considered what common feature of a constitution?
32) The common feature of popular sovereignty states that government could be conducted only with the consent of the ____?
33) What was the cause of the Boston Tea Party?
34) Know the following: Framers, New Jersey Plan, Connecticut Compromise, Virginia Plan, Three-Fifths Compromise, Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise, envoy
35) Which state in 1790 had the lowest slave population?
36) Which state in 1790 had the second highest percentage of slave population?
37) Who believed that the purpose of law is to protect freedom?
38) Who believed that freedom and equality cannot survive without each other?
40) An Anti-Federalist argument to ratify the Constitution was?
41) Congress could become too powerful was an argument to ratify the Constitution by which group?
42) A Federalist argument to ratify the Constitution was?
43) Who was considered a Federalist?
44) Who was considered an Anti-Federalist?
45) How many states were needed to ratify the Constitution?
46) When was the inauguration for the President of the United States?
47) Who was elected the first president in 1789? AND who was his vice president?
48) What was chosen as the temporary capital until Washington D.C. became the nation’s capital in 1800?
CHAPTER 3
49) Know the following: separation of powers, limited government, constitutionalism, checks and balances, federalism
50) Name a power that Congress has in which the President can check it.
51) Name a power that the President has in which Congress can check it.
52) What is needed by Congress to override a presidential veto?
53) Which article outlines the three branches of the federal government?
54) Which court case established the powers of judicial review?
55) What issues might arise when the legislative and executive branches are controlled by different political parties?
56) How has Congress clarified the meaning of the Constitution?
57) What is the difference between an executive agreement and a treaty?
58) How can the courts influence the meaning of the Constitution?
59) 59) Which unwritten custom did the 22nd Amendment establish as law?
60) What is the introduction to the Constitution called?
61) Which is an example of the President using executive power to expand the Constitution?
62) 62) Which is a pact made by the President directly with the head of a foreign country and without the approval of the Senate?
63) What is an example of how Congress has used its powers to help explain the meaning of the Constitution?
64) 64) Presidents sometimes send forces into combat without a formal declaration of war from Congress. Presidents do this under what constitutional authority?
65) Why did the Framers leave any mention of political parties out of the Constitution?
66) How did it come about that the President’s Cabinet is made up of the heads of the 15 executive departments?
67) The 22nd Amendment was passed in reaction to what unwritten custom that was broken?
68) Congress has clarified provisions of the Constitution by what?
69) Describe the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Why are these ten amendments so important to the American system of government? Which Constitutional principles do they uphold?
CHAPTER 5
70) Know the following: political party, partisanship, bipartisan, consensus, plurality, incumbent, spoils system, electorate, ideological parties, single-issue parties, economic-protest parties, splinter parties, ward, precinct, caucus
71) What is the major function of a political party?
72) What are the five levels of the political spectrum? What is the order of the five from left to right?
73) The single-member district is one of the most important features of the electoral system. Why?
74) Which president began the Era of the Democrats? How was the election of 1800 so significant?
75) Which war signaled the beginning of the Era of the Republicans? Who was the first Republican Party president? In what year did he get first get elected?
76) What president brought the era of the Return of the Democrats? What programs did this president introduce that strengthened the Democratic Party?
77) The era today, Era of Divided Government, has seen the Republicans win ____ out of ____ presidential elections? Name the last five presidents starting with the most recent and also write which political party each was a part of.
78) The Libertarian Party emphasizes what? This party calls for doing away with most of what?
79) What kind of minor party would focus solely on the issue of the War in Iraq?
CHAPTER 6
80) Know the following: electorate, disenfranchised, purging, alien, literacy, suffrage, gerrymandering, ballot fatigue, political socialization, gender gap, straight-ticket voting, party identification, independents, franchised, poll tax, registration, injunction, off-year election, political efficacy, split-ticket voting
81) The 23rd Amendment ratified in 1961 allowed voters from where to participate in presidential elections?
82) States require voters to be what?
83) What state doesn’t necessarily require that most voters be registered in order to cast a ballot?
84) Which group of people used unfair laws and intimidation to prevent the 15th Amendment from taking effect in the late 1800s?
85) Those that are more educated tend to vote for what political party?
86) What act protected African-Americans against various tactics that intended to prevent them from voting, and ensured full voting rights in all elections held in the United States?
87) In the Early 1800s, what kind of qualifications began to disappear in every State?
88) Naturalized citizens can vote once they become what?
89) What is the most significant predictor of how one will vote?
90) Many eligible voters do not vote for reasons ranging from ______to ______?
91) Registration efforts of Africa-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement were met by acts of what?
92) The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 was much more effective than the Civil Rights Acts of what two other years?
93) What occurred in 1964 that led to more racial equality?
94) What two suffrage qualifications for voting in the past have been removed by all states?
95) Women tend to vote for what party more than men?
96) The 15th Amendment ratified in 1870 prohibited voting restrictions based on what?
97) When the Constitution went into effect in 1789, the right to vote was generally restricted to whom?
98) The 26th Amendment ratified in 1971 allowed those at what age and older to vote?
99) What was the generally accepted age requirement before the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971?
100) People can be denied the right to vote based on what?
101) What kind of cases helped fulfill the purpose of the 15th Amendment?
102) The 19th Amendment ratified in 1920 removed voting restrictions based on what?
103) A person can have only one what in order to vote in the State they are in?
104) People with higher incomes tend to vote for what political party?
105) The 24th Amendment ratified in 1964 eliminated the what?
106) List three reasons why actual nonvoters do not vote.
107) List three sociological factors that influence voter behavior?
108) List three psychological factors that influence voter behavior
109) List three reasons why “cannot-voters” cannot vote.
110) What are the three universal requirements to vote in every state?
CHAPTER 8
111) Know the following: public affairs, public opinion, mass media, peer group, opinion leader, mandate, interest group, public opinion, straw poll vote, universe sample, random sample
quota sample, medium, weblog, public agenda, sound bite
112) What does public opinion refer to?
113) Factors before/during and after school that shape political opinions
114) What is included in public opinion?
115) What does public opinion mean in its proper sense?
116) What is a public made up of?
117) How many factors are involved that form public opinion?
118) What must happen in order for a view to be an opinion in the public sense?
119) What are some agents of political socialization?
120) The family has a near ______on the child in his or her earliest years.
121) What is the start of the initial break in the influence of family?
122) What is a statistic that demonstrates how mass media has an affect on public opinion?
123) Why does a person belonging to a peer group reinforce what they believe in?
124) Who are some types of opinion leaders?
125) What were some historic events that have a major impact on the views of large numbers of people?
126) What is said to often be an indicator of public opinion but is seldom accurate?
127) What are interest groups also known as?
128) Interest groups are a ______by which public opinion is made known.
129) What are some ways interest groups present their views?
130) The media is said to be ______as well as ______of public opinion.
131) Why isn’t the media a very accurate mirror of public opinion?
132) What do personal contacts try to do?
133) Why do public officials fall in a trap?
134) The more accurate polls are based on what kind of techniques?
135) How reliable or unreliable is the straw-vote technique?
136) What is the problem with the straw-vote technique?
137) What are the best known of the national pollsters today?
138) What are the five basic steps of the scientific poll?
139) Give an example of each step from question 137
140) Pollster know that have a difficulty in measuring intensity, stability, and relevance; what do each of these three mean in terms of opinion?
141) What are the five major elements of mass media today ranked from having the most to the least impact?
142) What is not the prime goal of the media?
143) People acquire most of what they know about government and politics through what?
144) What did the television replace as the principal source of political information for majority of the Americans?
145) What are the three major television networks that have dominated television since the beginning?
146) What are the sources that provided main challenges to the major networks?
147) When and where was the first regularly established newspaper?
148) What has caused the decline of daily newspapers?
149) What are three well-known newspapers in the United States?
149) The average person hears radio how many times a week?
150) Who are some famous talk broadcasters?
151) How many magazines are published in the United States today?
152) What is quickly becoming a lead source of political news and information for the American people?
153) Nearly how many Americans go on the Internet on a regular basis?
154) The media’s influence is most visible in what two particular areas?
155) What kind of special power do the media have when it comes to public agenda?
156) Good campaign managers also know that most television news programs are built out of stories that what?
157) The broadcast media seldom gives the kind of in-depth coverage that a good ______can supply?