AP GOV MIDTERM - tests ch. 1-3, 6-8, 9-11, and Congress vocab quiz

Which of the following is one reason why colonists rebelled against Great Britain?

Britain imposed great taxes without consent of the colonists.

The Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison established that the courts are the official interpreters of the Constitution, and that they can declare laws to be unconstitutional. For individual citizens, this means that they ________.

can challenge a federal law they think is unfair in court

The primary content of the Declaration of Independence ________.

detailed the King's abuse of the colonies

The Seventeenth Amendment allows for ________.

direct election of the Senate

The method of proposing constitutional amendments that has never been used is the ________.

national convention

According to Locke, natural rights are ________.

rights inherent for human beings

________ highlighted the weaknesses of the national government under the Articles of Confederation.

Shays' Rebellion

The dollar sum of all the goods and services produced in a nation in a year is called the ________.

gross domestic product

Under the Articles of Confederation, the judicial branch was ________.

nonexistent

The formal process by which the U.S. Constitution may be amended is spelled out in ________.

Article V of the Constitution

Which of the following is an example of the Constitution's check-and-balance system?

The president appointing a nominee and the Senate confirming the appointment

The major weakness of the Articles of Confederation was its ________.

lack of a strong national government

The Fourth Amendment has the function to protect ________.

privacy rights

The Constitution may be informally amended ________.

through judicial interpretation

In Madison's plan of the Constitution, which body could elect senators?

State legislatures

In regard to slavery, the Constitutional Convention agreed that representation and taxation would be based on the number of free persons plus ________ of all other persons.

three-fifths

According to the Declaration of Independence, from what source does our national government derive its powers?

The people

Politics is mainly about ________.

who gets what, when, and how

What article of the Constitution prohibits Congress and the states from passing bills of attainder?

Article I

The elitist theory of American democracy holds that ________.

all societies are divided along class lines and an upper-class elite will rule

Amending the Constitution requires ________.

a two-thirds majority in the proposal stage and a three-quarters majority in the ratification stage

_______ would be considered a collective good.

Access to highways

Under the Constitution, the new government assumed the national debt incurred ________.