government test 1

Which of the following is NOT among the frameworks used in political science?

Liberalism

What do behavioral scientists Gordon Pennycock and David Rand call the habit of judging the accuracy of a claim on the basis of who's saying it or whether we've heard it before?

"Cognitive laziness"

Which of the following best characterizes Americans' knowledge of public affairs today?

Misinformation is now at its highest level in the history of polling

Which of the following is a tool unique to government?

Legitimate use of violence

What can government legitimately do that private charities, corporations, small businesses, churches, families, community groups, and volunteer organizations can not do?

Use violence to coerce people

When we see a problem and decide to ask government to solve it rather than voluntary action through groups like community associations, charities, or volunteer groups, what's tool is government likely to use that the other groups do not have at their disposal?

The police and prison system

Limiting government is important for many reasons, but one very important reason is that limiting government is by the definition of government:

Limiting organized violence

The writers of the Constitution devised the Electoral College as the method of choosing presidents because

that method would shield executive power from direct linkage to popular majorities.

To the framers, the great danger of democratic government was the risk of

tyranny of the majority

In practice, the most significant restraint imposed by Congress on the president is its

power to make the laws and appropriate money, for these determine the programs the executive can implement.

Which of the following developments in the national political system did NOT provide for more popular control?

judicial review

________ receive(s) more revenue from the federal government than do most other states or regions.

The states of the Mississippi Delta south of Illinois

Which of the following statement about the Tenth Amendment is accurate?

Because it cannot define the federal government's lawful power, it has not proved strong protection against the growth of federal power at the expense of the states.

Which choice describes the American change in governmental structure in 1787?

confederal to federal

McCulloch v. Maryland

affirmed that national law is supreme to conflicting state law.

The Supreme Court's position on prior restraint of the press is that

Prior restraint should occur only under very compelling circumstances, and it is better to hold the press responsible for what it has printed than to restrict what it may print.

Which state has the highest incarceration rate?

Louisiana

According to the Supreme Court, which is true regarding freedom of assembly?

Public officials can regulate the time, place, and conditions of public assembly, provided the regulations are reasonable.

What was the main conclusion of the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller and 2010 decision in McDonald v. Chicago?

Citizens are allowed to own guns for legitimate purposes, such as for protecting the home.

The Fourteenth Amendment applies to discriminatory action by

government only

Any law that attempts a racial or ethnic classification is subject to the

strict-scrutiny test

The Supreme Court's decision in the University of California Regents v. Bakke case

Upheld the principle of affirmation action while invalidating a particular means of achieving it.

In applying the reasonable-basis test, courts tend to

require government only to show that a particular law is reasonable.

Which of the following has most recently proven to serve as a significant obstacle to critical thinking?

changes in the media landscape

In recent years,

our politics has become more divisive and heated, leaders have lied more readily, and we have come to tolerate it more.

Critical thinking is best described as

the process of forming an opinion after weighing the relevant facts.

Of the following four categories of federal spending, which does the federal government spend the most money on considering the total budget?

Healthcare

The Constitution divides power in a number of ways. One of these is the division of power between State and Federal levels of government. This is called:

Federalism

James Madison famously described the system of representative government in the Constitution as a Republic and contrasted it with a form of unlimited, majoritarian government which he labeled democracy. Which of the following characteristics of modern liberal democracy are shared with Madison's Republic? (Choose all that apply)

Representative government, protection of political minorities, opposition to one party rule, protection of basic civil liberties, protection of property rights

The Constitutional provisions for Presidential vetos, overrides of vetoes by Congress, and impeachment are all examples of:

Checks and Balances

Who was serving as chief justice of the Supreme Court when it decided the case of Marbury v. Madison?

John Marshall

Which of the following aspects of U.S. government might be used as part of an argument that the U.S. is less democratic than some other democracies?

its staggered terms of office for members of the legislative houses and presidency

Under the original Constitution, Congress could not ban the slave trade until

1808

The words of the Declaration of Independence reflected

Locke's philosophy of inalienable rights

A blending of state and national authority is associated with ________ federalism, while a separation of national and state authority is associated with ________ federalism.

cooperative; dual

The expansion of national authority in the 20th century first became evident in which decade?

1930s

Devolution is the

passing of authority from the national government to the state and local levels

According to the Supreme Court, prior restraint on the press is only acceptable if

the government can clearly justify the restriction.

"You have the right to remain silent... Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law... you have the right to an attorney." This is called the

Miranda warning

Spoken words that are known to be false and harmful to a person's reputation are an example of

slander

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the justices

allowed a restriction on abortion services as long as it did not cause an "undue burden" on the woman.

What was politically significant about Geraldine Ferraro in 1984?

She became the first woman to run on the national ticket of a major political party.

Culminating in a historic victory in 1954, advancement of civil rights for Black Americans in the early 20th century came mostly through

legal action

The first large and well-organized attempt to promote women's rights came in 1848 in

Seneca Falls, New York.

Native Americans

We're not given citizenship status en masse until the 20th century.

Which of the following is an example of politicians' deliberate slanting of facts?

The claim that free trade if the cause for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs

What is the likely result of spending hours listening to partisan talk shows?

misinformation

Who among the following was the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution and also one of America's top political scientists?

James Madison

Early in the semester, we covered the classical liberal, enlightenment roots of America's founding documents. Classical liberalism prioritizes protecting individuals against which of the following:

Government use of force

The Constitution includes a system of dividing the authority for specific government functions among different branches of government and two chambers of Congress. This method of division of authority is commonly called:

Separation of Powers

The Three-Fifths Compromise was a response to

conflict over the institution of slavery

The European philosopher whose concept of natural rights had a great impact on American politics is

Locke

The Constitution forbids Congress from

passing ex post facto laws

__________ advocated a "new federalism."

President Ronald Reagan

Viewed in historical terms, federalism has been a

contentious and dynamic system that has evolved over time to make for a progressively stronger national government.

Which of the following weakened the response to the COVID-19 epidemic in the federal system in 2020?

The federal government responded very late to the health crisis.

Gideon v. Wainwright is to the Sixth Amendment as Mapp v. Ohio is to the

Fourth Amendment.

The individual freedoms in the Bill of Rights were extended by the Fourteenth Amendment to include protection from deprivation of due process rights by

actions of state and local governments.

In the Constitution, procedural due process is protected in various ways by the

All of these answers are correct. (4th, 5th, 6th & 8th Amendments)

Women in America obtained the right to vote in

The central issue in the Bakke case was

affirmative action.

According to Gunnar Myrdal, what is America's curse?

racial discrimination

In the 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court

first explicitly applied the strict-scrutiny test.

According to the Declaration of Independence, governments get their "just powers" from

"The consent of the governed."

To what aspect of America were William Watts and Lloyd Free referring when they labeled it "the country of individualism par excellence"?

the engrained nature of individualism, from freedom of expression to fair-trial protections

Under the New Jersey Plan, each state would have ____ vote(s) in Congress.

one

Shays' Rebellion

Convinced many political leaders that the national government was too weak.

Marbury v. Madison is a landmark Supreme Court decision because it

set the precedent for judicial review.

According to John Locke, inalienable rights in a social contract

belong to individuals and cannot be denied by government.

Fiscal federalism refers to the

expenditure of federal funds on programs run in part through state and local governments

Which of the following statements is true?

The federal government raises more tax revenue than all state and local governments combined.

Which of the following is almost exclusively a state power?

registering voters

Government can lawfully prevent a political rally from taking place

when it can demonstrate that harmful acts will necessarily result from the rally.

Gideon v. Wainwright required the states to

Furnish attorneys for defenders in felony cases who cannot afford them.

The Supreme Court has reasoned that a right of privacy is provided by

implication in the freedoms in the Bill of Rights.

In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the pursuit of racial integration in public schools through busing

deprived students of their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection.

In 1960, the greatest percentage of immigrants to America came from

Europe

The first Asian immigrants to come to America in large numbers

were brought in as laborers in mines and railroad construction.

The fight to give Hispanic farm laborers better working conditions and wages in the late 1960s was conducted primarily in

California

Individualism is the idea that

people should take initiative and be self-sufficient.

What type of government suppresses individuality, forcing people to think and act in prescribed ways or risk punishment?

authoritarian

Which of the following is an example of checks and balances?

All of these answers are correct.

The writers of the Constitution justified different methods of selection and varying terms of office for the president, Senate, and House as a means of

protection against rapid control by an impassioned majority.

The framers of the Constitution preferred which of the following political arrangements?

a republic as opposed to a pure democracy

Which decision is indicative of how the Supreme Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment and state discretion in civil rights matters in the decades after the Civil War?

Please v. Ferguson

Which of the following was an argument in favor of federalism at the time of the writing of the Constitution?

All of these answers are correct.

All of the following individuals embraced a "nationalist view" of federalism EXCEPT

Roger Taney.

What was the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the concept of dual federalism?

It created dominant business interests that raised questions about the suitability of dual federalism as a governing concept.

Which of the following is NOT protected by the First Amendment?

freedom of bearing arms

The establishment clause prohibits government from

favoring one religion over another or supporting religion over no religion.

In its 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio ruling, the Supreme Court established the ________ test.

imminent lawless action

Which type of household has the LOWEST percentage of families living in poverty?

two-parent family

Public support for same-sex marriage has

increased significantly since the 1990s.

Which of the following groups is LEAST likely to identify with the Democratic Party?

White southerners

Europeans have a greater acceptance than Americans of

Welfare policies that could relieve people of the responsibility to care for themselves.

___________ was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson

President John Adams publicly indicated that

the Constitution was designed for a governing elite.

In which of the following states was the vote for the ratification of the Constitution very close?

New York

The writers of the Constitution used the term________ for a form of government that consists of carefully designed institutions that are responsive to the majority but not captive to it.

Republic

Which of the following is a concurrent power held by both the national government and state governments?

taxation