American Gov #1

One of the biggest indicators that civic engagement is declining in the United States is ___________.

a decline in small group membership

What branch of the government existed under the Articles of Confederation?

A unicameral Congress

Which of the following options accurately describes how government works in the United States?

1) public goods, such as education and national security, are provided by the government 2) the democratic government works closely together with its capitalist economic system 3) the market provides many goods and services needed by Americans

Many people tend to equate _______ with democracy.

Capitalism

Which of the following terms is used to describe the means by which a society organizes itself and allocates authority in order to accomplish collective goals?

Government

Which of the following is an example of direct democracy?

New England town meetings

______________ demonstrated the inability of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation to protect the citizenry from armed rebellion or provide adequately for the public welfare.

Rebellion leaders, such as Daniel Shays,

Which type of government controls essential industries and gives a very limited role to private businesses?

Socialist

Why could the Articles of Confederation not be amended to overcome issues with the power of Congress?

The 13 states had to unanimously agree to the amendments.

What was an initial issue for the new confederal government under the Articles of Confederation?

The Congress could not raise funds to pay back Revolutionary War debts

The ________ called for counting of all a state's free population and 60 percent of its slave population for both federal taxation and representation in Congress.

Three-Fifths Compromise

Which of the following was an argument made by the Federalists in support of the Constitution?

a national currency, which the federal government had the power to create, would ease business transactions

Why does the government protect common goods?

all of these answers are correct

Why is civic engagement important in a representative democracy?

because decisions are made through majority rule

What was one reason why Anti-Federalists argued against the ratification of the U.S. Constitution?

because it lacked a bill of rights

Becoming active in the community and engaging in a wide variety of community-based volunteer efforts is an important form of ______.

civic engagement

A form of government in which the people maintain the responsibility for making all policy decisions is known as ______.

direct democracy

The Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments _________.

extended the right to vote

Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts was started due to

high taxes from the state governments

In what way did the Great Compromise affect the structure of the U.S. government under the Constitution?

it created a Congress composed of two chambers: one with representation based on population and the second with equal state representation

One of the first disagreements in drafting the Constitution was between ______ and ______, and revolved around ______.

large states; small states; representation

Which of the following options best explains the reasoning behind the structure of the new government formed after the American Revolution?

many feared that a nation as large as the United States could not be ruled effectively as a republic, so a confederation was created

Which of the following types of citizens are the most likely to be engaged with their government, especially if they have intense preferences about an issue?

older, wealthy, more highly educated individuals

Unlike the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan proposed a legislature based on _________.

one vote per state

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of a representative democracy?

only those who belong to a particular political party are allowed to vote or hold office

One factor which particularly affects young people's willingness to become engaged in government is ________.

partisan politics

The Articles of Confederation operated in a way that _________.

prevented the national government from having the power to impose taxes, draft a military, or regulate interstate commerce

The Articles of Confederation could not be changed without a unanimous vote to do so. Why was this a weakness of the Articles?

problems with the Articles could not be easily fixed

The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to ___________.

quiet fears that the Constitution did not adequately protect individual liberties encourage Anti-Federalist support of the new national government protect fundamental rights

A republic is also known as a _________.

representative democracy

Which of the following incidents convinced many colonists that the social contract between the British government and its citizens had been broken?

the attempted interference with self-government in the colonies the trial of smugglers in courts without juries the imposition of taxes without consent

How did the approach taken to ratify the Constitution align with the new nation's identity as a republic?

the convention delegates voted to approve or reject the Constitution; these delegates were chosen by popular vote

Which of the following is an example of citizen engagement influencing government actions?

the expansion of voting rights increased access to higher education the end of slavery

The Articles of Confederation formed the basis for which of the following?

the new nation's government

Which of the following is a key principle found in John Locke's social contract theory?

the people agree to set up rulers for certain purposes and have the right to remove rulers who act against those purposes

"Gun owners are better represented by the NRA than the government." This would be an argument made by a proponent of ________.

the pluralist theory of government

An argument over whether the cheap natural gas produced by fracking is worth the environmental damage is an example of _______.

the tradeoffs perspective

Which option best describes a shared characteristic of totalitarianism and oligarchy?

they are both nondemocratic forms of government

Why were the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments of particular importance?

they changed the lives of African Americans who had been held in slavery

How did the concept of "natural rights" shape the core values of American political thought?

they reframed life, liberty, and property not as gifts from the monarch but as rights that no government could take away

What was the main goal of the Articles of Confederation?

to preserve the sovereignty of the states

To amend the Constitution, a proposal must be passed by ______ of Congress and _______ of the state legislatures.

two thirds; three-fourths

To amend the Constitution, a proposal must be passed by ______ of Congress and _______ of the state legislatures.

two thirds; two thirds

Elite theorists will point to the fact that ___________ to prove their thesis that a group of wealthy individuals control the government.

very few members of Congress are minorities most presidents are Ivy League educated most members of Congress are millionaires

Which of the following is a method of political engagement?

voting