Chapter 6 AP GOV Test Review
A 2013 YouGov poll question asked, "President Obama says the 1975 Public Affairs Act should be repealed. Do you agree or disagree?" The results showed that 13 percent of Democrats agreed and 39 percent of Republicans disagreed. However, the 1975 Public Affairs Act is fictitious. Which of the following is illustrated by the scenario?
The type of information given in a poll question can affect how individuals respond.
A media organization is interested in reporting election results in a congressional election prior to the final tally of votes which will not occur until later in the evening. The organization randomly selects several polling places across the district asking voters whom they voted for. The type of poll being used in this scenario is known as
an exit poll
Based on the line graph, what percentage of people surveyed attended church weekly in 1990 ?
35%
Which of the following best describes an exit poll?
A poll that asks voters at randomly selected voting places whom they voted for so that election results can be predicted more quickly
Which of the following scenarios best illustrates political socialization?
A young teenager hears her parents discussing politics around the dinner table, which influences her own views.
Which of the following scenarios best reflects the process of political socialization?
An individual takes a civics course in school and develops opinions about politics.
Which of the following best describes how the generations view themselves in regards to the idealistic trait?
Baby-Boomer respondents are more likely to consider themselves idealistic than Generation X respondents.
Which of the following is NOT a core value of United States political culture?
Economic equality
Which of the following is likely true about the 2018 midterm elections based on the data in the line graph?
Economic issues are less likely to be discussed in the 2018 midterm elections than in the 2012 presidential elections.
Which of the following is generally the most important agent of political socialization?
Family
If not by genetic background, families most likely transmit politics through?
Family discussion, activism, political views of parents
Just beyond the horizon of current events lie two possible political futures—both bleak, neither democratic. The first is a retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization of national states in which culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against tribe—a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths against every kind of interdependence, every kind of artificial social cooperation and civic mutuality. The second is being borne in on us by the onrush of economic and ecological forces that demand integration and uniformity and that mesmerize the world with fast music, fast computers, and fast food—with MTV, Macintosh, and McDonald's, pressing nations into one commercially homogeneous global network: one McWorld tied together by technology, ecology, communications, and commerce. The planet is falling precipitantly apart and coming reluctantly together at the very same moment. Benjamin Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld," 1992 Based on your knowledge of United States government and politics, with which of the following statements would the author most likely agree?
Free market principles influence American political culture as well as the cultures of other countries.
Based on the line graph, which of the following statements about church attendance in 1972 is true?
In 1972, more people surveyed reported attending church weekly than reported attending rarely or never.
On November 2, 2014, a Gallup poll reported that 51 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, while 47 percent oppose legalization. The reported margin of sampling error was +/- 4 percent. Which of the following inferences can be made from the poll?
It is unclear whether more people support marijuana legalization than oppose it.
In May of 2015, a federal appeals court ruled that the National Security Agency's collection of Americans' phone records was in violation of the USA PATRIOT Act. Which of the following core values are involved in the national debate regarding the surveillance program referred to in this scenario?
Liberty versus stability and order
Which of the following serves as an explanation for the differences between generations in voting patterns?
Major political events affecting political attitudes
Why is voting not a true measure of public opinion?
Not everyone votes
Which of the following is a likely public policy result of the data on the line graph?
Public policies that create jobs but increase the deficit, such as tax cuts or infrastructure spending, will likely be prioritized over paying down the national debt.
Agree-Disagree v. Forced Choice Questions Agree-Disagree The best way to ensure peace is through military strength. (55% agree, 42% disagree) Forced Choice The best way to ensure peace is through military strength (33%) OR Diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace (55%) Source: Pew Research Center, 1999. Which of the following most likely explains the difference in result of the two polls?
Question format
If any given voter has an equal chance of being in a survey, the sample is best described as?
Random
A polling firm tried to predict the results of an election by sampling 1,000 adults within a state for two days prior to the election, using landline telephones of likely voters. After the election, the firm found that their poll results were not close to the actual election results. Which of the following recommendations would be the best for the firm to follow in the future?
Sample people who have cell phones, in addition to those with landlines.
Which of the following is most important for getting an accurate measure of public opinion in a survey?
Selecting a random sample
Which of the following statements draws an accurate comparison from the information graphic?
The Ford/Carter "Boomer" generation has voted more consistently Republican than has the Bush/Obama "Millennial" generation.
Which of the following is the best example of the core value of limited government?
The United States Constitution delegating specific powers to Congress
Which of the following is a limitation of the data when drawing a conclusion about the most important problem facing the country in 2017 ?
The data were collected in a short time frame, which does not reveal full-year trends.
Which of the following best explains the data in the line graph?
The economy is likely the most important issue because it is a broader category that is more open to individual interpretation than both jobs and the budget deficit.
Which best describes the framers opinion on the role of public opinion in government?
The framer thought that public opinion should only play a limited and indirect role in framing policy
Which of the following best describes a trend in the data?
The older the respondents, the more likely they are to identify as patriotic.
Which of the following explains why any attempt to reduce Social Security benefits is difficult?
There are many voters who support Social Security.
The group that a poll is meant to represent is called the...
Universe in polling
Candidates for political office use public opinion polls for all of the following purposes EXCEPT to
bring the opposition's opinions into alignment with those of the candidate
All of the following are traditional political values held by most Americans EXCEPT
equality of outcome
When a child's parents both identify strongly with the same political party, the child will most likely
identify with the parents' party
An important change in political culture since 1950 is that United States citizens have become
less trusting of governmental institutions and leaders
Political socialization is the process by which
political values are passed to the next generation
Of the following, the most important role in the political socialization of children is played by
the family
In a public opinion poll, a polling company used an online survey tool to randomly contact respondents who did not have telephone lines in addition to contacting people over the phone. Which of the following best explains this decision?
The company wanted to ensure that the sample of the population was truly random.
One of the principal effects of 9/11 was instilling in Americans a fear that their personal security was at greater risk than ever before. Many aspects of the post-9/11 world are indeed new, but the fear it evokes echoes that felt by prior generations. At times the country has met those fears while still holding fast to its core democratic principles. Other times, fear has overruled American principles, especially the protection of individual freedoms. The most important legacy of the American experience following 9/11 will not be the novelty of fear, but rather how well the country copes with that fear while adhering to its constitutional framework. Given how searing the 9/11 experience was, it is sometimes hard to remember that prior generations of Americans didn't always sleep soundly either. Pearl Harbor is an often-cited example, but it joins many other moments of intense fear in U.S. history. During the 40-plus years of the Cold War, American school children practiced "duck and cover" drills the way today's kids might practice school lock-downs. As a teenage in the 1980s, I joined Sting in hoping we could avert a nuclear holocaust if "the Russians love their children, too." With the collapse of the Soviet Union, other threats in the United States soon appeared: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing, to name just a few. During the 1990s, some in the military liked to refer to the United States as a "homeland sanctuary;" after 9/11, many talk about the end of that sanctuary. True, the country has experienced fewer external threats to its population than have most other nations. But it's a misconception to think that the American sense of external threat is new. Kathleen Hicks, "What Will Americans Do About Their Fear of Terrorism?" The Atlantic Monthly, 2016. The passage is most related to which of the following concepts?
Political socialization
Just beyond the horizon of current events lie two possible political futures—both bleak, neither democratic. The first is a retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization of national states in which culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against tribe—a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths against every kind of interdependence, every kind of artificial social cooperation and civic mutuality. The second is being borne in on us by the onrush of economic and ecological forces that demand integration and uniformity and that mesmerize the world with fast music, fast computers, and fast food—with MTV, Macintosh, and McDonald's, pressing nations into one commercially homogeneous global network: one McWorld tied together by technology, ecology, communications, and commerce. The planet is falling precipitantly apart and coming reluctantly together at the very same moment. Benjamin Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld," 1992 Which of the following is the best summary of the author's argument?
The world is becoming more globally united but also more aware of cultural differences, which may lead to conflict.
One of the principal effects of 9/11 was instilling in Americans a fear that their personal security was at greater risk than ever before. Many aspects of the post-9/11 world are indeed new, but the fear it evokes echoes that felt by prior generations. At times the country has met those fears while still holding fast to its core democratic principles. Other times, fear has overruled American principles, especially the protection of individual freedoms. The most important legacy of the American experience following 9/11 will not be the novelty of fear, but rather how well the country copes with that fear while adhering to its constitutional framework. Given how searing the 9/11 experience was, it is sometimes hard to remember that prior generations of Americans didn't always sleep soundly either. Pearl Harbor is an often-cited example, but it joins many other moments of intense fear in U.S. history. During the 40-plus years of the Cold War, American school children practiced "duck and cover" drills the way today's kids might practice school lock-downs. As a teenage in the 1980s, I joined Sting in hoping we could avert a nuclear holocaust if "the Russians love their children, too." With the collapse of the Soviet Union, other threats in the United States soon appeared: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing, to name just a few. During the 1990s, some in the military liked to refer to the United States as a "homeland sanctuary;" after 9/11, many talk about the end of that sanctuary. True, the country has experienced fewer external threats to its population than have most other nations. But it's a misconception to think that the American sense of external threat is new. Kathleen Hicks, "What Will Americans Do About Their Fear of Terrorism?" The Atlantic Monthly, 2016. Which of the following best explains how the passage relates to the political process?
There are important political and cultural events that can cause the development of lasting political beliefs across groups of people in society.