AP GOV UNIT 1 PRACTICE TEST

In McCulloch v. Maryland, the Supreme Court established which of the following principles?

. States cannot interfere with or tax the legitimate activities of the federal government.

In which of the following scenarios would a presidential veto most likely be upheld?

. Two-thirds of the representatives and senators are members of the same party as the president.

The Framers adopted a federal system for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:

Americans had weak allegiance to their states.

The President can do which of the following with out seeking the consent of either the House or the Senate?

Deploy troops.

In the Constitution as originally ratified in 1788, the provisions regarding which of the following most closely approximate popular, majoritarian democracy?

Election of members of the House of Representatives

In which of the following ways does the constitution protect the rights of individuals?

It prevents Congress from passing bills of attainder.

Which of the following is true about divided party control of the presidency and Congress?

It reflects a frequent election pattern over the past three decades.

The principle of the supremacy of federal law over state law was affirmed in

McCulloch v. Maryland.

Which of the following statements reflects a pluralist theory of American politics?

Public policies emerge from compromises reached among competing groups

Which of the following actions by the federal government best illustrates the concept of unfunded mandates?

Requiring states and municipalities to provide certain services for their citizens without providing resources to pay for those services

The Tenth Amendment most often comes into conflict with which section of the Constitution?

The "necessary and proper" clause

Which of the following is true under the system of checks and balances?

The Senate must ratify treaties negotiated by the President before they become law.

The procedure for formally amending the United States Constitution best illustrates which of teh following?

The federal structure of the United States

Which of the following is an example of checks and balances, as established by the Constitution?

The requirement that presidential appointments to the Supreme Court be approved by the Senate

Which one is NOT a presidential role authorized by the Constitution?

To lead the political party of the President

The United States has increasingly relied on the national government to solve problems primarily because:

a problem or policy often requires the authority and resources of the national government.

All of the following are consequences of the federal system in the United States EXCEPT

a strict division of power among levels of government

Shays' Rebellion was

an uprising by farmers to prevent judges from foreclosing on farms.

In The Federalist papers, James Madison expressed the view that political factions

are undesirable but inevitable in a free nation

Which of the following statements accurately describe the system of check and balances? I. The system of checks and balances prevents the rule of the majority, because one institution cannot gain total power over the others. II. The power to veto bills allows the president to check Congress. III. The system of checks and balances grew out of a long political tradition but is not defined by the Constitution. IV. Congress checks the power of the judicial branch by nominating justices.

b. I and II only

The legislative process at the national level reflects the intent of the framers of the Constitution to create a legislature that would

be cautious and deliberate

States and localities have the most discretion in establishing policy when federal funding is derived from

block grants

The Madisonian requirement that each branch of government acquire the consent of the others for many of its actions created a system of

checks and balances.

Informal changes to the Constitution have come about as a result of all of the following EXCEPT

constitutional amendments.

In a federal system of government, political power is primarily

divided between the central government and regional governments

Cooperative federalism includes each of the following EXCEPT

federal funding with no strings attached.

The terms "fiscal federalism" and "cooperative federalism" refer to situations in which

federal, state, and local governments work together to complete a project, with the federal government providing much of the project funding

"The Congress shall have the power ... to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof." Intepretations of this clause have been central to attempts to define the nature of which of the following aspects of the United States political system?

federalism

A consequence of separation of powers and checks and balances has been

fragmented policymaking processes.

A birth certificate issued in one state is valid in all states under the constitutional provision of

full faith and credit

Federal policies to regulate food and drugs are examples of:

implied powers

Congress would be required to use the "elastic clause" of the Constitution to

impose workplace safety standards

As originally ratified, the United States Constitution included provisions designed to

increase the economic powers of the central government

Anti-Federalists argued against adoption of the Constitution for all the following reasons EXCEPT

it failed to centralize power

All of these are advantages of federalism EXCEPT:

it reduces the amount of experimentation on public policy

Madison believed that in order to prevent a "tyranny of the majority" the new government should include all the following EXCEPT

limiting the president's term of office

Pluralist theory contends that in the United States

many groups vie for power with no one set of groups dominating.

The reserved powers of the state governments can best be described as those powers

not specifically granted to the national government or denied to the states

The government designed at the Constitutional Convention allowed the voters to directly elect

only the House of Representatives.

One way Congress can respond to a Supreme Court ruling that declares a law unconstitutional is to

pass new legislation that addresses the issues raised by the Court

The framers of the Constitution all believed that one of the primary functions of government is

protecting individual property rights

The Connecticut Compromise at the Constitutional Convention

resolved the impasse over the issue of representation in Congress.

A constitutional amendment would be required to ban flag burning because that activity is currently protected by the right to

symbolic free speech

On the issue of slavery, the Constitution specified

that three-fifths of the slaves would count for population in determining the number of House seats to which each state would be entitled.

Which of the following was NOT a problem with the national government under the Articles of Confederation?

the lack of power given to state legislatures

Which of the following is one of the central concerns of the First Amendment?

the right of citizens to petition the government for redress of grievances

Under the Articles of Confederation, most governmental power rested in

the state governments.

Political parties are an important example of the

unwritten constitution.

All of the following issues were decided at the Constitutional Convention EXCEPT

voting qualifications of the electorate

The new Republican majority in Congress in the 1990s preferred block grants to categorical grants because it:

wanted the federal government to exercise less authority over the states.