Try our second GED Social Studies Practice Test! This set includes new questions that cover key topics like U.S. history, civics, economics, and geography. You’ll work with a variety of sources—passages, charts, graphs, and maps—and apply critical thinking to answer each question.
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Question 1 of 17
The following is a timeline of historical events in the early American republic:
1781: Ratification of Articles of Confederation
1786–1787: Shay’s Rebellion
1788: Ratification of the US Constitution
1789: George Washington becomes President
The following excerpt is from a letter written by George Washington to Secretary of War Henry Knox about Shay’s rebellion, an insurrection in western Massachusetts, in 1787:
“If government shrinks, or is unable to enforce its laws; fresh maneuvers will be displayed by the insurgents—anarchy and confusion must prevail… for if three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws… of our own making… I should have thought him… a fit subject for a madhouse.”
Which of the following statements best describes the impact Shay’s Rebellion had on American government?
Question 2 of 17
The following quotes are from John Nance Garner who served as vice president during the first two FDR administrations:
“[Becoming vice president] was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
What is the vice president’s primary responsibility?
Question 3 of 17
The following graph portrays a hypothetical model for US demand of Brazilian coffee. It portrays demand before and after the passage of a $1 tariff (tax) on imported Brazilian coffee.
What impact, if any, would the tariff have on US demand for Brazilian coffee?
Question 4 of 17
The following scenario describes an economic situation:
The Acme Company produces bowling balls. It costs $5 to produce a bowling ball, including raw materials, labor, marketing and transportation. Acme sells the bowling balls for $10 each.
Fill in the blank: The Acme Company earns $__ in profit for each bowling ball it sells.
Question 5 of 17
The following quote is an excerpt from a speech by Senator Olympia Snowe in 2012:
“You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree. The United States Senate is predicated and based on consensus building. That was certainly the vision of the founding fathers.”
The US Senate possesses which of the following powers?
Question 6 of 17
The following image is a political cartoon from the Columbus Dispatch in February 1937:
Listen—I don’t like your “DECISIONS”—From now on, you’re going to have to work with someone who can see things MY WAY!
The cartoon criticized President Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to expand the Supreme Court from 9 to 15 justices and thus appoint 6 new members himself. The cartoon depicts this attempt as a violation of which of the following principles?
Question 7 of 17
The following passage is a reproduction of the 10th Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
In the above passage, the word reserved most closely means which of the following?
Question 8 of 17
The following table contains data on the number of African American Senators and Congressman:
The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Which of the following statements best describes the impact the Civil Rights Act had on African American representation in Congress?
Question 9 of 17
The following excerpt is from the majority decision of the US Supreme Court in the 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson :
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority… The argument also assumes… that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition.”
The following excerpt is from the majority decision of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954:
“To separate them [children in grade and high schools] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone… We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between the Brown and Plessy decisions?
Question 10 of 17
The following excerpt is from Federalist 46 written by James Madison in 1788:
“The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes… the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union.”
The above excerpt is an example of which of the following concepts?
Question 11 of 17
The following table refers to results from the 1912 presidential election:
Democrat — Woodrow Wilson — 41.8% (6.3 million votes)
Progressive — Teddy Roosevelt — 27.4% (4.1 million votes)
Republican — William Howard Taft — 23.2% (3.5 million votes)
Socialist — Eugene Debs — 6.0% (900,000 votes)
Which of the following statements is supported by the data in the above table?
Question 12 of 17
The following excerpt is from a letter written in August 1944 by A. Leon Kubowitzki, head of the rescue program at the World Jewish Congress to the US War Department:
“I believe that destruction of gas chambers and crematoria in [Auschwitz] by bombing would have a certain effect now…[the] Germans might possibly stop further mass exterminations especially since so little time is left to them. Bombing of railway communications in this same area would also be of importance.”
The second excerpt is the War Department’s response issued a few days later:
“After a study it became apparent that such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources.”
The third excerpt comes from a report by the US consulate in Switzerland in 1942:
“Informer reported to have close connections with highest German authorities who has previously generally reliable reports says that in Fuehrer’s [sic] headquarters plan under consideration to exterminate at one blow this fall three and half to four millions Jews following deportation from countries occupied, controlled by Germany and concentration in east.”
What do the excerpts reveal about the role the Holocaust played in the American war effort in World War II?
Question 13 of 17
The following excerpt is a quote by President Theodore Roosevelt:
“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”
What attitude did President Roosevelt have towards preservation efforts?
Question 14 of 17
The following quote is an excerpt from President James K Polk’s inaugural address in 1848:
“Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good.”
The US House of Representatives possesses which of the following powers?
Question 15 of 17
The following is an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
The above passage incorporates which of the following concepts?
Question 16 of 17
The following excerpt is from a letter written in 1846 by William Dunne in Ireland to his nephew John Curtis, who had immigrated to America:
“I was and am very glad to here how well you have got on in America I think it was A good job that your father Mother and family went the time they did for there is nothing here but hardship and starvation… I suppose you have herd of it there was not one steme of potatoes in my house this three months it is very seldome that there does one come to market at all and what comes in not worth buying they cant be eat… Everyday went for the poor and bad wages the people are starving in the west of Ireland and turning out for something to eat we think that there will be a rebellion if there is not something done.”
How did historical events in the 1840s influence Irish immigration to the United States?
Question 17 of 17
The following excerpt is from a speech by U.S. Senator Daniel Webster expressing opposition to a veto by President Andrew Jackson in 1832:
“Mr. President, no one will deny the high importance of the subject now before us. Congress, after full deliberation and discussion, has passed a bill, by decisive majorities, in both houses, for extending the duration of the Bank of the United States. It has not adopted this measure until its attention had been called to the subject, in three successive annual messages of the President. The bill having been thus passed by both houses, and having been duly presented to the President, instead of signing and approving it, he has returned it with objections.”
It takes a majority of _____ in both chambers of Congress to override a presidential veto.
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