1. What prompted the first wave of heavy criticism and verbal abuse to be hurled at First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during the onset of the Clinton administration?

Mrs. Clinton developing an excessively complex healthcare plan that was quickly dropped by Congress

2. Which of the following represented a significant political victory for President Clinton at the beginning of the Clinton administration?

Congressional passage of the 1993 deficit-reduction bill

3. How did the federal government respond to the epidemic of violence plaguing American society in the 1990s?

President Clinton and Congress passed a gun-control law, the Brady Bill, and a $30 billion anticrime bill that contained a ban on several types of assault weapons.

4. Which of the following political decisions by President Clinton aroused the hostility and ire of many liberals in his own party?

President Clinton's signing of the welfare reform bill, which included work requirements and time limits for welfare benefits

5. What action during the first year of the Republican-led Congress led to an emerging public consensus that the Republicans had overreached with their conservative policies?

The shutdown of the federal government during a dispute between the Republican congressional leadership and President Clinton over the federal budget

6. Which of the following was NOT among the areas where President Clin- ton's foreign policy stumbled in the first years of his presidency?

Devel- oping strong relations with America's allies Germany and France

7. President Clinton attempted to promote peace negotiations and better relations between all of the following EXCEPT

China and Taiwan.

8. What was the primary political legacy of President Clinton, according to some historians?

President Clinton consolidated the Reagan-Bush revolution by encouraging reduced expectations of government.

9. What did the U.S. Supreme Court cite as its reasoning for taking the unprecedented action of prohibiting further recounting of Florida's popular vote and awarding the 2000 election to George W. Bush?

A legal finding that Florida's inconsistent standards for evaluating the disputed ballots violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

10. Which of the following was NOT among the polarizing conservative poli- cies pursued by President George W. Bush when he assumed the presidency?

Passing the No Child Left Behind education reform law

11. All of the following constituted U.S. government responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, EXCEPT

suspension of Americans' First Amendment right to protest against government policies.

12. What did the U.S. military encounter in Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein from power?

Violent resistance from Iraqi insurgents and foreign militants who had been drawn to the country

13. What revelation in 2004 concerning the Iraq War prompted a deep escalation of anti-American sentiment in Iraq and throughout the Arab world?

The revelation that some American soldiers had humiliated and abused Iraqi captives in the Abu Ghraib prison

14. George Bush successfully won reelection in 2004 over Senator John Kerry by claiming all of the following EXCEPT that he

enjoyed nearly universal support among foreign leaders, including the political leadership of our allies in Germany and France, while Kerry could not win the confidence of these foreign leaders.

15. All of the following proved to be characteristics of the new information age EXCEPT

an end to the boom-and-bust capitalist business cycle.

16. Which of the following most accurately characterizes the rise of Big Science in the post-World War II era?

A close alliance among the federal government, defense-oriented industries, and American research universities

17. The gap between rich and poor Americans widened in the 1980s and 1990s for all the following reasons EXCEPT

the tax policies of the Carter and Clinton administrations.

18. Despite numerous victories of feminists in the 1990s and 2000s, women continued to feel frustrated by their level of workplace progress for all of the following reasons EXCEPT

continued to be legally barred from holding high-level, high-prestige positions.

19. By the 2000s, the traditional nuclear family unit was undergoing severe strain for all of the following reasons EXCEPT

the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 encouraged many mothers to seek part-time work outside the home.

20. What was the primary reason that George W. Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security in 2005 was defeated?

Seniors had substantial political power and there was a strong American commitment to a broad social safety net.

21. Why did the Latino population maintain its linguistic and cultural identities better than most previous immigrant groups?

The large numbers of Latinos and the regional geographic concentration of Latinos in America facilitated the maintenance of their native languages and cultures.

22. According to scholarly studies, which of the following is true about the illegal immigrants living in the United States?

Illegal immigrants pay more dollars in federal taxes than they claim in benefits, but do often burden local government services.

23. Which of the following events was primarily responsible for the reversal of the strong political gains with Latino voters that President George W. Bush had made on behalf of the Republican party in 2004?

President Bush's controversial plan for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants

24. What was one key reason that more African American politicians were winning electoral offices in the 1990s and 2000s?

They began to appeal to a wide variety of voters with diverse political, economic, and social concerns.

25. What important legal boost was given by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 to African Americans' goal of achieving access to higher education?

Affirmative action in admissions was legitimate as long as rigid quotas or point systems were not used.

26. What was one reasonable charge that critics of multiculturalism in American education made about its possible impact on American society?

Multiculturalism may cause a loss of national cohesion and appreciation of shared American values.

27. Which of the following represented the leading modern art movement of the early post-World War II period that included American artists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning?

Abstract expressionism

28. Which of the following best characterizes one key overall effect of the electronic new media in the early twenty-first century?

The new media have had a democratizing effect for ordinary citizens who desire to obtain and disseminate information and to influence opinion about a wide variety of topics.