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AMERICAN GOVERNMENT CLEP 350 VERIFIED EXAM QUESTIONS WITH 100 ANSWERS GRADE A LATEST 2024
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AMERICAN GOVERNMENT CLEP 350 VERIFIED EXAM QUESTIONS WITH 100 ANSWERS GRADE A LATEST 2024
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AMERICAN GOVERNMENT CLEP/350 VERIFIED EXAMQUESTIONS WITH 100% ANSWERS/GRADE A / LATEST 2024
1. The president's constitutional power of ____ allows him/her to reject acts
of Congress.: Veto. To balance the ability of the legislature to pass laws unilaterally,
the president is given this right as part of the system of checks and balances.
2. Congress can ________ a veto with a 2/3 vote of each house.: Override. Part
of the system of checks and balances, this power ensures that, given enough votes,
even the President cannot unilaterally reject acts of congress.
3. A filibuster can occur only in the ______.: Senate. Because of its more flexible
rules, a filibuster is possible only in the Senate. A filibuster is a tactic used to delay
legislation.
4. The presiding officer of the House of Representatives is the _______.:
Speaker. The Speaker is the House presiding officer. Because he is elected by the full
House, he is normally a member of the majority party.
5. The House Rules Committee decides the _____ in which House bills come
up for vote.: Order. The House Rules Committee sets rules that may help or hinder a
piece of legislation, including rules on when a vote should occur, the length of debate
on a bill, and whether there can be amendments to the bill.
6. Caucuses are informed groups of Senators or Representatives who _____
opinions, interests, or backgrounds.: Share. Caucuses are also known as
Legislative Service Organizations. Caucuses are groups of Senators of
Representatives who try to advance particular agendas through their association.
7. The president can veto a bill by employing a technique known as a pocket
veto, where the president takes __ action with regard to the bill when the
Congress has adjourned during the 10-day period after a bill has been sent to
the President to be signed.: No. A pocket veto enables the president to refuse to sign
a bill into law without the political ramifications of an explicit veto. The pocket veto
cannot be overridden by Congress since the bill effectively "expires" due to lack of
Presidential action and Congressional presence.
8. The House of Representatives consists of how many members total? ___:
435. The House consists of 435 representatives. At one time, the number was based
on population, but the number was fixed at 435 by the Reapportionment Act of 1929.
Note that the number of representatives each state has is still determined by
population, but the total number has been fixed at 435. As population shifts, those 435
seats are redistributed among the states. No matter how small the state, it gets a
minimum of 1 seat; for example, Alaska and Delaware have 1 Representative each, as
opposed to California, which had 52 as of the year 2000.
9. The costs associated with social _______ programs such as Aid to Families
with Dependent Children (welfare), Social Security, and Medicare are known as
entitlements.: Welfare. The costs associated with such welfare programs are known
as entitlements. They make up more than fifty percent of the national budget.
, .
10. If a president is impeached by the House, the charges against him are
called the ________ of impeachment.: Articles. In an impeachment, the Senate acts
as a court and tries the president for the offenses he is accused of.
11. Every ten years, after a national ______, each state makes adjustments to
the congressional districts to reflect the changes in population. This process is
known as reapportionment.: Census. This process is known as reapportionment.
State legislatures draw the new congressional district lines.
12. Two views of a president's role in policymaking are _______________ and
congressionalist. One view implies that the president takes an active role in
policymaking, while the other implies that the legislature should dominate
policymaking.: Presidentialist. Democrats since FDR have traditionally taken the
presidentialist view, while Republicans have take the congressionalist view.
13. A filibuster is a ________ tactic used in the Senate where a senator will
spend hours giving a speech on a bill with the purpose of delaying or killing it.:
Delaying. This is known as a filibuster. A filibuster can be broken up by a cloture, which
requires the vote of sixty senators.
14. The fact that American public policy is largely determined by __________
between competing groups reflects the pluralist theory of American politics.:
Compromise. Various political groups and parties strive to pass their own agendas into
law. In that process, these groups must often reach compromises in order to pass
legislation that, at least partially, achieves their goals.
15. The ________ of the legislative branch of the US government is an example
of bicameralism.: Division. Borne out of the argument between more-and less-
populous states over legislative influence, this resulted in the bicameralism, or division
into two houses, of the legislature.
16. Presidents sometimes try to avoid the Congressional "advise and consent"
requirement with regard to treaties and trade agreements by entering into an
executive agreement with _______ governments.: Foreign. An executive agreement
allows the president to make secret agreements without Senate approval.
17. While many presidents have generated notoriety by brokering treaties with
foreign countries, the power to ratify foreign treaties lies with the ______.:
Senate. Article II section 2 of the Constitution gives this power solely to the Senate.
18. Unfunded mandates are ____ passed by the federal government for the
states to follow--i.e. environmental standards, but does not provide additional
funding at the same time.: Laws. These are known as unfunded mandates, and have
caused a lot of controversy, because many of these mandates cost additional money
for the states to follow, but the federal government does not provide this additional
money.
19. In the US v. Nixon, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled against president Nixon,
stating that executive privilege did not allow him to refuse to comply with a
_____ order to produce material for a criminal trial.: Court. Nixon sought to not turn
over taped conversations that revealed White House knowledge of the Watergate
break-in by invoking executive privilege.
, .
20. The __________ Act passed in 1973, limits a president's authority to send
troops to hostile areas without Congressional approval.: War Powers. Driven by
the US's involvement in two bloody "police actions" in Korea and Vietnam, the War
Powers Act was largely designed to curtail such actions in the future.
21. The stewardship theory of presidential power holds that the president has
the power and duty to do whatever is necessary in the national interest, unless
prohibited by the ____________.: Constitution. The stewardship theory is used by
those who wish to expand presidential power. FDR is a prime example of a president
who subscribed to this view of the presidency.
22. The _______ theory of presidential power states that the president's power
is limited to those powers specifically enumerated by the Constitution.: Taftian.
Most presidents prior to FDR subscribed to this theory.
23. The ________________ of the President, established by FDR in 1939, helps
the president oversee the federal bureaucracy.: Executive Office. The EOP is made
up of several advisers and offices that help the president oversee areas of the
government. The Executive Office of the President consists of four agencies--the
Office of Management and Budget prepares the federal budget and evaluates how
federal funds are being spent by various federal agencies.
24. Jefferson invoked the concept of ________ powers to justify the Louisiana
Purchase of 1803.: Inherent. Inherent powers are powers that can be inferred from
specific powers granted by the Constitution.
25. For over a century, presidents have sought the power of the line item veto,
a significant change in the power of the _______ veto.: General. Many states grant
their governors the line item veto to veto specific portions of a bill without vetoing the
entire bill. While president Clinton exercised the line-item veto on a number of
occasions, that power was found to be unconstitutional in 1998 and overturned.
26. ______________ is one of the most important and powerful Congressional
committees because of its budget oversight powers.: Ways and Means. The Ways
and Means committee is one of the most powerful of the Congressional committees.
Not only does it have the power to allocate funding to projects, but its power extends to
taxes; tax bills originate in this committee in the House of Representatives.
27 In the case of a tie vote in the ______, the Vice President is afforded the tie-
breaking vote.: Senate. Article 1 section 3 of the Constitution gives this power to the
Vice President.
28. The ______ has the power to try all impeachments including that of the
president. In such trials, however, it is the Chief Justice that shall preside over
the trial.: Senate. Article 1 section 3 states that when the president is tried by the
Senate, the Chief Justice will preside.
29. All bills passed in relation to revenue must originate in the House of
_______________.: Representatives. While it must be passed by both houses and
signed by the president, all revenue-raising bills must originate in the House. Note that
the tax related bills originate specifically in the Ways and Means committee of the
House of Representatives.
, .
30. While the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it is the
domain of the Congress to declare ___.: War. Article 1 section 8 grants the right to
declare war to the Congress.
31. A law passed by Congress to outlaw an act and _____________ punish
citizens for that act, even though it was legal at the time they engaged in it is
referred to as ex post facto law.: Retroactively. Article 1 section 9 forbids Congress
from passing a law that would punish citizens for acts that were legal at the time they
were involved in them.
32. The _________ has the power to appoint Supreme Court justices.:
President. Article 2 section 2 of the Constitution gives the president this power.
Justices must be confirmed by the Senate.
33. Each of a President's cabinet members has both a loyalty to the President
and to his/her own __________.: Department. Cabinet members often experience
divided loyalty between the President whom they serve under and the Cabinet
Department they head. This division in loyalty can sometimes lead to Cabinet Members
not performing their role as Presidential adviser as objectively as possible, which can
undermine their effectiveness.
34. In the Senate, the majority leader has the power to appoint members and
chairs of __________.: Committees. The majority party structure of the Senate gives
the majority leader this power. This ability enables the majority leader to control
important committee assignments. Note that the leader does not typically pick just
anyone for committee assignments; they are often determined by the tradition of
seniority, or the amount of time that the senator has served.
35. In the Senate, the majority leader nominates committee members, but must
himself be elected by the majority party members of the Senate or ______.:
Caucus. The Senate majority leader is selected by a caucus of majority party
members. He then has the authority to make committee assignments.
36 Standing committees in Congress have the duty of __________ proposals for
legislation into official bills.: Processing. Standing committees are normally tasked
with processing proposals under specific subject headings, like Finance or Foreign
Relations, into bills for consideration.
37. The president has the power to arrange an agreement between the U.S. and
another country with the force of a treaty, but without the ______'s prior
approval. This is known as an executive agreement.: Senate. Per decisions made
in the 1936 U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright and 1942 U.S. v. Pink cases, the Supreme Court
ruled that the Congress had delegated broad discretionary powers to the president with
regard to foreign policy and that an executive agreement is the legal equivalent of a
treaty.
38. One example of Senatorial ________ might be when a President defers the
selection of district court judges to that State's senators.: Courtesy. A President
will often allow a State's senators to suggest persons for nomination. One reason for
this courtesy is that a nominee is rarely approved if that State's senators do not agree.
39. While it is made up of heads of all major government agencies, the _______
is not a board of directors with any collective power.: Cabinet. The cabinet, or
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