AP GOVERNMENT
WORKSHEET CHAPTER 6
PUBLIC OPINION AND POLITICAL ACTION
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1) Demography is important to politics because.
a) Demographic differences threaten American
pluralism.
b) Population changes affect the distribution of
political values, policies and power.
c) Mini-trends have a greater effect on our
political system than megatrends.
d) The Constitution requires the federal
government to take a census every ten years.
2) According to the Constitution, a census
a) Must be used to delineate the boundaries of
Congressional districts.
b) Can be used to change the boundaries of the
states.
c) Must be taken every ten years.
d) Must be taken every five years.
3) The fact that the United States is a mixture of
cultures, ideas, and peoples is a key indication of
a) Democracy
b) Class and elitism
c) pluralism
d) hyperpluralism
4) Those who are least informed
a) actually have the strongest opinions on politics
b) tend to be more strongly ideologically oriented
c) are most critical of the media claiming it does
not provide them with enough information
d) are least likely to participate in the political
process
5) According to the text, the most economically and
politically disadvantaged group in America is
a) Chicanos
b) Blacks
c) Native Americans
d) Women
6) The process by which people acquire their political
orientations is called
a) A demographic trend
b) a minitrend
c) political socialization
d) political participation
7) ________________ occurs after every census to
reallocate the 435 seats in the United States House
of Representatives, reflecting shifts in the population
of the states and, thus, how many seats each state is
allotted.
a)
b)
c)
d)
8)
equalization
restructuring
political socialization
reapportionment
Better-educated people
a) vote and participated more in politics.
b) are more tolerant of different opinions.
c) more closely approximate the democratic model
d) all of the above
9) Children informally acquire attitudes toward
political processes and the presidency through
a) Public School education
b) Political party affiliation
c) Television
d) Both a and b
10) A pollster using a representative sample of 1500
Americans find that 52 percent support candidate X
and 48 percent support candidate Y. The pollster's
conclusion should be that
a) The race is too close to call because of a
possible sampling error.
b) X is likely to win
c) Polls are unreliable predictors of political
outcomes
d) The poll should be retaken with a larger sample.
11) Public opinion polls can weaken democracy by
a) Predicting the wrong winner in a close election.
b) Attracting only candidates with a good media
image.
c) Focusing on image rather than issues.
d) Distorting the election process.
12) Concerns about reliance of pollsters on telephone
surveys have recently been caused by
a) decreased chances of finding people at home
b) increased use of cell phones
c) increased use of random digit dialing
d) a decrease in no-call lists
13) Critics of polling think
a) it gives politicians the wrong information
b) the public’s opinion should not be taken into
account
c) it could lead to a tyranny of the majority
d) it makes politicians more concerned with
following than leading
14) Liberals tend to
a) support lower taxation
b) favor maintaining peace through strength
c) support lower government spending
d) support environmental regulation policies
15) Conservatives would tend to favor each of the
following EXCEPT
a) affirmative action
b) lower taxes
c) increased military spending
d) free-market solutions
16) Recent public opinion polls have shown that most
Americans
a) favor the idea of big government in principle,
but oppose it in practice.
b) Oppose the idea of big government in principle,
but favor it in practice
c) Oppose big government.
d) Favor big government.
17) The 'American Voter' study on ideological
sophistication among voters in the 1950's showed
that only a small percentage of Americans
a) Had a coherent political ideology.
b) Identified with groups reflecting their own
interest
c) Linked their own economic well-being with the
party in power.
d) Had no coherent political ideology.
18) Civil disobedience
a) usually involves the use of violence
b) was first used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to
call attention to the injustice of segregation laws
c) is intentionally violating a law believed to be
unjust in order to bring about change.
d) All of the above
TRUE/FALSE: There are five false statements.
19) The phrase 'minority majority' refers to a situation
when the United States will consist of a
non-Caucasian majority.
20) The Social Security system is exceed only be
national defense as our most costly public policy.
21) In political socialization, formal learning is more
important that informal learning.
22) Of the agents of socialization the earliest and
strongest is the family.
23) Political socialization usually stops by the time a
person reaches voting age.
24) Even with a representative sample of adequate size,
opinions Surveys have a margin of error, called a
sampling error, which is expressed as a percentage
of the sample.
25) Public opinion polls can weaken democracy by
distorting the election process.
26) Exit polls allow television networks to project all but
very close races before the polls even close.
27) People tend to become more knowledgeable about
politics as they grow older.
28) The Simpson-Mazzoli Act granted amnesty to illegal
aliens who had resided in the United States since
January 1, 1982.
29) The American public has gradually become more
conservative since the election of Ronald Reagan as
president.
30) A smaller poll can be more accurate than a larger
poll if the smaller poll representative sample.
31) Three distributions of public opinion are consensus,
conflict and change.
32) The Gallup-Times-Mirror study of groups in the
American population showed that the appellations
'liberal' and 'conservative' are no longer useful.
33) In the history of political participation,
unconventional means have tended to fail as
political activism has become more and more
associated with radical politics.
FILL IN THE BLANK
34) The science of population change is called __________________________________.
35) An actual enumeration of the population of a country is country a _________________.
36) _________________ is the most criticized type of poll that is frequently used by the media.
37) __________________________ occurs when the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are reallocated to the states
based on population changes.
38) The _________________________ required employers to document the citizenship of their
employees.
39) The process through which we acquire our knowledge, feelings and evaluations about political world is called
__________________________.
40) The source of our knowledge, feelings and evaluations about our political world - such as the family - are called
______________________________.
41) One major source of changing political attitudes and behaviors from one generation to another is a
_______________________.
42) ____________________ is the distribution of the population's beliefs about politics and policy issues.
43) A method of finding out about public opinion that was perfected by George Gallup is called a
________________________.
44) Most polling is done on the telephone with samples selected through __________________________.
45) A coherent set of beliefs about politics and public policy is called a ___________________________.
46) On economic policy, conservatives want to keep both taxes and spending ___________.
47) ___________________ is a form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and
unconventional tactics.
48) People who make a conscious decision to break a law they think is immoral and to accept the consequences are
practicing a form of political participation called ___________________________.
Chapter 6 Worksheet
1) B
10) A
2) C
11) D
3) C
12) B
4) D
13) D
5) C
14) D
6) C
15) A
7) D
16) B
8) D
17) A
9) C
18) C
FALSE ANSWERS = 21,23,27,29,33
34) demography
39)
35) census
40)
36) exit poll
41)
37) Reapportionment
42)
38) Simpson-Mazzoli Act
43)
political socialization
agents of socialization
traumatic historic events
public opinion
public opinion poll
44)
45)
46)
47)
48)
random digit dialing
political ideology
low
protest
civil disobedience
COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE FOLLOWING:
49) Demography, census, and reapportionment
50) Political socialization, public opinion and political ideology
51) sample, random sampling, and sampling error
52) random digit dialing and exit poll