This is a tricky question. For one, federal judges are not elected. Thus, any answer involving election is incorrect. If you narrowed it down to the three answers that don't involve elections, great job! From here, you have to know that Federal judges are nominated by the President. That leaves us with two answers, only one of which is correct.

The trickiest distinction that is left is that between the House and the Senate. After being nominated by the President, a judge-elect is confirmed (or not--it does happen) by the Senate. One of the better ways to remember that this is the Senate's job rather than the House's is that the Founders meant for the Senate to be sort of an advisory board to the President.

Unfortunately, this is another answer that doesn't have much of an explanation. The current number of Justices is set at 9 (although it can be manipulated by Congress, if they so wish). A good way to remember the number is to think that the number almost has to be odd (otherwise, there could be a tie!). 

The other answers are all incorrect. 

The correct answer is “life with good behavior.” To explain that slightly further, once an Article III (as in the Constitution) judge/justice is appointed and confirmed, that judge or justice may stay on the bench for as long as: (1) they’re still breathing, and (2) they have maintained the requisite standard of behavior (i.e. “good” behavior).

“Good behavior” is a little hard to explain—it’s a purposefully vague standard. That said, with one notable exception, every federal judge who has been impeached and then removed from office, has been removed for fairly heinous crimes (perjury, accepting bribes, etc). John Pickering is the exception—he holds the dubious honor of being the first federal judge to be impeached and removed from office. His crime(s)? Drunkenness and insanity. Scholars theorize that Pickering was actually removed for political reasons (that’s a rather clever way of saying that the President and most of Congress REALLY didn’t like him).

Thus, the other answers are all incorrect.

This is a fun question. The answer may have been a surprise to some of you (although hopefully it wasn’t). There are no qualifications to be an Article III judge or justice. Really! Look in the Constitution. You needn’t be a certain age, you don’t have to go to law school—or college, or high school, for that matter.

This total lack reflects the Founders’ general apathy toward what they likely considered to be the least important branch. Notice how the President and both chambers of Congress have age (and citizenship) requirements.

9 justices serve on the Supreme Court at a time. This ensures that no case ever ends in a tie with votes, and usually means that one justices vote is the deciding factor in a case.

The method of organizing government by distributing power to different levels of government (usually national and state levels) is also known as Federalism. Separation of power is also a distribution of powers, but within different branches of the national government (legislative, judicial, and executive).  

This is a relatively difficult question, unless you have some background with the federal judiciary. That said, the answer choices should have narrowed your focus slightly. At any rate, the particulars in this question delve into hyper-technical aspects of the federal judiciary that are far beyond the scope of your course. In order to fully understand, however, we’ll touch on them briefly.

Federal (Article III) courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, which means they cannot hear any case that they want to—this reflects the principals of Federalism that are deeply embedded in our Constitution. Among the cases that they can hear are: “diversity” and “federal question.”

Put extremely simply, diversity cases must satisfy two requirements: (1) the plaintiff (the one bringing the case) and the defendant (the one against whom the case is brought) must be citizens of different states; and (2) the damages (that is, the ‘award’ for ‘winning’ the case) must satisfy the “amount in controversy” requirement—currently set at $75,000 (Congress changes this every so often to reflect inflation and other variables). In other words, in order to bring a diversity case, the parties on either side of the “v” must be citizens of different states AND must be asking for greater than $75,000 in damages.

The only other way (for the purposes of your course) to get a case into federal court is through a “federal question.” Federal question is exactly what it sounds like—the harm in the case must “arise under” federal law. Take, for example, a plaintiff who is suing his employer under the National Labor Relations Act—clearly this is a federal question because the harm arose under a federal law.

As for the other two answers—divorce and Probate—they are incorrect. The federal judiciary is actually explicitly forbidden from hearing matters of family law (i.e. divorce); that is, Congress has removed family law from the federal court’s jurisdiction altogether. Probate is incorrect because it is a type of court, one that often deals with issues of family law (such as wills).

The federal constitutional court system (as established by the Constitution and Congress) begins with the district courts, of which there are ninety-one in total. District courts are the basic access point for nearly every single federal case and there is at least one in every state. District courts are the only federal courts in which juries are seated and trials are held. Next on the power scale comes the twelve courts of appeal, which review cases appealed to them from the district courts and also are permitted to oversee and enforce orders from some federal regulatory agencies. The nation is split up into twelve judicial circuits, with each circuit serving at least two states – together, these circuits make up the twelve courts of appeal, one for each circuit area. These courts concern themselves with fixing mistakes made by district courts, such as the improper interpretation of a law or an error in trial proceeding. There are no trials or testimonies or juries involved; instead, each court of appeals is normally presided over by one of three judges, who rotate back and forth on a schedule (in rare cases, when a matter is especially vital, all three judges preside at once). All decisions reached by courts of appeals set precedents for their respective district. Finally, the Supreme Court occupies the highest position of authority within the federal court system.

A diversity of citizenship case is a civil case that involves a plaintiff and defendant who reside in two separate states (for example, if a resident of New Jersey is suing someone from Oregon). This also applies to civil cases where a foreign national is involved, although this is less common. District courts ONLY have jurisdiction in diversity of citizenship cases if the case at hand involves at least seventy-five thousand dollars (either an amount in contention or sought in damages). Any diversity of citizenship case that involves less than this amount, regardless of the differing state laws involved, must instead be settled in state court. This restriction was placed by Congress upon diversity of citizenship cases because it is believed that when a large amount of money is disputed and/or sought, a district court is more appropriate to decide the matter than a state court, which may be unfairly biased in favor of its involved resident. A federal judge is presumed to be better suited to resolve the matter because they are impartial, without no respective state allegiance.

When it comes to obstacles faced by a President’s Supreme Court nominee during the Senate confirmation process, there are a few crucial challenges which can delay or even prevent entirely a nomination. History has shown that when a President nominates a new justice right at the end of his/her term in office, the Senate is likely to object. Senators of either party tend to take more issue with a lame-duck President attempting to nominate a new justice than a freshly inaugurated Chief Executive – usually because it is considered unfair (even unsavory) to allow an outgoing President to make such a substantial appointment. Similarly, a President whose political party holds only a minority in the Senate quite naturally often finds his/her Supreme Court nominee subjected to long rounds of debate and other confirmation delays; without a majority of Senators on his side, the Chief Executive can find it difficult to marshal enough definite supporters. On a more personal note, if information comes to the Senate’s attention that a prospective justice has committed (or even seems likely to have committed) ethical and/or competency violations, naturally this poses quite a substantial problem for the nominee. Delays and/or nomination denial have also occurred if it seems apparent to the Senate that a nominee’s views or policy beliefs could lead them to rule in a manner that would alter the Court’s already established balance of decisions (for example, if the new judge is more conservative, that would help the Court’s other conservatives to outnumber the more liberal justices).