SAT II US History : Cause and Effect in U.S. Economic History from 1899 to the Present
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Example Questions
Example Question #41 : U.S. Economic History
What President was slow to respond to the unfolding of the Great Depression?
Herbert Hoover
Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Franklin Roosevelt
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover was President for the first three and a half years of the Depression. He was widely criticized for his slow reaction, then not reacting strongly enough as it became obvious that the nation was falling further and further into economic decline.
Example Question #41 : U.S. Economic History
Following the stock market crash in 1929 many banks would quickly run out of money. What caused them to run out of money?
Account holders withdrew their money
They lost their money in the stock market
Most people who had loans defaulted on them
The government closed many of them and took the money
Account holders withdrew their money
In what became known as the run on banks, many people rushed to their banks to withdraw their money, only to find the bank had no money to give them. Banks do not keep anywhere near enough money to cover the value of all their accounts, so after the first wave of people the banks had no more money to hand out, and due to defaulting loans and the market crash, had no money coming in. This meant many banks went under and the account holders would not get back the money they had deposited.
Example Question #42 : U.S. Economic History
What change to the industrial base in America by the 1920's helped cause the Great Depression?
Greater regulation
Decaying industrial base
Exporting of industry
Rise of corporations
Decaying industrial base
Most of the industrial base in America had, at this point, been built at least 30 to 40 years earlier. This meant that most of the technology in the industrial space was very old and outdated. This coupled with the toll the years and constant ware that the equipment and the buildings themselves had been through, and it helped to cause a massive slowdown in industrial output as the system ground down.
Example Question #43 : U.S. Economic History
Economists concur generally that the __________ was one of the major causes of the Great Depression, contributing greatly to its severity and length.
the Tariff of Abominations
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
income tax
the Whiskey Tax
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Although the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was well-intentioned, it was a major contributing factor to the Great Depression. Without going into needlessly complicated detail, foreign trade is a major component of basically every developed economy—the U.S. in 1930 was no exception. The Tariff (because it artificially increased the prices of many imported goods) caused a major slump in foreign trade, leading (in part) to the Great Depression.
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