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WWII Test - AP

Choose the answer that best completes the statement or answers the question.

1. As a result of Franklin Roosevelt's unwillingness to support the London Conference,

a. inflation in the United States was reduced.


b. the United States was voted out of the League of Nations.
c. the trend towards extreme nationalism was strengthened.
d. the United States began to pull out of the Depression.

2. In promising to grant the Philippines independence, the United States was motivated by

a. treaty obligations.
b. doubts about the islands' potential profitability.
c. the view that the islands were militarily indefensible.
d. the realization that the islands were economic liabilities.

3. President Franklin Roosevelt's foreign-trade policy

a. lowered tariffs to increase trade.


b. encouraged trade only with Latin America.
c. continued the policy that had persisted since the Civil War.
d. was reversed only after World War II.

4. Throughout most of the 1930s, the American people responded to the aggressive
actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan by

a. assisting their victims with military aid.


b. giving only economic help to the targets of aggression.
c. retreating further into isolationism.
d. demanding an oil embargo on all warring nations.

5. By the mid-1930s, there was strong nationwide agitation for a constitutional


amendment to

a. increase the size of the Supreme Court.


b. limit a president to two terms.
c. ban arm sales to foreign nations.
d. forbid a declaration of war by Congress unless first approved by a popular
referendum.

6. From 1925 to 1940 the transition of American policy on arms sales to warring nations
followed this sequence:

a. embargo to lend-lease to cash-and-carry.


b. cash-and-carry to lend-lease to embargo.
c. lend-lease to cash-and-carry to embargo.
d. embargo to cash-and-carry to lend-lease.

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7. Franklin Roosevelt's sensational "Quarantine Speech" resulted in

a. immediate British support of U.S. policy.


b. a wave of protest by isolationists.
c. support from both Democratic and Republican leaders.
d. Japanese aggression in China.

8. In September 1938 in Munich, Germany,

a. Britain and France consented to Germany's taking the Sudetenland from


Czechoslovakia.
b. Hitler declared his intention to take Austria.
c. Hitler signed the Axis Alliance Treaty with Japan.
d. Britain and France acquiesced to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland.

9. Congress's first response to the unexpected fall of France in 1940 was to

a. revoke all the neutrality laws.


b. pass a conscription law.
c. enact a new neutrality law enabling the Allies to buy American war matÇriel on a
cash-and-carry basis.
d. call for the quarantining of aggressor nations.

10. In return for old American destroyers, the British gave the United States

a. "most favored nation" status.


b. a role in developing the atomic bomb.
c. eight valuable naval bases.
d. access to German military codes.

11. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the United States

a. promised aid to the Soviets but did not deliver.


b. refused to provide any help, either military or economic.
c. gave only nonmilitary aid to Russia.
d. made lend-lease aid available to the Soviets.

12. After the Greer was fired upon, the Kearny crippled, and the Reuben James sunk,

a. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act.


b. the United States Navy began escorting merchant vessels carrying lend-lease
shipments.
c. Congress allowed the arming of United States merchant vessels.
d. Congress forbade United States ships to enter combat zones.

13. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 came as a great surprise because

a. President Roosevelt suspected that if an attack came, it would be in Malaya or the


Philippines.
b. there was no way of knowing that the Japanese had been provoked to the point of
starting a war with the United States.
c. Japanese communications were in a secret code unknown to the United States.
d. the United States was, at the time, Japan's main source of oil and steel.

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14. As World War II began for the United States in 1941, President Roosevelt

a. led a seriously divided nation into the conflict.


b. endorsed the same kind of government persecution of German-Americans as Wilson had in
World War I.
c. called the American people to the same kind of idealistic crusade with the same rhetoric that
Wilson had used in World War I.
d. decided to concentrate first on the war in Europe and to place the Pacific war on hold.

15. Japanese-Americans were placed in concentration camps during World War II

a. due to numerous acts of sabotage.


b. in retaliation for the placement of Americans in concentration camps by the
Japanese.
c. as a result of anti-Japanese prejudice and fear.
d. all of these.

16. While American workers, on the whole, were committed to the war effort, several
unions went on strike. The most prominent was the
a. American Federation of Labor. c. Longshoremen.
b. Amalgamated Meat Packers. d. United Mine Workers.

17. During World War II, Native Americans

a. demanded that President Roosevelt end discrimination in defense industries.


b. rarely enlisted in the armed forces.
c. moved south to replace African-American laborers.
d. moved off reservations in large numbers.

18. The first naval battle in history in which all the fighting was done by carrier-based
aircraft was the Battle of

a. Leyte Gulf. c. the Coral Sea.


b. the Java Sea. d. Midway.

19. The tide of Japanese conquest in the Pacific was turned following the Battle of

a. Leyte Gulf. c. the Coral Sea.


b. the Java Sea. d. Midway.

20. The Japanese made a crucial mistake in 1942 in their attempt to control much of the
Pacific when they

a. failed to take the Philippines.


b. unsuccessfully attacked the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.
c. overextended themselves instead of digging in and consolidating their gains.
d. sent their submarine force on a suicide mission at the Battle of Midway.

21. In waging war against Japan, the United States relied mainly on a strategy of

a. heavy bombing from Chinese air bases.


b. invading Japanese strongholds in Southeast Asia.
c. fortifying China by transporting supplies from India over the Himalayan "hump."
d. "island hopping" from the South Pacific to within striking distance of Japan.

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22. The conquest of __________ was especially important, because from there Americans
could conduct round-trip bombing raids on the Japanese home islands.

a. Guadalcanal c. New Guinea


b. Wake d. Guam

23. Hitler's advance in the European theater of war crested in late 1942 at the Battle of
__________, after which his fortunes gradually declined.
a. the Bulge c. Monte Cassino
b. Stalingrad d. Kasserine Pass

24. The Allies postponed opening a second front in Europe until 1944 because

a. they hoped that Germany and the Soviet Union would cripple each other.
b. men and material were needed more urgently in the Pacific.
c. the Soviet Union requested a delay until it could join the campaign.
d. of British reluctance and lack of adequate shipping.

25. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill announced at their wartime
conference in Casablanca that their principal war aim was to

a. destroy the last remnants of European imperialism.


b. promote the national independence of Third World nations.
c. contain the postwar power of the Soviet Union.
d. force the unconditional surrender of both Germany and Japan.

26. At the wartime Teheran Conference,

a. the Soviet Union agreed to declare war on Japan within three months.
b. the Big Three allies agreed to divide postwar Germany into separate occupied
zones.
c. the Soviet Union agreed to allow free elections in Eastern European nations that its
armies occupied at the end of the war.
d. plans were made for the opening of a second front in Europe.

27. The cross-channel invasion of Normandy to open a second front in Europe was
commanded by General

a. George Patton.
b. Dwight Eisenhower.
c. Douglas MacArthur.
d. Bernard Montgomery.
28. As a result of the Battle of Leyte Gulf,
a. Japan stalled an Allied victory.
b. Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey lost his first naval engagement.
c. Japan was nearly able to take Australia.
d. Japan was finished as a naval power.

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29. The Potsdam conference

a. determined the fate of Eastern Europe.


b. issued an ultimatum to Japan to surrender or be destroyed.
c. concluded that the Soviet Union would enter the war in the Pacific.
d. was Franklin Roosevelt's last meeting with Churchill and Stalin.

30. African-Americans did all of the following during World War II except

a. fight in integrated combat units.


b. rally behind the slogan "Double V" (victory over dictators abroad and racism at
home).
c. move north and west in large numbers.
d. form a militant organization called the Congress of Racial Equality.

31. Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy

[A] led to a scrupulous “hands-off” policy in Latin America, even in instances where American interests
were threatened.
[B] helped to shape the Yalta agreements at the end of World War II.
[C] proclaimed, “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”
[D] declared, “No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another” in Latin
America.
[E] led to a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union.

32. Japan demonstrated its expansionist policies in 1931-1932 by invading

[A] Manchuria. [D] the Philippines.


[B] Mongolia. [E] Pearl Harbor.
[C] Korea.

33. Which of the following did the Roosevelt administration object to the most because it threatened the economic
interests of the United States?

[A] the Italian invasion of Ethiopia


[B] the Anschluss between Austria and Germany
[C] the German invasion of Russia
[D] Japanese aggression against China
[E] the Munich Pact, which handed the Sudetenland over to Germany

34. Which statement best represents the United States’ response to reports of the German persecution of Jews?

[A] The United States expressed sympathy for the plight of the Jews and liberalized its restrictive
immigration laws.
[B] The United States sponsored the ship St. Louis to rescue 900 Jews for resettlement in America.
[C] Americans overwhelmingly supported legislation to admit twenty thousand German refugee children.
[D] The President and Congress were unaware of the reports.
[E] The United States expressed sympathy for the plight of the Jews, but refused to liberalize its restrictive
immigration laws.

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35. In response to the outbreak of World War II, the United States revised its neutrality statutes so that

[A] only Britain, and not Germany, would be able to buy weapons from the United States.
[B] American merchant vessels might be able to carry cargoes to belligerents’ ports.
[C] no weapons could be sold to any nation participating in the European war.
[D] belligerents could purchase weapons as long as they paid for them in cash and took them away in their
own ships.
[E] it could secretly aid nations that wanted to join the Axis.

36. In the fall of 1939, an overwhelming majority of the American people believed that

[A] it was important to save England and France from defeat, but even more important for the United
States to stay out of war.
[B] the United States should have nothing whatsoever to do with European affairs.
[C] England was just as much to blame for starting World War II as was Germany.
[D] the United States should declare war on Germany because the defeat of England would pose a threat to
American security.
[E] none of these.

37. In September 1940, in an effort to bolster American security and at the same time help England, President
Roosevelt concluded an executive agreement with Prime Minister Churchill that

[A] sold American tanks and cruisers to Great Britain on a deferred payment schedule.
[B] drew up a timetable for eventual American participation in the war against Hitler.
[C] allowed Britain to use American air bases in exchange for a guarantee of safe Atlantic passage for
American merchant vessels.
[D] provided $5.2 billion in direct military assistance.
[E] transferred fifty overage American destroyers to Britain in exchange for leases on British air and naval
bases in the Western Hemisphere.

38. Lend-lease

[A] was extended to both Britain and the Soviet Union to help them defeat the Nazis.
[B] was favored by isolationists as a way to prevent the US from having to fight in World War II.
[C] favored the Germans because they were considered better credit risks than the British and Soviets.
[D] was one of the most unpopular policies of the Roosevelt administration because it was pulling the
country into a war the majority wished to avoid.
[E] all of these.

39. In 1940 and 1941 President Roosevelt wished to prolong negotiations with the Japanese rather than go to war,
despite continued conflicts and Washington’s overt bellicosity toward Japan. Why?

[A] The American people were virulently anti-Japanese and therefore the anti-interventionist sentiment
regarding Asian affairs was very strong.
[B] The Japanese had ended their expansion and were looking forward to a century of coprosperity.
[C] The negotiations had been making substantial progress and most of the points of disagreement were
being resolved.
[D] All he was concerned about was war in Europe; the situation in the Pacific was unimportant to him.
[E] Roosevelt knew that he did not have a large enough navy to fight both Japan and Germany.

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40. The various federal agencies created during World War II to coordinate the war effort did all the following
except
[A] limit or stop the production of civilian goods.
[B] mediate disputes between management and labor.

[C] impose strict ceilings on corporate profits.


[D] impose strict price controls.
[E] allocate materials.

41. What impact did the wartime economy have on the distribution of American incomes?

[A] The poor sank deeper into poverty because the focus was on foreign affairs rather than their plight.
[B] The middle class stagnated as it found itself caught between wage freezes and soaring inflation.
[C] The size of the middle class doubled—the only significant shift in income distribution in the twentieth
century.
[D] Because of war profiteering, the proportion of wealth controlled by the richest 5 percent of the
population soared to nearly one-third.
[E] Because of government wage controls, the proportion of wealth controlled by the poorest 40 percent of
the population dropped to about 10 percent.

42. The Smith-Connally Act

[A] prohibited government employees from joining unions or engaging in political activity.
[B] mandated wage increases at twice the cost of living, so that war production would not be interrupted
by strikes.
[C] eliminated all federal restrictions on the right to strike.
[D] guaranteed labor the right of union membership.
[E] empowered the president to take over any facility where strikes interrupted war production.

43. What role did the American scientific community have in World War II?

[A] Most of the nation’s scientists opposed the war and refused to have anything to do with it.
[B] The government insisted that scientific inquiry should not be interrupted by the war.
[C] There was a constant conflict between scientists and the military because the military refused to allow
scientists a role in the weapons race.
[D] Scientists left the government for better-paying jobs in private industry.
[E] Scientists participated actively in developing new weapons, chemicals, medicines, and medical
techniques that would advance the fight against the Axis powers.

44. The Manhattan Project was the

[A] secret $2 billion project to develop an atomic bomb.


[B] secret plan to move the government to New York City in the event of a Japanese invasion.
[C] code name for the Soviet espionage network specializing in secret scientific American projects during
World War II.
[D] area in New York City where expatriate German scientists settled during World War II.
[E] area in New Mexico where navy scientists worked on new sonar devices during World War II.

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45. Which of the following is not true regarding the government’s management of public opinion during WWII?

[A] The government tightly restricted reports of casualty figures and pictures of dead soldiers on
battlefields.
[B] Americans were able to see and hear more war news than they had ever been able to before.
[C] Publishers and broadcasters were allowed to say and report whatever they thought would be in the best
interest of the public and the war effort.
[D] Government propaganda played up the barbarism of the Axis nations.
[E] Hollywood released films designed to highlight the heroism and unity of the American forces, while
inciting hatred of the enemy.

46. Which of the following was not one of the changes in the American “social topography” that occurred during
World War II?

[A] Many Americans moved far from their hometowns.


[B] Millions of Americans moved to the West Coast states.
[C] Many Americans moved left their traditional values for new attitudes.
[D] Some 6 million Americans left agrarian areas and moved to cities.
[E] The family unit was strengthened, and divorce rates dropped, as Americans united in the effort to
defend the nation.

47. How did World War II affect millions of American women?

[A] In order to show the strength of traditional American values, women stayed at home to nurture their
children.
[B] The proportion of women in the labor force rose from one-quarter to more than one-third, as more than
6 million women went to work outside the home.
[C] Because of the importance of their war work, women for the first time achieved equal pay for equal
work.
[D] The public attitude toward women’s employment underwent a transformation, as the majority of
Americans began to admit that they approved of married women working outside the home.
[E] The federal government adopted a policy of gender equality in all federal hiring and in all companies
doing business with the government.

48. A. Philip Randolph’s call for a massive march on Washington led to

[A] prosecution of the sailors involved in the “zoot suit” riot against the Chicanos.
[B] an executive order permitting the military to evacuate and intern Japanese living on the West Coast.
[C] an executive order prohibiting employment discrimination and creating a Fair Employment Practices
Committee.
[D] integration of the armed forces.
[E] passage of the Smith-Connally Act restricting union strikes and protests.

49. The condition of African-Americans improved during World War II through all the following means except

[A] a federal executive order prohibiting discriminatory employment practices.


[B] the migration north of 700,000 African-Americans looking for greater educational and economic
opportunities.
[C] sit-ins in cities such as Denver, Detroit, and Chicago.
[D] a massive march on Washington by 100,000 African-Americans.
[E] the military ended policies of excluding blacks from the marines and coast guard and restricting them
to jobs as mess boys in the navy.

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50. The United States government interned over 100,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II for all the
following reasons except

[A] FBI and military intelligence had uncovered a Japanese-American espionage network in California.
[B] longstanding racial prejudice and economic rivalry.
[C] nativist politicians and farmers who wanted Japanese-American land had long decried the “Yellow
Peril.”
[D] after Pearl Harbor, white Californians were worked up into a frenzy about possible Japanese sabotage.
[E] some politicians and farmers hoped to be able to take over Japanese-American landholdings.

51. Although Japan’s sea and air power was totally shattered by the end of 1944, why didn’t the imperial
government surrender to the United States?

[A] Japanese military leaders refused to allow the civilians in the government to negotiate a peace.
[B] The tripartite pact required that Japan continue fighting until Germany had been victorious in Europe.
[C] Every Japanese election demonstrated that the Japanese people wanted to continue the war.
[D] President Roosevelt refused to allow a surrender until a full-scale invasion of Japan could be
accomplished.
[E] all of these

52. At the time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945,

[A] the American army was just about to enter Berlin.


[B] Soviet troops had overrun Eastern Europe and were fifty miles from Berlin.
[C] the Soviet Union was near military collapse.
[D] the war in the Pacific was coming to a rapid close.
[E] Britain and the United States were still arguing over the details of a cross-channel invasion.

53. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin agreed on all the following except

[A] withdrawal of all troops from Eastern Europe as soon as the war was over.
[B] free elections in Poland.
[C] entry into the war against Japan.
[D] recognition of Jiang Jieshi as the ruler of China.
[E] establishment of democratic governments in Eastern Europe.

54. After what event did the Japanese government finally begin to discuss acceptance of surrender terms?

[A] the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki


[B] the threatened invasion of Japan by the Soviet Union
[C] the Battle of Iwo Jima
[D] the collapse of Fascist Italy
[E] the dropping of unconditional surrender as a prerequisite

55. The Axis powers included

[A] Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan.


[B] the United States, Italy, and Australia.
[C] Italy, Austria, and France.
[D] the United States, France, and Britain.
[E] Japan, Germany, and Italy.

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