Entry Exam Category: High School Equivalency Exams
Course: General Education Development (GED)
Exam: GED Social Studies Practice Test

Practice Question

Extract

This excerpt is from a speech given by President Lyndon Johnson before a joint session of Congress in 1965.
1 I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy....
2 At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom.... So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.
3 There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted....
4 There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain.
5 There is no moral issue. It is wrong, deadly wrong, to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.
6 There is no issue of States' rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights....
7 We cannot... refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in..٠٠
8 But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over.
9 Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
10 And we shall overcome..
11 This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, Ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome.
This excerpt is from a telegram Senator Richard Russell of Georgia sent to President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957.
12... As a citizen, as a senator of the United States, and as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, I must vigorously protest the highhanded and illegal methods being
How did the position expressed by President Johnson differ from the position expressed by Senator Russell?

Answer Choices

  • A: Only Senator Russell said that state governments were sufficiently protecting the rights of citizens.
  • B: Only Senator Russell supported the federal government's intervention.
  • C: Only President Johnson supported the state governments' rights to manage their own affairs.
  • D: Only President Johnson believed that the federal government was authorized to intervene.

Correct Answer: A

Rationale: Russell opposed federal "interference"; Johnson argued states failed to protect voting rights

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