美国第1章 历史 答案.doc

Chapter 13 Terms1) American Indians, also called the Native Americans, were the first people to live in America. They first arrived during the Ice Age when Nomads followed herds of animals across a land bridge from Asia to North America. They lived in tribes all over the United States, mistakenly called Indians by Christopher Columbus since the new discovery in 1492.2) New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Some of the first movements of American literature, philosophy, and education originated in New England. The region played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery, and was the first region of the United States transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Today, New England is a major world center of education, high technology, insurance, and medicine. Boston is its cultural, financial, educational, medical and transportation center.3) It is a movement of people from the settled regions of the United States to lands farther west. Between the early 17th and late 19th centuries, American people and their societies expanded from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. This westward movement, across what was often called the American frontier, was of enormous significance. By expanding the nations borders to include more than three million square miles, the United States became one of the most powerful nations of the 20th century. However, this expansion also resulted in great suffering, destruction, and cultural loss for the Native Americans of North America. This expansion also meant that much of North America was dominated by English institutions and ways of life, instead of Spanish or French ones. The Spanish and French were also exploring and settling North America in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. For good or ill, the westward movement of these American settlers was one of the most influential forces to shape North American history.4) WASPS are the mainstream Americans, referring to the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.5) The great lakes are the most important lakes in the United States. They are Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Eire and Lake Ontario.II1) The US Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government. It is the law-making body and the supreme legislative body of the nation. It consists of two houses: the Senate and the House of the Representatives.2) The American constitutional system includes a notion known as the Separation of Powers. In this system, 3 branches of government are created and power is shared between them. At the same time, the powers of one branch can be challenged by another branch. This is what the system of checks and balances is all about. There are three branches in the United States government as established by the Constitution. First, the Legislative branch makes the law. Second, the Executive branch executes the law. Last, the Judicial branch interprets the law. Each branch has an effect on the other.3) The Constitution of the United States is the key instrument of American government and the supreme law of the country. Government was established by following the guidelines laid out in the constitution. Since the founding of America, it has served as the framework for the development of governmental institutions. It is the Constitution that has assured political stability, individual freedom, economic growth, and social progress.4) The government is divided into three branches, the legislative, the executive and the judicial, each has part of the powers but not all the power. And each branch of government can check, or block, the actions of the other branches. The three branches are thus in balance. This is called “checks and balances”.5) The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. The court deals with matters pertaining to the federal government, disputes between states, and interpretation of the Constitution. It can declare legislation or executive action made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. The Supreme Court consists of nine Justices: the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices. They have equal weight when voting on a case and the Chief Justice has no casting vote or power to instruct colleagues. The Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate. As federal judges, the Justices serve for life and can be removed only by resignation or by impeachment and subsequent conviction. III1) A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income. Prominent plantation crops included cotton, rubber, sugar cane, tobacco, figs, rice, kapok, sisal and indigo. The longer a crops harvest period, the more efficient plantations are. Scale economies are also achieved by long distances to markets and reduction in the crops size. Plantation crops also differ in that they need processing immediately after harvesting. Sugar, tea sisal and palm oil are most suited to plantations, coconuts, rubber and cotton to a lesser extent.2) The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907. Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved. Events such as the Great Depression were major factors leading to changes in the system.3) Wall Street is the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long, 0.7 miles (1.1 km) long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests.4) President Roosevelt launched the New Deal to alleviate the most serious economic crisis in the nations history, the Great Depression. New Deal legislation extended federal authority in banking, agriculture, and public welfare. It established minimum standards for wages and hours on the job, which served as a catalyst for the expansion of labor unions in industries like steel, automobiles, and rubber. Many of the most important laws and institutions that define Americans modern economy can be traced to the New Deal era. 5) In the early years of American history, most political leaders accepted the concept of laissez-faire（法语，自由放任主义, 不干涉主义）， a doctrine opposing government interference in the economy except to maintain law and order. This attitude started to change during the late 19th century, when small business, farm, and labor movements began asking the government to intercede on their behalf.IIII3. Terms1) Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.2) WASP stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It is considered the basis of the mainstream culture of the United States. The people who settled in the 13 North American colonies were mostly white European Protestant believers. The United States was founded and formed largely by Protestants.3) American football, known in the United States simply as football and often as gridiron or tackle football outside the United States, is a competitive team sport known for combining strategy with physical play. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the opposing teams end zone. The ball can be advanced by carrying it or by throwing it to a teammate. Points can be scored in a variety of ways, including carrying the ball over the opponents goal line, catching a pass thrown over that goal line, kicking the ball through the goal posts at the opponents end zone, or tackling an opposing ball carrier within his end zone. The winner is the team with the most points when the time expires.4) The Lost Generation is a term used to describe the generation of young men and women who came to maturity in the 20s. Some of them fought in World War I. They became disgusted with war and disillusioned with the post-war society. They shared the same sense of dislocation, rootlessness and disillusionment.5) Hollywood is the US film industry centre. It is located in Los Angeles, California. There are big movie companies, including the Warner Bros. Pictures, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. The annual Oscar Award held there attracts the attention of the world; it has become the synonym of American film.IIIII3. Terms1) Community colleges are two-year post-secondary institutions that offer certificate programs, Associate of Arts degree, Associate of Sciences degree, plus many other programs. There are 1,186 community colleges in the United States. Community colleges are centers of educational opportunity, embodying Thomas Jeffersons belief education should be practical as well as liberal. They are an American invention that put publicly funded higher education at close-to-home facilities, beginning nearly 100years age with Joliet Junior College. Since then, they have been inclusive institutions that welcome all who desire to learn, regardless of wealth, heritage, or previous academic experience. The process of making higher education available to maximum number of people continues to develop at 1,186 public and independent community colleges. When the branch campuses of community colleges are included, the number totals about 1.600.2) A college degree is a college or university diploma, often associated with a title and sometimes associated with an academic position, which is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavor deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree. The most common degrees awarded today are associate, bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees.3) The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group. The eight institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. The term Ivy League also has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in