Unit 5: Political Participation
US Gov · Unit 5 · Paper 3

Political Participation unit test

A test on this unit alone, marked as a percentage and a letter grade — for the test your class is actually sitting, rather than for May. Answer everything, then submit once: seeing the answer to question 3 before attempting question 4 makes the final percentage meaningless.

Paper 1Paper 2Paper 3
Each paper is built from this unit’s 22 terms and is the same for everyone, so a teacher can assign “Unit 5, Paper 3” and every student sits the identical test. Multiple choice is marked objectively; the written sections you mark yourself against the model answer and rubric.
Suggested time 31 min 28 points0/17 attempted
1

Third parties

2

Electoral College

3

Super PAC

4

Voter turnout factors

5

Media as watchdog and gatekeeper

6

Linkage institutions

7

Media fragmentation

8

Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

9

Interest groups

10

Caucus vs primary

11

Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments

12

Rational choice voting

Short answer 1. Define or explain: Open vs closed primary

3 pts

Short answer 2. Define or explain: Winner-take-all and Duverger's law

3 pts

Short answer 3. Define or explain: Party realignment

3 pts

Short answer 4. Define or explain: Party-line voting

3 pts

Free response

4 pts

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS. A bar graph titled "Voter Turnout as a Percentage of the Citizen Voting-Age Population, 2016 to 2022" (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement) shows four bars: 2016 presidential election ............ 61.4% 2018 midterm election ................. 53.4% 2020 presidential election ............ 66.8% 2022 midterm election ................. 52.2%

A. Identify the election year with the highest voter turnout shown in the graph.

B. Describe a difference between turnout in presidential election years and turnout in midterm election years, as shown in the graph.

C. Draw a conclusion about the implications of the pattern in the graph for the composition of Congress after a midterm election.

D. Explain how one factor other than the type of election could account for differences in voter turnout among individuals.