The US Presidency | AQA A-Level Politics (7152)

The US Presidency

75 questions
6 subtopics
Paper 2: government and politics of the USA
Paper 2

Where presidential power comes from, formally and informally, the checks that hold it back, the cabinet that does not decide policy, and the argument over an imperial presidency..

It covers the Sources of Presidential Power, signing Statements, Pardons and Informal Powers, congressional Checks on the President, term Limits, the Press and Other Constraints, the US Cabinet, EXOP and the Bureaucracy and the Imperial and Imperilled Presidency.

Sample questions from The US Presidency

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The Sources of Presidential Power

Define a president's informal powers.

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They are powers derived from the office's political standing rather than the constitutional text, such as leading the party, setting the national agenda and acting as world leader.
The Sources of Presidential Power

What is an executive order?

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It is a directive from the president to the federal bureaucracy that has the force of law without needing congressional approval.
Signing Statements, Pardons and Informal Powers

As commander-in-chief the president directs the military, but which body alone can declare war?

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Congress, although it has not issued a formal declaration of war since 1942.
Signing Statements, Pardons and Informal Powers

How did Franklin D. Roosevelt expand presidential power?

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The New Deal and the Second World War massively enlarged federal responsibilities under presidential direction, and the creation of EXOP gave the office a permanent institutional machine.
Congressional Checks on the President

Why is impeachment a limited constraint in practice?

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Removal requires a two-thirds Senate majority, and in a polarised Senate a president's own party will rarely supply the votes.
Congressional Checks on the President

How does party control of Congress affect a president's success rate?

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Unified government makes legislative success far more likely, while divided government leaves the president dependent on opposition votes and largely reduced to the veto.
Term Limits, the Press and Other Constraints

What tends to happen to presidential approval across a term?

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It usually starts high, declines as difficult decisions accumulate, and may spike temporarily during an international crisis.
Term Limits, the Press and Other Constraints

Why is the first two years of a term normally the most productive?

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The president combines the authority of a fresh electoral mandate with the largest congressional majority they are likely to have, before midterm losses arrive.

The 6 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The Sources of Presidential Power	Recall questions on the Article that creates the presidency and on the difference between formal, enumerated powers and informal ones.	8
Signing Statements, Pardons and Informal Powers	Recall questions on signing statements, executive privilege and the pardon power, and on the president's informal powers as party leader, agenda-setter and persuader, from Roosevelt and the Cuban missile crisis to executive agreements.	15
Congressional Checks on the President	Recall questions on the formal checks Congress holds, why refusal to fund bites hardest, the practical weakness of impeachment and the Court's role.	8
Term Limits, the Press and Other Constraints	Recall questions on the constraints on a president, from lame-duck status and the Twenty-Second Amendment to the media, approval ratings, federalism, the bureaucracy, the Senate, pressure groups and divided government.	15
The US Cabinet, EXOP and the Bureaucracy	Recall questions on the Executive Office of the President and the chief of staff, the composition and role of the cabinet, tensions with White House staff, the federal bureaucracy and iron triangles, and styles of presidential management.	18
The Imperial and Imperilled Presidency	Recall questions on what the imperial presidency means, who coined it and when, the evidence cited, and the opposite charge of an imperilled presidency.	11

The US Presidency is 75 of the 2,215 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.