7th Grade Civics EOC Practice Test

The main idea tested is how power is distributed between the national and local levels. A unitary system concentrates authority in the national government, and local or regional governments have only the powers the central government chooses to delegate. They can be reorganized or overridden, and policies tend to be uniform across the country. A federal system shares power with regional governments, giving local units substantial autonomy, which doesn’t fit the description. A confederal system has a weak central government with most power resting in independent states, the opposite of a strong central authority. A democratic republic describes how leaders are chosen and governed, not the specific distribution of powers between levels of government. Therefore, the system described is unitary.