Your FREE DSST Flashcards 2026 – 250+ Cards

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A business that is a legal entity separate from its owners, can issue stock, and offers limited liability.

A business owned and run by one person who keeps all profits and is personally liable for all debts.

A business owned by two or more people who share profits, management, and liability.

A hybrid structure giving owners limited liability with pass-through taxation.

Owners can lose only what they invested; their personal assets are protected from business debts.

Total revenue minus total costs; the reward (and signal) that drives activity in a free market.

The market forces that set price: where the quantity supplied equals the quantity demanded (equilibrium).

The price at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded; the market clears.

The value of the next-best alternative given up when a choice is made.

The core economic problem: limited resources cannot satisfy unlimited wants.

The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a year.

A sustained rise in the general price level that reduces money's purchasing power.

Government use of taxing and spending to influence the economy.

Central-bank actions on money supply and interest rates to influence the economy.

The U.S. central bank; conducts monetary policy and regulates the money supply.

Anything widely accepted as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account.

Banks hold only a fraction of deposits as reserves and lend out the rest.

A dollar today is worth more than a dollar later because it can earn interest.

Today's worth of a future sum, found by discounting it at an interest rate.

The value a sum will grow to after earning interest over time.

Interest earned on both the principal and previously accumulated interest.

Interest = principal × rate × time, calculated only on the original principal.

Product, Price, Place, and Promotion — the controllable marketing variables.

The output level where total revenue equals total cost; profit is zero.

A cost that does not change with output, such as rent.

A cost that rises and falls with the level of output, such as materials.

A statement of assets, liabilities, and owners' equity at a point in time.

A statement of revenues, expenses, and net income over a period.

The fundamental accounting equation that must always balance.

The function of recruiting, training, compensating, and managing an organization's people.

A motivation theory: physiological, safety, social, esteem, then self-actualization needs.

McGregor's view: managers see workers as needing control (X) or as self-motivated (Y).

The number of subordinates a manager directly supervises.

Assigning authority and responsibility for a task to a subordinate.

Concentrating decision-making authority at the top of an organization.

The study of how individuals and groups act within organizations.

Leaders set direction and inspire; managers plan, organize, and control.

Assessing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats for strategy.

Any person or group affected by a business — owners, employees, customers, community.

Applying moral principles to business conduct and decision-making.

A firm's obligation to act for the benefit of society beyond profit.

A financial plan that projects income and expenses over a period.

Total assets minus total liabilities; what a person or firm owns free and clear.

Spreading investments across assets to reduce overall risk.

A stock is ownership (equity); a bond is a loan to the issuer (debt).

How quickly an asset can be converted to cash without losing value.

Technology and processes that supply managers with information for decisions.

A person who organizes and assumes the risk of a new business venture.

An economy where prices and production are guided by supply and demand, not central planning.

A market with a single seller and no close substitutes, limiting competition.

A market with many firms selling identical products and free entry; no price control.

A significant, broad decline in economic activity lasting months.

The percentage of the labor force actively seeking work but without a job.

The ability to produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than others.

The allocation of an asset's cost over its useful life.

Current assets minus current liabilities; funds for day-to-day operations.

A formal review of an employee's job performance.

Studying a job's duties and requirements to guide hiring and training.

Another name for span of control — how many report to one manager.

Hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction; motivators drive satisfaction.

The best leadership style depends on the situation, not one fixed approach.

The shared beliefs, values, customs, and material objects of a group, passed across generations.

The lifelong process of learning a society's norms, values, and roles.

A shared rule or expectation about how members of a group should behave.

Judging another culture by the standards of one's own.

Understanding a culture on its own terms rather than judging it by another's.

The study of humans across cultures, biology, language, and time.

The scientific study of human society, groups, and social behavior.

The statistical study of populations — size, growth, and distribution.

Debate over how much heredity versus environment shapes behavior.

The role of learning, experience, and surroundings in shaping behavior.

Cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational.

Eight psychosocial stages, each a crisis (e.g., trust vs. mistrust, identity vs. role confusion).

Learning by association (Pavlov): a neutral stimulus triggers a response.

Learning shaped by reinforcement and punishment (Skinner).

A consequence that increases the likelihood a behavior is repeated.

The strong emotional bond between an infant and caregiver.

The study of growth and change from conception through death.

How thinking, reasoning, and memory change over the lifespan.

A professional helping relationship aimed at personal growth and problem solving.

Understanding and sharing another person's feelings — central to counseling.

A pattern of harmful, compulsive use of alcohol or drugs despite consequences.

Needing more of a substance over time to feel the same effect.

Physical or psychological symptoms when a dependent person stops using a substance.

Police, courts, and corrections — the institutions that respond to crime.

The constitutional requirement of fair legal procedures before life, liberty, or property is taken.

Discouraging crime through the threat of punishment.

The tendency of a convicted offender to reoffend.

An agreement where a defendant pleads guilty for a reduced charge or sentence.

The study of Earth's physical features and human activity across space.

How culture shapes, and is shaped by, places and regions.

The coordinate system of parallels (N-S) and meridians (E-W) that locate any point.

Weather is short-term conditions; climate is the long-term average pattern.

The growing share of a population living in cities.

A Cold War conflict (1955-1975); U.S. fought to stop communist North Vietnam.

The U.S. Cold War policy of stopping the spread of communism.

Decades-long geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and Soviet Union after WWII.

Communist state (1922-1991) led by the Russian Communist Party; a Cold War superpower.

1861-1865 conflict between the Union and Confederacy, ending slavery.

1865-1877 era of rebuilding the South and extending rights to freed people.

The history, philosophy, and social context of schooling.

Tax-supported schooling open to all, a foundation of American society.

Shift to machine manufacturing that transformed economy and society from the 1700s.

Growing interconnection of economies, cultures, and populations worldwide.

Postwar rebuilding, the EU's rise, and the Cold War divide in Europe.

U.S. aid program (1948) that helped rebuild Western Europe after WWII.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a Western military alliance formed in 1949.

An easing of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and USSR in the 1970s.

Gorbachev's 1980s policies of openness and economic restructuring in the USSR.

The pattern (fixed/variable, ratio/interval) by which a behavior is rewarded.

An unconscious strategy (e.g., denial, repression) that reduces anxiety (Freud).

The passing of traits from parents to offspring through genes.

Kübler-Ross model: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

Realizing one's full potential — the top of Maslow's hierarchy.

Folkways are everyday customs; mores are norms with strong moral significance.

The shift from high to low birth and death rates as a society develops.

Conditions that drive migration away from (push) or toward (pull) a place.

A felony is a serious crime; a misdemeanor is a lesser offense.

Warnings police must give about the right to silence and an attorney.

The study of human culture — art, literature, philosophy, religion, and history.

The branch of philosophy concerned with right and wrong conduct.

An ethics judging actions by whether they maximize overall happiness (greatest good).

Kant's duty-based ethics: act only on rules you could will to be universal.

Aristotle's view that morality flows from good character and habits, not just rules.

Kant's principle to act only on maxims that could become universal laws.

The view that moral truths are relative to cultures or individuals.

The skill of delivering a structured spoken message to an audience.

Aristotle's appeals: credibility (ethos), emotion (pathos), logic (logos).

The central claim a speech or essay sets out to support.

Studying listeners' needs and views to adapt a speech effectively.

A speech that explains or teaches without trying to persuade.

A speech aimed at changing the audience's beliefs or actions.

Speaking from an outline with planned but flexible wording — the preferred style.

The major faith traditions and their beliefs, texts, and practices.

Belief in a single God (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

Belief in many gods (e.g., Hinduism's many deities).

Oldest Abrahamic monotheistic faith; the Torah is its central text.

Faith centered on Jesus Christ; the Bible is its scripture.

Monotheistic faith founded on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad.

Ancient Indian faith with many deities, dharma, karma, and reincarnation.

A tradition founded by the Buddha, centered on the Four Noble Truths and ending suffering.

The principle that actions shape future outcomes, in Hinduism and Buddhism.

The 14th-17th c. European revival of art and learning rooted in classical antiquity.

A Renaissance movement emphasizing human potential and classical study.

A technique that creates the illusion of depth on a flat surface.

A 19th-c. art movement capturing light and momentary impressions (Monet).

A dramatic, ornate 17th-c. style in art and music.

Roughly 1750-1820; balanced, formal works by Mozart and Haydn.

An art movement emphasizing emotion, nature, and individualism.

The body of art, literature, and music considered foundational to Western culture.

A category of artistic work defined by form, style, or content.

Using objects or images to represent deeper ideas in art and literature.

Tragedy ends in downfall; comedy ends happily — classical dramatic forms.

Aristotle's idea that virtue lies between two extremes of excess and deficiency.

The idea that people consent to be governed in exchange for protection of rights.

The view that moral judgments depend on cultural context.

A flaw in reasoning that weakens an argument (e.g., ad hominem).

Presenting another's work or ideas as one's own — an ethical violation.

Conveying meaning through gestures, posture, and tone, not words.

Speaking clearly and loudly enough to be understood by the audience.

Anxiety before or during a speech; managed by preparation and practice.

Buddhism's core teaching about suffering and the path to end it.

The rebirth of the soul into a new body, in Hinduism and Buddhism.

A writing central to a religion (e.g., Torah, Bible, Quran, Vedas).

The 16th-c. religious movement that split Western Christianity.

A three-dimensional artwork; medium is the material an artist uses.

Observe, hypothesize, experiment, analyze, and conclude to test explanations.

A testable, falsifiable proposed explanation for an observation.

The factor an experimenter deliberately changes.

The factor measured to see if it responds to the independent variable.

The basic unit of matter, made of protons, neutrons, and electrons.

Subatomic particles: positive proton, neutral neutron, negative electron.

A pure substance made of one kind of atom; organized on the periodic table.

A chart arranging elements by atomic number and shared properties.

Two or more atoms chemically bonded together.

A chemical change forms new substances; a physical change does not.

Matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction.

Solid, liquid, gas, and plasma — changes of state are physical changes.

A push or pull that can change an object's motion; measured in newtons.

An object stays at rest or in uniform motion unless acted on by a net force (inertia).

Force equals mass times acceleration (F = ma).

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The energy of motion; depends on mass and speed.

Stored energy due to position or arrangement.

Energy is not created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another.

The attractive force between masses; gives objects weight.

Speed is how fast; velocity is speed with a direction.

The rate of change of velocity over time.

The basic structural and functional unit of all living things.

Plants use sunlight, CO₂, and water to make glucose and oxygen.

Cells break down glucose to release usable energy (≈ reverse of photosynthesis).

The molecule carrying genetic instructions; a double helix of base pairs.

Better-adapted organisms survive and reproduce more, driving evolution.

A community of organisms interacting with their physical environment.

A sequence showing energy flow from producers to consumers.

The scientific study of celestial objects and the universe.

The Sun and the objects bound to it by gravity, including the planets.

A massive ball of gas producing light and heat by nuclear fusion.

The distance light travels in one year — a unit of astronomical distance.

The leading theory that the universe began from a hot, dense state ~13.8 billion years ago.

A vast system of stars, gas, and dust bound by gravity (e.g., the Milky Way).

The continuous movement of water: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection.

Atmospheric gases trap heat, warming the planet; excess gases intensify it.

The study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment.

The variety of life in an ecosystem; greater diversity adds stability.

A resource naturally replenished, such as solar or wind energy.

The theory that Earth's crust is divided into moving plates.

PEMDAS: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication/Division, then Addition/Subtraction.

Steepness of a line: rise over run = (y₂ − y₁) / (x₂ − x₁); the m in y = mx + b.

Slope-intercept form: m is the slope, b is the y-intercept.

Where a line crosses the y-axis (x = 0); the b in y = mx + b.

An equation whose graph is a straight line; variables to the first power.

ax² + bx + c = 0; its graph is a parabola; solved by factoring or the formula.

x = (−b ± √(b² − 4ac)) / 2a, used to solve any quadratic.

A relation where each input has exactly one output, written f(x).

Domain = all valid inputs (x); range = all resulting outputs (y).

When multiplying like bases, add exponents: xᵃ · xᵇ = xᵃ⁺ᵇ.

A value that, multiplied by itself, gives the original number; √ undoes squaring.

For a right triangle, a² + b² = c².

The average — sum of all values divided by how many there are.

The middle value of a data set arranged in order.

The value that occurs most often in a data set.

The difference between the highest and lowest values.

A measure of how spread out values are around the mean.

Favorable outcomes ÷ total outcomes, a number from 0 to 1.

Events where one outcome does not affect the other; multiply their probabilities.

Permutations count ordered arrangements; combinations count unordered selections.

A comparison of two quantities by division, such as 3:4.

A statement that two ratios are equal; solved by cross-multiplying.

A part per hundred; convert to a decimal by dividing by 100 (25% = 0.25).

(new − old) ÷ old × 100.

The distance of a number from zero, always non-negative: |−5| = 5.

A whole number and its negatives, including zero.

A whole number greater than 1 divisible only by 1 and itself.

A number that divides another exactly with no remainder.

The exponent to which a base is raised to get a number; log₂ 8 = 3.

Two or more equations solved together for shared variable values.

A statement comparing values with <, >, ≤, or ≥; flip the sign when multiplying by a negative.

Union ∪ combines all elements; intersection ∩ keeps shared elements.

Events that cannot both occur; add their probabilities.

A grid of x and y axes locating points as ordered pairs (x, y).

A = π r², where r is the radius.

d = √((x₂ − x₁)² + (y₂ − y₁)²) between two points.

A device that processes data through input, processing, storage, and output.

Hardware is the physical equipment; software is the programs that run on it.

The central processing unit — the computer's 'brain' that executes instructions.

Random-access memory — fast, volatile working memory that clears when power is off.

Software (e.g., Windows, Linux) that manages hardware and runs programs.

The base-2 number system of 0s and 1s that computers use.

A bit is one binary digit; a byte is 8 bits.

A finite, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem.

An organized collection of data that can be queried and updated.

Two or more connected computers that share data and resources.

A global network of networks communicating via standard protocols.

A unique numeric label identifying a device on a network.

A set of rules governing how data is transmitted (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP).

Delivering computing resources over the internet on demand.

Protecting systems, networks, and data from digital attacks.

Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability — core goals of information security.

Ensuring information is accessible only to authorized people.

Ensuring data is accurate and not improperly altered.

Ensuring systems and data are accessible when needed.

Converting data into a coded form so only authorized parties can read it.

Verifying a user's identity, e.g., by password or biometrics.

Granting an authenticated user permission to specific resources.

Malicious software such as viruses, worms, ransomware, and spyware.

A scam tricking users into revealing credentials via fake messages.

A barrier that filters network traffic to block unauthorized access.

Requiring two or more proofs of identity for stronger security.

A virus needs a host file to spread; a worm self-replicates across networks.

Malware that encrypts files and demands payment to restore them.

A software update that fixes bugs or security vulnerabilities.

A copy of data kept to restore it after loss or attack.

Applying moral principles to computing — privacy, intellectual property, AI.

Legal rights over creations: copyrights, patents, trademarks.

Legal protection for original works of authorship.

An individual's right to control their personal information.

Software whose source code is freely available to use and modify.

Clear, concise documentation that helps a defined audience use a product or process.

The intended readers, whose needs shape a document's content and tone.

A formal language (e.g., Python) used to write instructions for a computer.