What is America's bicameral legislative body called?

• A. Congress
• B. Parliament
• C. National Assembly
• D. General Court

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is the name of the United States’ national lawmaking body. The federal legislature is Congress, a two-chamber body made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. This bicameral structure comes from the Constitution, a result of the Great Compromise that combined equal-state representation in the Senate with population-based representation in the House. That’s why Congress is the correct term for America’s national legislature. Other terms describe legislative bodies in different systems or at different levels: Parliament is used in many countries outside the U.S.; National Assembly appears in various nations; General Court refers to a state legislature (Massachusetts, in particular) rather than the federal one.