What is the highest court in the United States?

Why this is the answer

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. When it decides a case, the decision is final, and no other court in the country can change it. Article III creates exactly "one supreme Court" and leaves the lower federal courts to Congress. The Court may review a decision by a lower federal court, and once it takes up such a case, it has to decide it. It has complete authority over all federal courts, and its interpretations of federal laws and of the Constitution are final, so a single ruling can affect the outcome of many cases in the lower courts. A small group of cases starts at the top: under Article III, Section 2, the Court has original jurisdiction in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and in cases where a state is a party. Its power over the states has limits. The Court cannot make decisions about what a state's own laws or constitution mean. What it can do is find that a state law or action conflicts with federal law or with the U.S. Constitution, and when it does, the state law becomes invalid. The justices also choose which cases to hear, and the Chief Justice leads them in that choice. On the test, say "the Supreme Court." A tempting wrong answer is one of the lower federal courts, whose decisions the Supreme Court may review. The Senate is another wrong guess: it approves the justices, but it is not a court. Naming the highest court of your own state misses the point, since the question asks about the whole country. The name gives the answer away, which makes it one of the easier questions on the test. Supreme means highest, and this is the court where a case in the federal system reaches its final stop.