Ancient Egypt
Multiple Choice
Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
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1. The Nile River flows through two important regions in Egypt called
a. Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.
c. Eastern Egypt and Western Egypt.
b. Mesopotamia.
d. Nubia and Cairo.
2. The Nile River Valley was well suited for settlement. Which of the following statements supports this fact?
a. The geography supported various desert plants and birds.
b. The geography included many areas for hunters to hunt widely.
c. The geography included areas for farming.
d. The geography helped to unify the country.
3. Which of the following best describes how Egyptian civilization developed?
a. Villages replaced towns.
c. Cities broke off into scattered farms.
b. Farms grew into villages and then cities. d. Farms replaced cities and then pyramids.
4. Besides providing a stable food diet, what other advantage did Egypt’s location provide for early Egyptians?
a. It had temples in which to worship.
b. It had Sumerian artwork to use as decoration.
c. It had natural barriers to protect against invaders.
d. It had two dynasties to celebrate religious traditions.
5. Pyramids are
a. warehouses where surplus food is stored.
b. temples where the people are allowed to come and pray.
c. stone tombs with four rectangle-shaped sides that join a limestone roof.
d. royal tombs with four triangle-shaped sides that meet in a point on top.
6. The first pharaoh and rulers after him wore a double crown to symbolize
a. that the Nile River flowed two ways.
b. that both farming and herding were important.
c. their joint rule with their respective queens.
d. their rule over both Upper and Lower Egypt.
7. Who would the people of Egypt blame if crops did not grow or if disease struck?
a. the farmers whose small villages were unclean
b. the mummies whose ka was disturbed
c. the pharaoh who was both ruler and god
d. the dynasty that was in power
8. The Great Pyramid was built for which pharaoh?
a. Horus.
c. Menes.
b. Sinai.
d. Khufu.
9. Which of the following was the ultimate goal in Egyptian religion?
a. Reaching the afterlife
c. Reaching nirvana
b. Being buried in the pyramids
d. Reaching the heavens
10. How was Egypt able to build pyramids and temples?
a. The pharaohs’ families paid the costs.
c. It collected payments from Sumer.
b. It collected taxes from the people.
d. The priests held religious festivals.
____ 11. Which statement best describes the burial practices of Egyptians?
a. Egyptians preserved bodies as mummies.
b. Egyptians carried their dead to neighboring countries.
c. Egyptians used a funeral pyre for their dead.
d. Egyptians buried their dead in the river.
____ 12. By the 1400s BC, Egypt was the leading military power. Based on this fact, what conclusion can you make
about Egypt’s resources?
a. It was a rich country.
b. It was a poor country.
c. Its resources were being heavily taxed.
d. Its resources were being sent to help other countries.
____ 13. What factor contributed most to the growth of trade in the New Kingdom?
a. Egypt’s defeat of the Sinai Peninsula
c. Egypt’s conquest of distant lands
b. Egypt’s creation of an army
d. Egypt’s creation of the pyramids
____ 14. In the Middle Kingdom, Egypt
a. excelled in art, literature.
c. destroyed all its temples.
b. created a Middle Kingdom god.
d. disbanded the scribes.
____ 15. What job employed the most people in Egypt?
a. merchant
c. scribe
b. farmer
d. architect
____ 16. Ramses the Great is best remembered
a. for his ability as an artist.
b. as a great scribe.
c. for his untimely death at the hands of Ahmose.
d. as a great warrior and builder.
____ 17. Why were tombs filled with art, jewelry, and other treasures?
a. The tombs served as museums.
b. The tombs were the private storage rooms of the pharaoh.
c. Egyptians believed tombs to be the safest places in the kingdom.
d. Egyptians believed the dead enjoyed such materials in the afterlife.
____ 18. Whose tomb, discovered in 1922, taught us much about Egyptian burial practices and beliefs?
a. King Tutankhamen
c. Ramses the Great
b. Ahmose of Thebes
d. Queen Hatshepsut
____ 19.
A trade network is a system of people in different lands who trade goods back and forth.
What conclusion can you draw about the people who participated in trade networks?
a. They benefited from the trade networks.
b. They opposed the trade networks.
c. They feared the trade networks.
d. They were enslaved by the trade networks.
____ 20. How did the yearly flooding of the Nile River affect the people of Egypt?
a. It isolated the settlements
c. It spread diseases that destroyed whole
b. It left silt that improved the soil
d.
empires.
It attracted hunters and gatherers
looking for wildlife.
____ 21. Why are the social classes of ancient Egypt displayed in a pyramid shape?
a. The triangle represented the three
seasons of the Nile
b. Most people were in the bottom
classes, and the fewest people were at
the top
c. Scientists like to use a pyramid to keep
the layers apart
d. Many structures of that design were
built in the desert
____ 22. Who built the giant temples of the pharaohs?
a. scribes who kept poor records
c. peasant farmers during the flood
b. government officials out of favor
d. priests hoping to get jobs at the
season
temples
____ 23. How did most government officials get their jobs?
a. They attended school to learn how to
c. Priests relied on signs from the gods to
govern
b. Popular elections showed the vote of
the people
choose them
d. They inherited the position from a
family member
____ 24. Which sentence best describes the role of women in religion?
a. They were worshiped as gods
b. They could become priestesses.
c. They ran all religious ceremonies
d. They were not allowed in temples
____ 25. Skilled scribes wrote on papyrus, which was made from
a. a plant
b. soft clay
c. cotton rags
d. animal skins
____ 26. Of these four groups, which one had the lowest social status?
a. priests
b. scribes
c. artisans
d. government officials
____ 27. In what form did many farmers pay their taxes?
a. grain
c.
b. paper notes
d. music at banquets
copper coins
____ 28. Most peasants lived in
a. rafts in the river
b. camel-skin tents
c. caves in the cliffs
d. mud-brick houses
____ 29. How does the work of ancient Egyptian artisans help us learn today about life in ancient Egypt?
a. They left behind their tools made out
c. They passed on their skills to sons and
of reeds
b. They carved and painted scenes of
everyday life
d. They wrote histories of events on clay
daughters
tablets
____ 30. What was one method Khufu used to ensure that his power would be accepted?
a. He declared that he was a god
b. He had many children
c. He made strong treaties
d. He killed his rivals
____ 31. Hatshepsut was the first pharaoh who was
a. a god
b. a child
c. a priest
d. a woman
____ 32. Look at the timeline. In which time period did Egypt have a pharaoh who was especially known for
promoting trade?
a. between 2600 and 2500 B.C.E
b. between 2000 and 1900 B.C.E
c. between 1500 and 1400 B.C.E
d. between 1300 and 1200 B.C.E