8. The establishment of the Mongol Empire had all of the following consequences EXCEPT:
(A) The reopening and extension of the Silk Road
(B) The strengthening of maritime trade in the South China Sea
(C) The diffusion of gunpowder technology
(D) The increase in the demand for European products such as wool, porcelain, sugar, spices and coffee
Porcelain, sugar, spices and coffee were not European products
MID-TERM REFLECTIONS
MOST COMMON INCORRECT ANSWERS
UPANISHADS WAS EARLY HINDU TEXT
IN SOUTH ASIA
• 21. All of the following are associated with Classical
Persia EXCEPT:
• (A) the royal road
• (B) Persepolis
• (C) Zoroastrianism
• (D) Upanishads
ROME BROUGHT ORDER TO VAST
EMPIRE
• 24. When Rome conquered a foreign land, it usually:
• (A) Visibly executed local leaders to set an
example of who was in charge
• (B) Outlawed any preexisting native religions and
persecuted anyone who refused to convert to the
Roman religion
• (C) Allowed considerable autonomy to local
leaders and customs as long as the area
cooperated with Roman rule
• (D) Opened libraries and universities to study and
collect local art, technology, and ideas
THE CYCLICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS
NATURE OF ASIAN EMPIRES PROMOTED MORE
CONTINUITY AFTER THEIR FALL
• 28. Which of the following most helps to explain why the
collapse of political institutions was more devastating to
the Roman civilization than to Han China or Gupta India?
• (A) Political institutions in Rome were weaker to begin
with.
(B) Roman emperors had more power than did Han or
Gupta emperors, so their downfall eviscerated the
Roman Empire.
• (C) Han China and Gupta India had strong
religious/philosophical traditions to provide continuity.
• (D) The Romans were economically more self-sufficient
than the Han or Gupta, so they had no long-distance
trade to cushion their fall.
HEIAN PERIOD AND ITS CORRUPT PRACTICES LED TO THE RISE
OF JAPANESE FEUDALISM( ARISTOCRACY = LAND HOLDING
ELITE AKA DAIMYO)
• 32. When the emperor moved his government from
Nara to Heian (Eighth Century C.E.),
• (A) Shintoism was formally suppressed.
• (B) Buddhism ceased to play a major role in
Japanese society.
• (C) The scholar-gentry was able to assert itself
through the examination system.
• (D) Buddhism was formally suppressed.
• (E) The aristocracy took over most of the positions of
the central government
THIS ONE WAS JUST CAREFUL READING
“The evil-disposed in these districts [of
England] began to rise, saying, they were too
severely oppressed; that at the beginning of
the world there were no slaves, and that no
one ought to be treated as such…This they
would not longer bear, but had determined
to be free, and if they labored for their lords,
they wanted to be paid for it. A crazy priest
in the county of Kent, called John Ball, who
for his absurd preaching, had been thrice
confined in prison, inflamed those ideas. He
would say: ‘Are we not all descended from
the same parents, Adam and Eve? And what
can the lords show, or what reasons give,
why they should be more the masters than
ourselves?”
~ Jean Froissart, account of a peasant revolt
in England, 1381
42. The description of the peasant revolt best
supports which of the following conclusions?
(A) Peasants were hostile to the idea of wage labor.
(B) Peasants used religious beliefs to justify their
resistance.
(C) Peasant demands for equality were supported by
the highest levels of religious leaders.
(D) Peasant revolts were more frequent in England
than elsewhere in this period.
43. The point of view of the author can best be
described as
(A) sympathetic to the peasants
(B) hostile to the peasants
(C) indifferent to the peasants’ grievances
(D) sympathetic to the leaders of the revolt
WHAT DO HISTORIANS HAVE TO STUDY MIGRATORY
PEOPLE’S TECHNOLOGY WITHOUT WRITTEN
EVIDENCE?
• . A historian researching the timeline of the spread
of iron metallurgy in sub-Saharan Africa would find
which of the following sources most useful?
• (A) Bantu-language oral histories transmitted
through generations
• (B) Archaeological evidence of early forges and
smelting operations
• (C) European travelers’ accounts from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries describing
African industrial practices
• (D) North African Muslim merchants’ account books
detailing purchases of iron tools
THIS IS WHAT ENABLED THE PAX MONGOLICA (
MANY BEGAN THEIR TESTING LETHARGY HERE)
• . The Mongol conquests of much of Eurasia in the
thirteenth century tended to encourage trade along the
Silk Roads primarily by
• (A) opening large new markets for both European and
East Asian goods in Central Asia
• (B) increasing the demand for military supplies needed
by the Mongol armies that occupied various regions
• (C) decreasing the risk of bandit attacks and reducing
the number of local rulers collecting tribute from trade
caravans
• (D) discouraging seaborne trade along the Indian
Ocean routes that competed with the Silk Roads
•
THIS ONE WAS TRICKY: WHILE THE LAST IS
PLAUSIBLE, THE SECOND IS DIRECTLY BASED ON
THE QUOTES
58. “Romantic glorifications of Greece create
the impression that the Greeks sought
rational solutions…actually, far from being
devoted to the risks of rationality, the vast
majority of the Greeks sought always the safe
haven of superstition and the comfort of
magic charms.”
~ Finley Hooper, historian of ancient Greece,
1967
“I do not believe that the ‘Sacred Disease’
[epilepsy] is any more divine or sacred than
any other disease, but, on the contrary, I
believe it has specific demonstrable
characteristics and a definite cause.”
~ Hippocrates of Kos, Greek physician, circa
350 B.C.E.
The passage by Hippocrates weakens
Hooper’s claim in the first passage by
Suggesting that medicine was a thriving
discipline in ancient Greece
Expressing a mistrust for supernatural causes
of medical conditions
Seeking to understand a disease that does
not have an obvious external cause
Implying that Greek physicians did not have
effective treatments for some diseases
WEST VS EAST?
• 63. Some historians maintain that a transition between
two major periods in world history most likely occurred
around 500 C.E.; others maintain that this transition
occurred around 600 C.E.
•
• These two groups of historians are most likely to
disagree about the relative importance of which of the
following?
• The emergence of the classical Maya civilization
• The role of technological change in world history
periodization
• The decline of polytheism in the Mediterranean and the
Middle East after the fifth century C.E.
• The fall of the western Roman Empire
YOU GOT 65 BUT NOT THE NUANCE OF SARCASM THAT AMERICANISM IS A
RESULT OF CULTURAL DIFFUSION AND INSIDIOUS DENOTES A NEGATIVE VIEW
OF “FOREIGN” IDEAS. MANY OF YOU WERE REALLY SUFFERING FROM TESTING
LETHARGY HERE
Questions 65 – 66 refer to the passage below:
“There can be no question about the
average American’s Americanism or his
desire to preserve his precious heritage at all
costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign
ideas have already wormed their way into his
civilization without his realizing what was
going on. Thus dawn finds the unsuspecting
patriot garbed in pajamas, a garment of East
Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a
pattern which originated in either Persia or
Asia Minor. He is muffled to the ears in unAmerican materials: cotton, first
domesticated in India; linen, domesticated in
the Near East; wool from an animal native to
Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first
discovered by the Chinese. All these
substances have been transformed into cloth
by methods invented in Southwestern Asia.”
Source: Ralph Linton
65. The excerpt best illustrates the effects of
(A) Cultural diffusion
(B) The agricultural revolution on technology
(C) Geography on cultural development
(D) The independent development of cultural
traits
66. The author’s reference to “insidious
foreign ideas”
Reinforces his idea that Americans should
preserve their independent culture
Demonstrates his arrogance about the
contributions of America to other cultures
Illustrates his cynicism towards the
contributions of foreign ideas to his own
culture
Is sarcastic because he feels his own culture
owes much to its roots in earlier foreign lands
THIS EXCEPT CHOICE WAS ABOUT THE
RECONQUISTA AND NOT AMERICAN
COLONIZATION BY EUROPEANS
• 78. Between 1500 and 1750, Europeans were
interested in colonies in the Americas for all the
following reasons EXCEPT
• They wanted to Christianize the indigenous peoples.
• They wanted to empower Spain to reconquer its
territories under Muslim control.
• They wanted to enrich the treasuries of Europe.
• The wanted to bring honor to their respective
nations.
• They sought adventure
THE AZTECS HAD A THRIVING TRIBUTE
BASED EMPIRE PRIOR TO SPANISH
CONQUEST
• 84. Which of the following did NOT contribute to the
fall of the Aztec Empire to the Spaniards?
• Military assistance of Mesoamerican peoples.
• Epidemic disease.
• Mesoamerican traditions.
• The economic weakness of the Aztecs.
• Superior weaponry of the Spaniards
PERCENTAGE OF AN ENTIRE PEOPLES (
IT WOULD BE BETTER WORDED AS PER
CAPITA PERCENTAGE)
• The largest decline in percentage of global
population in history occurred as a result of the
• Black Death in Europe
• Global flu pandemic of 1918 – 1919
• Spread of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in the
twentieth century
• Spread of syphilis in Renaissance Europe
• Epidemics in sixteenth-century Mesoamerica