Chapter 4: Growth, Diversity, and Conflict,
1720–1763
i>Clicker Questions
1. To avoid the concentration of land ownership that characterized feudal
England, New England colonists set out to create a yeoman society consisting
primarily of whom?
a. Redemptioners
b. Freeholders
c. Capitalists
d. Planters
2. Marriage in New England under eighteenth-century English common law
a. gave the husband legal ownership of the bride's land and personal property.
b. gave the wife the right to sell the family estate upon her husband's death.
c. was a contract among equals.
d. left the wife impoverished in the event of her husband's death.
3. What was the "household mode of production" used by farmers in New
England?
a. A system in which all town residents pooled their resources to build homes
for new families
b. An economic system that relied primarily on women in the home producing
quilts and clothing
c. A system in which every member of a household was assigned a specific job
d. A system of community exchange in which families swapped labor and
goods
4. Why did the number of printshops explode after 1695 in the English
colonies?
a. Gutenberg invented the printing press that year.
b. The Glorious Revolution ended the era of royal censorship that year.
c. Until then, colonists had lacked the skills to set up their own printing shops.
d. The British government let the long-standing Licensing Act lapse.
5. What was the central premise of the Enlightenment?
a. Devotion and piety were the way to experience God's grace in a conversion
experience.
b. Human reason had the power to observe, understand, and improve the
world.
c. An activist God was involved in the everyday affairs of the world.
d. Everyone's mind was a blank slate on which basic ideas or principles could
be imprinted.
6. What was the central legacy of the Great Awakening?
a. The movement of religious authority from educated ministers to the believer's
direct experience of God
b. Continuing divisions between Old Lights and New Lights
c. New emphasis on the importance of science in American society
d. The view of God as a divine "watchmaker"
7. Why did the Baptist sect attract African Americans?
a. White Baptists welcomed them to revivals with open arms.
b. They were without spiritual beliefs and longed for religious instruction.
c. The Baptist message declared all people to be equal in God's eyes.
d. The Baptists criticized the Chesapeake planter elite.
8. Why did the British issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763?
a. They were tired of Virginia speculators claiming western lands.
b. They resented the practice of squatting.
c. They wanted to prevent white–Indian conflict over the land.
d. Britain wanted to issue a stern warning to France not to cross the colonies'
western borders.
9. Which statement assesses the impact of the consumer revolution in the
1750s and 1760s?
a. Wealth inequality decreased as a result.
b. Farm prices dropped precipitously.
c. American colonies sold less and less to England.
d. American colonies incurred a trade deficit.
10. Why did North Carolina's debtors defy the authority of their government in
1766?
a. They resented the Old Lights' control of the colonial assembly.
b. They resented the government's failure to contain the Regulators.
c. They claimed they suffered taxation without representation.
d. They wanted to save their farms from creditors and tax officials.
Answer Key
1. The answer is b.
2. The answer is a.
3. The answer is d.
4. The answer is d.
5. The answer is b.
6. The answer is a.
7. The answer is c.
8. The answer is c.
9. The answer is d.
10. The answer is d.