Ancient and Medieval World History
Practice Questions
Course Introduction
Ancient and Medieval World History offers a comprehensive exploration of global civilizations from early human societies through the end of the medieval era. The course examines major developments in political, social, economic, and cultural spheres across regions including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, Africa, and the Americas. Students investigate the rise and fall of empires, the growth of religions, patterns of trade and migration, and the impact of technological and intellectual innovations. Through primary sources and scholarly interpretations, the course encourages critical thinking about the connections and differences between societies, and how ancient and medieval legacies have shaped the modern world.
Recommended Textbook
The World A History Volume 1 2nd Edition by Felipe Armesto
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768 Verified Questions
768 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: Out of the Ice: Peopling the Earth
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Sample Questions
Q1) Paintings that depict people wearing animal masks or skins likely represent A) hunting rituals.
B) practices that are only for entertainment.
C) early mating rituals.
D) none of the above
Answer: A
Q2) The San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert survive mainly on a diet of A) game.
B) root plants.
C) a type of cactus.
D) wheat and millet.
Answer: A
Q3) From what part of the world does the oldest evidence for Homo sapiens come?
A) Ethiopia
B) China
C) South Africa
D) Australia
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Out of the Mud: Farming and Herding After the
Ice Age
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Q1) Which of the following is NOT a reason to connect the development of agriculture with religion?
A) use of animals for sacrifice
B) use of plants in religious ceremonies
C) stories of floods and natural disasters
D) use of alcohol
Answer: C
Q2) Domestication of crops and animals
A) had no effect on the evolution of species.
B) caused what might be called an "unnatural selection" that interfered with the evolutionary process.
C) had an effect only on the evolution of animals.
D) had an effect only on the evolution of plants.
Answer: B
Q3) People first began to cultivate foods in the Nile Valley about
A) 12,000 years ago.
B) 9,000 years ago.
C) 7,000 years ago.
D) 2,000 years ago.
Answer: B
Page 4
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Chapter 3: The Great River Valleys: Accelerating Change and Developing States
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Sample Questions
Q1) In most river civilizations, one area of production that women tended to dominate was
A) pottery.
B) agriculture.
C) making textiles.
D) painted decoration.
Answer: C
Q2) In what manner were oracle bones read to foretell the future?
A) The shape and quality of the bones were interpreted by experts.
B) The bones were submerged in water until they changed shape. These changes were then interpreted.
C) The bones were tossed onto the ground, and their arrangement was then interpreted.
D) The bones were heated until cracks formed that were then read.
Answer: D
Q3) What is the connection between the development of writing in the river valley civilizations and our interest in and knowledge of them? In Perspective
Answer: not answered
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Chapter 4: A Succession of Civilizations: Ambition and Instability
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Q1) The Rig Veda is believed to have been written down around
A) 1500 B.C.E.
B) 1200 B.C.E.
C) 800 B.C.E.
D) 600 B.C.E.
Q2) Which of the following civilizations spoke an early form of Greek?
A) Hittite
B) Minoan
C) Mycenaean
D) Egyptian
Q3) What caused the weakening and collapase of major states in the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the second millennium B.C.E.?
Q4) What role did environment play in the collapse of civilization in Harappa and China? Why was the degree and timing of the collapse of these civilizations so different?
Q5) By what means could rulers gain regular revenue from local trade?
A) raiding
B) leaving merchants alone
C) buying goods from them
D) tolls and taxes
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Chapter 5: Rebuilding the World: Recoveries, New Initiatives, and
Their Limits
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Q1) Communication between peoples in Africa and the Americas was hindered by A) differences in climatic zones.
B) the failure of people to develop the wheel.
C) the lack of seaborne transport.
D) the lack of written languages.
Q2) In what ways did both the religious concepts of the Ganges Valley and the philosophies of Warring States China attempt to address problems of social and political stability?
Q3) Trade connected civilizations as disparate as the Etruscans, Thracians, Illyrians, and the tribes of Spain. What types of goods did these peoples exchange, and how were the Greeks and Phoenicians involved in these trade relationships?
Q4) Monsoon winds provided navigational links for A) southern Asia.
B) northern Asia.
C) the Caribbean.
D) the Mediterranean.
Q5) What are two possible reasons for the differences in development that may be seen in Eurasia as compared with Africa and the Americas? What is significant about these differences in development?
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Chapter 6: The Great Schools
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Q1) During the periods in which the Jews experienced conquest, dispersal, a return to Jerusalem, and foreign rule they relied on which of the following to preserve their culture?
A) a series of kings, each who defined new rules and rituals for worship
B) a covenant to one God who promised deliverance as a reward for loyalty and fidelity
C) incorporation of popular religious practices from neighboring kingdoms
D) Egyptian ideas about social organization and the afterlife
Q2) A key reason that geometry and mathematics are important in many philosophical traditions is that
A) these disciplines also have practical uses for everyday life.
B) these areas of study are essential to the movement of the stars and planets.
C) they help to develop the logical faculties of the human mind.
D) they show that reality can be invisible and untouchable, yet open to reason.
Q3) A Chinese belief system that focuses on following proper ethical practices within a strict hierarchy is called
A) Daoism.
B) Legalism.
C) Buddhism.
D) Confucianism.
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Chapter 7: The Great Empires
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Q1) The total population of Teotihuacán at its height was A) 20,000.
B) 50,000.
C) 100,000.
D) 200,000.
Q2) The monsoonal winds that blow in the western Indian Ocean
A) blow irregularly throughout the year, making travel haphazard.
B) regularly blow from the northeast during the winter, but reverse direction during the rest of the year.
C) regularly blow toward the east, making trade with East Asia easy.
D) regularly blow from the southwest during the winter, but reverse direction during the rest of the year.
Q3) How did Shi Huangdi unite China into an imperial state?
Q4) The Romans acquired the Kingdom of Pergamum in 133 B.C.E. by means of A) conquest.
B) a will.
C) purchase.
D) the defeat of Macedon.
Q5) How did Rome interact with its neighbors during the last half of the first millennium B.C.E.?
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Postimperial Worlds: Problems of Empires in
Eurasia and Africa, Ca 200 to 700 Ce
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Q1) How was an imperial state reconstituted during the period of the Sui and Tang dynasties in China? What role did steppe nomads play in this process?
Q2) Explain the political, economic, and social structure of Teotihuacáno civilization.
Q3) With the rise of the Islamic Empire,
A) taxes were raised on everyone.
B) Jews and Christians were forced to convert.
C) paganism was tolerated.
D) women gained the right to initiate divorce.
Q4) How did China interact with Tibet, Japan, and Korea as they developed into states?
Q5) Which of the following best characterizes relations between the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Sasanians?
A) generally peaceful trading partners
B) almost continuous and unresolved conflict
C) The Sasanians had nearly beaten the Romans by the time of Islam's rise.
D) The Romans had nearly beaten the Sasanians by the time of Islam's rise.
Q6) What were China's relations with its neighbors during the period following the collapse of the Han dynasty?
Page 10
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Chapter 9: The Rise of World Religions: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism
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Q1) How do Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity fit the definition of world religions?
Q2) Of the foreign merchant communities in Guangzhou (Canton) in 879 C.E., the largest was
A) Buddhist.
B) Christian.
C) Muslim.
D) Jewish.
Q3) The Christian king Alfred the Great of England
A) was tolerant of local religions.
B) immediately put to death all non-Christians among those he had conquered.
C) was initially tolerant of local religions, but his successors forced the conversion of the local populations.
D) imposed baptism on defeated pagans.
Q4) How did trade influence the spread of Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity across Eurasia?
Q5) What role did war play in the spread of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity?
Q6) How did the triumph of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam change the societies and cultures where they triumphed? How were they in turn changed and modified?
Page 11
Q7) What role did trade play in spreading Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism?
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Chapter 10: Remaking the World: Innovation and Renewal
on Environmental Frontiers in the Late First Millenium
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Q1) How did environmental factors affect Polynesian expansion across the Pacific Ocean?
Q2) Carvings from the kingdom of Sailendra show the importance of what to its people?
A) Islam and farming
B) sailing and Hinduism
C) agriculture and irrigation
D) Buddhism and sailing
Q3) Wilfred the Hairy of Barcelona settled underpopulated areas in his domain by
A) encouraging trade through tax incentives to merchants and businessmen.
B) giving free land and tax breaks to peasants.
C) giving them to the church and to monastics.
D) forcing people to live in militarized colonies in these territories.
Q4) In China, the government dealt with fluctuations in the price of grain by
A) allowing farmers to decide prices at meetings.
B) redistributing grain at discounted prices.
C) letting the market set prices.
D) having large landowners set prices at regional meetings.
Q5) What policies did the early rulers of Japan engage in that encouraged greater productivity?
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Chapter 11: Contending With Isolation: Ca 1000-1200
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Q1) What were the political effects of relative isolation on the development of Western Europe?
Q2) How did geography affect connections within Mesoamerica and between Mesoamerica and the rest of the Americas?
Q3) How did the isolation of areas like Greenland and North America compare with the isolation of Japan? Why was the experience of Japan so different?
Q4) What effect did the connection with the Indian Ocean region have on the development of Ethiopia?
Q5) A group of northern European merchant cities organized themselves into what came to be called the
A) Hanseatic League.
B) Knights Templar.
C) League of Lübeck.
D) Commercial League of North Europe.
Q6) In the region dominated by the Mixtec culture, civilization was characterized by A) large, densely inhabited cities and elite craftsmen.
B) elite craftsmen, but a lack of any community life.
C) large cities, but a lack of literacy.
D) small communities with a literate class.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: The Nomadic Frontiers: the Islamic World, Byzantium,
and China, Ca 1000-1200
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Q1) The ruins of the early Turkish city at Konya reveal that
A) the Turks during this period established cities mainly to protect permanent garrisons.
B) even early Turkish cities were entirely concerned with markets and an abandonment of their earlier warrior culture.
C) the Turks entirely forgot their pastoral past rapidly.
D) markets and shops played an important role in the life of the city.
Q2) Did the crusades and the Iberian wars between Christians and Muslims lead to greater understanding between the two civilizations? Why or why not?
Q3) The most effective way that China accommodated itself to nomadic invaders was through
A) bribery of their leaders.
B) military defeat.
C) their cultural assimilation.
D) diplomatic intimidation.
Q4) What were the reasons behind the crusading movement that arose in Western Christendom?
Q5) Compare the Chinese and Islamic relationships with steppelanders. What were the costs and benefits of each policy?
Page 14
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Chapter 13: The World the Mongols Made
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Q1) Who was Temujin and how have different peoples (including the Mongols themselves) portrayed him through the ages?
Q2) Did the Mongols, as creators of their empire, benefit the most from it? Why or why not?
Q3) How did geography hinder the development of the continent-wide empires in Africa and the Americas?
Q4) Mongol armies did not overrun the Delhi Sultanate during the thirteenth century largely because of
A) defeat in the battle of Herat.
B) a lack of interest in further conquest to the south.
C) respect for the birthplace of Buddhism.
D) internal politics and dissensions.
Q5) One of the benefits that the Mongols brought to Russian lands was
A) lower taxes than had existed earlier.
B) the introduction of paper money.
C) new farming technologies and an end to serfdom.
D) defense against German adventurers.
Q6) How were the Mongols able to hold onto this vast empire and to rule it?
Q7) What were the results for the areas that remained unconquered by the Mongols?
Q8) What were the methods the Mongols used in order to conquer their empire?
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Chapter 14: The Revenge of Nature: Plague, Cold, and the
Limits of Disaster in the Fourteenth Century
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Q1) During the fourteenth century, people associated the causes of the plague with all of the following EXCEPT:
A) fleas on rats.
B) magic.
C) vapors carried on the winds.
D) domesticated animals.
Q2) What was the most effective remedy against the plague?
A) Armenian clay
B) abstaining from certain foods
C) quarantine
D) snake venom
Q3) The lives of Japanese women of aristocratic rank during the fourteenth century
A) became freer because of the stability of the times.
B) saw marriage customs change to their detriment.
C) began writing fiction, a sign of their increased opportunity for education.
D) were transformed because of their ability to hold their own property separately from their husbands.
Q4) Compare and contrast the effects of fourteenth century climate change in Europe and the Americas.
Q5) How were India and Southeast Asia affected by the plague?
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Chapter 15: Expanding Worlds: Recovery in the Late
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
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Q1) A key difference between Western European voyages of exploration and those carried out by China during the fifteenth century was that
A) European explorers had the benefit of financial support from their governments.
B) Confucian philosophy supported the idea of trade and exploration as virtuous activities.
C) Asia was rich and Europe relatively poor.
D) Europeans were ahead in terms of navigational and shipbuilding technology by the early fifteenth century.
Q2) Which of the following strategies was regularly used to appease dissident factions within the Inca Empire?
A) ritual dances at important shrines
B) ritual exchanges of slaves
C) worship of mummified former political leaders
D) worship of new gods
Q3) Explain the role of religion in Russian expansionism. How was Moscow a "Third Rome"? How did this compare to the role of religion in Ottoman expansion?
Q4) What brought Zheng He's voyages to an end?
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