Pre-Modern World History
Exam Questions
Course Introduction
Pre-Modern World History explores the major civilizations, events, and cultural developments from ancient times through the early modern era, up to approximately 1500 CE. The course examines the social, political, economic, and religious structures of societies in regions such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Greece, Rome, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Americas. Emphasis is placed on the rise and fall of empires, cross-cultural interactions, technological innovations, and the evolution of global trade networks. Through primary sources and scholarly interpretations, students develop an understanding of how the foundations of the modern world were established during these formative centuries.
Recommended Textbook
The World A History Volume 1 2nd Edition by Felipe Armesto
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15 Chapters
768 Verified Questions
768 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Out of the Ice: Peopling the Earth
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following traits does the species Homo sapiens not share with chimpanzees?
A) ability to speak
B) burial of the dead
C) enjoyment of play
D) self-awareness
Answer: A
Q2) Which of these is NOT a current interpretation of the Venus of Willendorf?
A) The carving represents a goddess.
B) The carving represents a pregnant woman.
C) The carving is a fertility fetish.
D) The carving was used in burial rites.
Answer: D
Q3) During the Ice Age, cave art was used
A) in very different ways in different places.
B) only for ritual purposes.
C) in very similar ways in different places.
D) only for hunting rituals and purposes.
Answer: C
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Out of the Mud: Farming and Herding After the Ice Age
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Sample Questions
Q1) What three types of land were best suited for agriculture?
A) tundra, alluvial plains, lowlands
B) swampland, alluvial plain, uplands
C) swampland, forests, steppe
D) alluvial plain, prairies, uplands
Answer: B
Q2) Archeological evidence dating from around 3000 B.C.E. from Hambledon Hill in England most likely indicates:
A) that humans of that era held enormous parties because an ice age was coming.
B) that failed attempts at herding animals and farming led people back to foraging and hunting.
C) that humans of that era combined hunting and gathering with newer practices related to farming and production.
D) that humans of that era imported most of their food because they could not find enough locally.
Answer: C
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4
Chapter 3: The Great River Valleys: Accelerating Change and Developing States
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most surviving art from the Harappan civilization is preserved on A) wall paintings.
B) seals.
C) papyrus rolls.
D) mosaics.
Answer: B
Q2) Which of the following is NOT commonly found as archaeological evidence for early civilizations?
A) monumental architecture
B) writing
C) mining of precious metals
D) grave goods
Answer: B
Q3) Which of the following were not used for oracles?
A) livers
B) stars
C) tea leaves
D) birds
Answer: C
Page 5
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Chapter 4: A Succession of Civilizations: Ambition and Instability
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Sample Questions
Q1) When the Hyksos conquered Egypt, they
A) replaced the Egyptian gods and government with their own.
B) adopted the Egyptian religion and political system.
C) retained Egyptians as rulers and demanded only their tribute.
D) destroyed Egyptian culture and brought in a new language.
Q2) Why did the Hittite civilization in Anatolia collapse so completely while civilization in the Nile River Valley continued?
Q3) Much of the direct, written evidence for the early period of the Zhou dynasty comes from inscriptions on A) oracle bones.
B) cups.
C) the walls of the kings' palaces.
D) bamboo strips.
Q4) What fundamental problems led to the collapse of Harappan civilization?
Q5) 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?
Q6) Why did Chinese civilization continue after collapse of the Shang dynasty?
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Q7) For what reasons did civilizations first arise in the Andes and in Central America?
Chapter 5: Rebuilding the World: Recoveries, New Initiatives, and
Their Limits
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the famous Seven Wonders of the ancient world was located in Babylon?
A) Pyramids
B) Colossus
C) Mausoleum
D) Hanging Gardens
Q2) Which of the following most accurately describes the status of ordinary women in early Greece?
A) Husbands and wives were considered equal partners.
B) Women delayed marriage until their early twenties to study philosophy and domestic skills.
C) In most families, wives and daughters rarely appeared in public.
D) The families of Spartan women who died in childbirth were banished.
Q3) Civilization in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa was isolated from Eurasia mostly because of
A) culture.
B) geography.
C) language.
D) lack of trade goods.
Q4) How did the reemergence of civilization in China compare with the new societies that developed in the Greek world?
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Chapter 6: The Great Schools
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Q1) In what ways were Greek, Chinese, and Indian science similar during this period?
Q2) Which of the following relationships between royal patron and sage is incorrect?
A) Mozi and Chu
B) Buddha and Kosala
C) Mahavira and Mosala
D) Zoroaster and Persia
Q3) According to the creation story told in India, Brahman created the world
A) from chaos.
B) from the void.
C) from himself.
D) from atoms.
Q4) Confucius believed that human beings were essentially
A) evil.
B) good.
C) morally neutral.
D) sinful.
Q5) Discuss and compare the invention and influence of Buddhism and Confucian thought on Indian and Chinese societies in the era around 500 B.C.E.
Q6) Why did a variety of philosophies flourish in the Mediterranean world?
Q7) What role did Buddhism gradually play in India and China?
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Chapter 7: The Great Empires
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Q1) The Arthasastra emphasized Asoka's role as
A) a developer of the economy.
B) a war leader.
C) a religious leader.
D) a heroic defender of the country.
Q2) What was the nature of the sea routes used by traders in Eurasia? What types of goods were traded over these routes? What effects did these routes have on state development?
Q3) After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the government of the Persian Empire
A) was maintained more or less intact.
B) was changed to a democracy.
C) was changed to a traditional Macedonian monarchy.
D) was transformed into a mix of democracy and monarchy.
Q4) 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.
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) All of the following are true of the Tang dynasty EXCEPT:
A) It made important advances in chemistry and gunpowder.
B) Buddhist themes in Tang-era art confirm cultural contact with South and Central Asia.
C) Regional governors lost power as the Imperial throne grew more centralized.
D) A woman became emperor with support of Buddhist clergy.
Q2) The wall paintings from the tomb of Dong Shou portray the history of Koguryo during the fourth century C.E.
A) as a period of decline.
B) as a time when Buddhist and Daoist emblems could be shown together.
C) as a time without need of military scenes.
D) as a time of Confucian dominance.
Q3) What advantages did the eastern half of the Roman Empire have over the western half that allowed it to survive?
Q4) Why did Japan follow such a different developmental route from China, despite borrowing heavily from Chinese political structure, religion, and culture?
In Perspective
Q5) How did China interact with Tibet, Japan, and Korea as they developed into states?
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Chapter 9: The Rise of World Religions: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism
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Q1) By the end of the eleventh century C.E., Buddhism was
A) becoming less popular in India.
B) being used by more Indian rulers to justify their rule.
C) developing more monasteries throughout India.
D) adopting the traditions of blood sacrifice to its practice in India.
Q2) How does monastic practice in Buddhism and Christianity compare? What is similar, and what is different?
Q3) As a new religion became dominant, it was common for
A) it to wipe out all traces of the previous faith.
B) it to take over places that had been sacred in earlier religious practice.
C) only new places to be considered sacred.
D) the people to reject anything that made them change their ways.
Q4) What was the event that led to the Roman Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity?
A) A vision appeared before a battle.
B) A bird omen appeared in the sky.
C) A vision appeared after a battle.
D) A priest explained the faith to him.
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Q5) What role did war play in the spread of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity?
Q6) 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) Who were leaders in conquering new environments in the Japanese countryside?
A) Buddhist monks
B) rich merchants
C) traditional religious leaders
D) Samurai
Q2) Which of the following techniques did NOT lead to increased food production in the Islamic world?
A) new irrigation techniques
B) lower taxes
C) use of fertilizer
D) consolidation of small holdings into larger ones
Q3) Russian culture and civilization grew out of a combination of
A) Scandinavian and native Slavic peoples.
B) Germanic and native Slavic peoples.
C) Bulgar and native Germanic peoples.
D) Byzantine and native Slavic peoples.
Q4) What types of ecological expansion occurred throughout the Islamic Empire? What are concrete examples of changes that came about as a result of this new Islamic regime?
Q5) What role did Charlemagne play in the expansion of the Christian world?
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Chapter 11: Contending With Isolation: Ca 1000-1200
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Q1) What were the political effects of Japan's isolation during the ninth to twelfth centuries?
Q2) In eleventh century India it is particularly remarkable that A) the Brahman caste had fallen from its place as the political elite.
B) the warrior caste was successful in expanding its power through the prosecution of a series of wars that created a large, stable empire.
C) the merchant caste presented themselves as warriors.
D) the peasant caste gained new political and social rights.
Q3) What economic and cultural effects may be seen in Western Europe because of its relative isolation from the rest of Eurasia?
Q4) How did the relative isolation of Western Europe affect its relations with its neighbors as it began to reassert itself in the eleventh to twelfth centuries?
Q5) How did Japan develop economically and culturally during this period? What were its relations with other states in East Asia?
Q6) What connections existed between states in India and Southeast Asia, and how did these connections affect the development of these states?
Q7) What are the benefits and drawbacks of cultural and economic isolation?
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Chapter 12: The Nomadic Frontiers: the Islamic World, Byzantium,
and China, Ca 1000-1200
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Sample Questions
Q1) What was the appeal of Sufism for many Muslims? Why was it rejected by much of the elite in the Islamic Empire?
Q2) Which of the following did NOT characterize the phenomenon of the early crusades?
A) The church in Rome bore the primary financial burden for individual crusaders.
B) Muslims viewed the crusades as a pattern of conquest extending from North to South and West to East across and around the Mediterranean.
C) Rich crusaders went on pilgrimages to acquire wealth and territory.
D) Italian merchant-communities supported the early crusaders, even though some of them disrupted the delicate tolerance that had existed between Christians and Muslims in crusader states.
Q3) The Almoravid religious zealots seized much of the Iberian Peninsula from
A) Christian rulers in support of Muslim rulers already there.
B) Muslim rulers in support of Christians.
C) Muslim and Christian rulers in order to found an empire of their own.
D) the Almohad rulers who had conquered the peninsula before them.
Q4) What were the reasons behind the crusading movement that arose in Western Christendom?
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Chapter 13: The World the Mongols Made
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Q1) What role did the Mongol Peace play in the development of areas beyond Mongol rule?
Q2) How did the Mongols manage and expand trade across the Silk Roads?
Q3) What were the results for the areas that remained unconquered by the Mongols?
Q4) In what ways did the Mongols manage their empire across Eurasia? How did they incorporate regional customs and ideas into their systems of government and control?
Q5) The idea that excessive deference to authority was a cause of ignorance was held by
A) the Parisian professor Siger of Brabant.
B) the Franciscan monk Roger Bacon.
C) the Nestorian scholar Rabban Bar Sauma.
D) the Dominican monk Thomas Aquinas.
Q6) The African Sahel probably did NOT become a corridor of communication comparable to the Eurasian steppe because of its
A) poverty.
B) lack of adequate rivers.
C) mountains.
D) richness.
Q7) How were the Mongols able to hold onto this vast empire and to rule it?
Page 16
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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) In the early thirteenth century, the legendary King Sundiata founded the Kingdom of A) Berundi.
B) Java.
C) Mali.
D) Persia.
Q2) The term Bubonic refers to the plague symptom of A) fever.
B) swellings.
C) jitters and dizziness.
D) an inability to tolerate light.
Q3) Explain the process of climate change and its consequences on agriculture and habitation in Europe and Eurasia in the fourteenth century.
Q4) What were the main vectors for the spread of the plague? What do these pathways tell us about the nature of the disease(s) known as the plague?
Q5) How was West Africa affected by the plague?
Q6) Compare the moral and social effects of the plague on European and Muslim societies.
Q7) 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) Which of the following problems did the Aztec Empire share with the Inca Empire?
A) conquered peoples were resentful and rebellious
B) expansion was so rapid it overwhelmed available resources
C) alliances were expensive and difficult to maintain
D) all of the above
Q2) Explain the role of peasants in the establishment of the Ming dynasty.
Q3) What factors helped to support the development of empires in Africa and the Americas during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?
Q4) The Ming emperors may have abandoned the pursuit of maritime imperial expansion because
A) the revival of Mongol power threatened existing frontiers.
B) China lacked the technology to build large ships.
C) Chinese maps were inadequate for long voyages.
D) Zheng He's voyages produced nothing of interest.
Q5) Zheng He's achievements include
A) the discovery of North America.
B) establishment of trade agreements with European explorers.
C) extension of Chinese power in the Indian Ocean.
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D) reformation of the Confucian bureaucracy.
Q6) What brought Zheng He's voyages to an end?
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