World History I Pre-Test Questions
Course Introduction
World History I offers a comprehensive survey of the major political, economic, social, and cultural developments from the earliest human civilizations through approximately 1500 CE. This course explores the rise and fall of ancient empires, the growth of global trade networks, the evolution of religious and philosophical traditions, and the interactions between different societies across regions including Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Emphasis is placed on understanding patterns of continuity and change, key historical figures and events, and the diverse forces that have shaped the early course of human history.
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) The diets of Ice Age peoples were
A) poorer than the typical modern diet.
B) more varied than the typical modern diet.
C) better than the typical modern diet but lacking in vitamin C.
D) poorer than the typical diet of later developed societies.
Answer: B
Q2) How was ochre used in burial rituals?
A) only in male burials
B) for magical purposes
C) as a means of preserving the body
D) only in female burials
Answer: B
Q3) Which of the following enabled Inuit hunters to hunt effectively in the hostile environment of the Arctic winter?
A) improved boats
B) improved hunting gear
C) improved clothing
D) improved lamps
Answer: D
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Chapter 2: Out of the Mud: Farming and Herding After the
Ice Age
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Q1) The expansion of agriculture can be traced across sub-Saharan Africa through the spread of what language group?
A) Swahili
B) Ndebele
C) Semitic
D) Bantu
Answer: D
Q2) From where did the earliest agriculturalists enter Europe?
A) Asia
B) Africa
C) Europe
D) the Americas
Answer: A
Q3) What animals and plants made up the staple foods in the Pacific islands?
A) chicken and yams
B) cattle and tomatoes
C) pigs and sweet potatoes
D) sheep and grain
Answer: C
Page 4
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Chapter 3: The Great River Valleys: Accelerating Change and Developing States
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Sample Questions
Q1) Mesopotamian ziggurats are best characterized as A) pyramids.
B) circular structures.
C) surrounded by columns supporting a roof.
D) terraced mounds.
Answer: D
Q2) A technology that was common to ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China is A) indoor plumbing.
B) codified law.
C) irrigation.
D) standardized measurements.
Answer: C
Q3) Which of the following are roles that Mesopotamian kings were expected to play?
A) war leaders, religious leaders, and enforcers of public morals
B) interpreters of prophecy, redistributors of food, and irrigation organizers
C) religious leaders, temple builders, and living gods
D) redistributors of food, men destined for eternal life, and mediators with the gods
Answer: B
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Chapter 4: A Succession of Civilizations: Ambition and Instability
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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?
Q2) How did the Zhou dynasty continue traditions that had been a part of the Shang dynasty? What new innovations were introduced?
Q3) Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica had declined by
A) 1000 B.C.E.
B) 700 B.C.E.
C) 300 B.C.E.
D) 100 B.C.E.
Q4) El Niño affects the Andean regions by A) causing drought. B) causing flooding.
C) causing the seasonal rains to come at the wrong time. D) causing wind storms.
Q5) What factors contributed to the end of the Shang dynasty?
Q6) Discuss and compare the role of climate change in the decline of the Harappan and Andean civilizations between 1500 and 1000 B.C.E.
Q7) Why did Chinese civilization continue after collapse of the Shang dynasty?
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Chapter 5: Rebuilding the World: Recoveries, New Initiatives, and
Their Limits
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most of the history of the Zhou dynasty may be characterized as
A) a period filled with war.
B) a period of peaceful expansion.
C) a period without new schools of thought.
D) a period when China developed into a centralized state.
Q2) A key technological development that began around 500 B.C.E. in sub-Saharan Africa was
A) yam cultivation.
B) iron smelting.
C) aqueduct construction.
D) writing.
Q3) The chief reason that we know less about many American or African cultures than many of those in Eurasia is
A) their lack of an archaeological record.
B) their lack of a written record.
C) the prejudice of modern historians.
D) our own lack of interest in the subject.
Q4) Compare the Phoenicians and Greeks with the Assyrians and Babylonians. What did scattered colonizing peoples gain compared to imperial states? What did they give up in exchange?
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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) What is meant by the term "axial age," and why is it an appropriate term for the intellectual developments of the ancient world?
Q3) According to the concept of Indian henotheism, A) there is only one god. B) there are many gods.
C) there are gods, but they do not care about humans.
D) many gods collectively represent a divine unity.
Q4) How do the four categories of axial age sages relate to the variety of social and political needs their thoughts addressed?
Q5) A good example of a dualist religion is A) Christianity. B) Buddhism.
C) Zoroastrianism. D) Islam.
Q6) 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.
Q7) How were Chinese and Greek philosophers similar in some of their concerns?
Q8) What role did Buddhism gradually play in India and China?
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Chapter 7: The Great Empires
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Sample Questions
Q1) The balance of trade across Eurasia during the axial age was tilted to the advantage of
A) East Asia.
B) Southwest Asia.
C) Europe.
D) Southeast Asia.
Q2) The rock inscriptions set up by Asoka appear
A) only in southern India.
B) only in northern India.
C) scattered throughout India.
D) primarily in the Krishna Valley.
Q3) A primary reason that the Persians invaded Greece during the early fifth century B.C.E. was
A) to gain new tributary states.
B) to prove that they could.
C) for religious reasons.
D) to avenge the destruction of Susa.
Q4) How does the governmental structure of Shi Huangdi's China compare to those of Asoka's empire and the Roman Empire?
In Perspective
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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Sample Questions
Q1) The key factor in the rise to power of Wu Zhao to become emperor was
A) the support of the Buddhist clergy.
B) the support of the Chinese people.
C) the support of the Confucian elite.
D) the support of the military elite.
Q2) 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.
Q3) Most of the successful threats to the states in China, India, and Europe came from A) the Islamic world.
B) inside the borders of their own empires.
C) natural disasters.
D) peoples from the Eurasian steppe.
Q4) How did the Romans interact with the Germanic peoples?
Q5) What did the collapse of the Chinese and Indian states have in common with the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West?
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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) The world religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam were maintained and spread by dedicated monks, nuns, and clerics. Discuss the importance of people who dedicated themselves to a life of religious study to the evolution of world religions.
Q3) 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.
Q4) Which of the following is NOT common to Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam?
A) They each insist on monotheism.
B) Their founders left no writings of their own.
C) They prohibit forcible conversion.
D) They prohibit killing.
Q5) In the Buddhist world, King Anuruddha displayed his piety by A) never going to war.
B) enforcing Buddhism upon his conquered subjects in Sri Lanka.
C) waging war to gain possession of holy scriptures.
D) going to war against his neighbors to keep them from fighting one another.
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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) What policies were adopted by states in China and Southeast Asia that affected the productivity of their people?
Q2) What effect did geography have on the transmission of culture and the development of states in the Americas?
Q3) How did environmental factors affect Polynesian expansion across the Pacific Ocean?
Q4) Who were leaders in conquering new environments in the Japanese countryside?
A) Buddhist monks
B) rich merchants
C) traditional religious leaders
D) Samurai
Q5) In Polynesian culture, the term mana means
A) a type of sacred drink that has narcotic properties and can induce trances.
B) a supernatural power that makes things work the way that they are supposed to.
C) a special type of food that is consumed only at special ritual meals.
D) a type of herb that is used for curing illness.
Q6) What policies did the early rulers of Japan engage in that encouraged greater productivity?
Page 12
Q7) 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) Compare the effects of isolation on Europe and Japan. What similarities did their responses show? What differences? In Perspective
Q2) 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?
Q3) How did Japan develop economically and culturally during this period? What were its relations with other states in East Asia?
Q4) 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.
Q5) 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?
Q6) How did geography affect connections within Mesoamerica and between Mesoamerica and the rest of the Americas?
Q7) How did trade in the Indian Ocean connect peoples in Africa with Eurasia?
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Chapter
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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.
Q2) What was the early relationship between the Islamic world and the Turks of Central Asia? How did they interrelate with one another?
Q3) What were the basic movements that lay behind the development of the crusades in Western Christendom?
A) commerce and pilgrimage
B) pilgrimage and holy war
C) exploration of new lands and chivalry
D) chivalry and commerce
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Page 14
Chapter 13: The World the Mongols Made
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Sample Questions
Q1) An environmental explanation for the Mongol conquests that has been put forth is that
A) temperatures rose and increased the desert areas and that pushed the Mongols south and west.
B) temperatures fell and declining pastureland caused a need for expansion.
C) high rainfall in the Mongol homeland led to flooding and the destruction of Mongol agriculture.
D) a series of earthquakes destroyed Mongol communities and led to their dispersal.
Q2) What cultural, religious, and scientific changes were happening in Europe during the time of the Mongol Peace?
Q3) How did the Mongol empire allow a transfer of new ideas and inventions across Eurasia? What are two specific examples of such a transfer?
Q4) The Mamluk rulers of Egypt during the thirteenth century were mostly
A) originally black African slaves.
B) originally Turkic slaves.
C) originally recruited from the general Egyptian population.
D) originally children taken from Christian subjects.
Q5) 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) One area that became increasingly affluent and prosperous during the fourteenth century was
A) Western Europe.
B) India.
C) sub-Saharan Africa.
D) China.
Q2) As a result of his stay in Cairo, Mansa Musa caused
A) the city to revolt from its ruler.
B) West African cuisine to be introduced into Egypt.
C) the price of gold to plummet.
D) his slaves to be freed there, if they became Muslim.
Q3) What is the most likely identification of the "plague" that devastated Eurasia in the fourteenth century? Explain the nature of the available evidence and how that evidence was used to reach the most convincing conclusion.
Q4) As a result of the climatic changes during the early fourteenth century,
A) the Thames River in England flooded.
B) Europeans gave up their earlier explorations of the Atlantic.
C) Danish colonies in Iceland were abandoned.
D) state building in Eastern Europe ended.
Q5) How was Japan 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) How did the rise of nationalism and the state system drive European expansion?
Q2) Zheng He was
A) a mercenary.
B) a Buddhist priest.
C) a Muslim leader of naval expeditions.
D) the founder of the Ming dynasty.
Q3) The myth of Maitreya played a significant role in the history of fourteenth-century China because
A) the Confucian establishment used the myth to retain power for itself.
B) the peasants believed that Maitreya would rescue them from plagues.
C) the peasants believed that Maitreya would give his followers power over their oppressors.
D) Maitreya was the new god of the Ming dynasty.
Q4) What range of motives impelled Europeans around the world?
In Perspective
Q5) One of the reasons European maritime empires developed relatively slowly is that
A) the Chinese dominated shipping in the Indian Ocean.
B) global wind patterns made Atlantic navigation difficult.
Page 17
C) the kingdom of Kongo resisted the efforts of European traders.
D) early attempts at exploration were resisted by the church.
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