1. D The T’ang Dynasty (618–907 C.E.) did expand Chinese holdings to include parts of Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and Korea, but the T’ang rulers overextended themselves and lost control of their territory to warlords, leading to the fall of the dynasty. These areas were organized under a tribute system during the T’ang and would again be under the Ming a few centuries later. Cross off (B) because the T’ang Dynasty preceded Genghis Khan by a half a millennium. Cross off (C), because this describes the Song Dynasty, which followed the T’ang.
2. B While education was valued in many Chinese societies of this era, the Fujiwara Shogunate of Japan valued noble birth much more highly. The Shogunate was, however, characterized by an emperor who officially named the shogun, or military leader, but held no real power in government; a landowning samurai class known as the daimyo; and particularly repressive treatment of women, so cross off (A), (C), and (D).
3. A Both the Magyars and Vikings were known at this time for their fearsome raids, whether for food and wealth, or for political reasons. While both groups would eventually convert to Catholicism, this did not happen until at least the tenth century for each group, so cross off (B). The Vikings were known for their naval strength and navigational skill, but the Magyars were land-based raiders, so cross off (C). And slavery was very much a part of both cultures at this time, so cross off (D).
4. D The spread of Islam brought with it a spreading of classical knowledge, some of it new to Europe, some of it merely long forgotten. This led to the rebirth of European creativity and artistic expression known as the Renaissance. It did not, however, result in either widespread use of Arabic in French and Italian market towns (even if some traders learned to speak Arabic) or religious reform within the Catholic Church, so cross of (B) and (C). Nor did it lead to proclamation of religious tolerance in England—that would come later as a result of conflict between Catholics and Protestants under the Tudors—so cross off (A).
5. C A successful rebellion by English nobles against King John produced the Magna Carta in 1215, a document that guaranteed the rights of feudal lords but also extended the rule of law to commoners and laid the groundwork for Parliament, which was established shortly thereafter. The Norman conquest of England occurred in 1066, so (A) is much too early—cross it off. The Hundred Years War (which actually lasted 116 years) took place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and while it was a bloody war of succession, its end had nothing to do with the people’s power-sharing with the king, so cross off (B). Similarly, the English king’s break with the Catholic Church came well after the early thirteenth century and was not the cause of the king’s losing sole power in the kingdom, so cross off (D).
6. D Power slipped away from the Romans and the Abbasids as they found themselves paying others’ armies for their loyalty and service, which caused significant military breakdowns over time. It wasn’t extended famine, the spread of Islam (the Abbasids were Muslim!), or the Mongols that did them in, so cross off (A), (B), and (C).
7. B Buddhism developed out of the Hindu tradition, much as Christianity developed out of the Judaic tradition, and both formed orders of monks. Cross off (A) because, according to Biblical tradition, Jesus Christ did present himself as the son of God during his lifetime. (The Buddha, however, considered the existence of gods to be unimportant.) Cross off (C) because this was true of both faiths in many points in history. Finally, cross off (D) because both Buddhism and Christianity were originally taught and spread orally, and their founders’ lessons were usually recorded much later by others.
8. C Remember that you’re looking for the answer that isn’t true of both. Choice (C), a regularized monetary system, was true of the Aztecs but not the Incas. Both civilizations, however, used innovative agricultural techniques to boost production, practiced ritual human sacrifice, and had an upper class comprising priests and royalty, so cross off (A), (B), (D).
9. A Muslim scholarship was transmitted to both western European and West African realms via trade. Both also allowed forced labor, as well as engaging in territorial warfare to gain power and resources, so cross off (B) and (D). Only Western Europeans made significant use of new sailing techniques to visit another continent (Africa). Even scholars who argue that African explorers may have reached South America before the Europeans believe they used the same basic technology and techniques with which they navigated the African coast. So cross off (C).
10. A Gold was the major export and economic driver for sub-Saharan Africa at this time. The import of cowrie shells was no significant factor, nor was the transatlantic slave trade (which did not start in earnest until the sixteenth century), so cross off (B) and (D). Also, while Muslim traders were important players in trade along these routes, it was the gold sub-Saharan Africans pulled from the ground that formed the basis of the economy, so cross off (C).
1. B Choice (B), Non-Muslims and Jews were allowed some religious freedom but higher taxes and local instances of persecution, is the best description of the dominant religions’ relationship with non-believers at the imperial level in the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires. The Ottoman rulers were happy enough to collect taxes from non-believers living in their midst in exchange for leaving well enough alone, and there was very little conflict. The rulers of the Holy Roman Empire did take a harder stance, sometimes taxing Jewish populations to the point of driving them from their homes, but Holy Roman Emperors considered the Jewish populations within their borders their possessions and protected them enough to sustain them as a source of revenue. For all of these same reasons, cross off (A). While (C) is arguably true of the Holy Roman Empire, it isn’t really an accurate statement about the Ottoman Empire, so cross it off. And (D) is not an accurate characterization of either on the imperial level, so cross it off.
2. C Buddhism spread from China to Japan and Korea in different ways. Missionaries carried Chinese culture to Japan in 522 C.E., where all things Chinese, including Buddhism, caught on quickly. Seon, or Zen, Buddhism was slowly transmitted to Korea in the seventh through ninth centuries C.E., when Korea was a vassal-state of China’s T’ang Dynasty. Cross off (A) because this is how Buddhism came to China, not how it traveled to Korea or (the island of) Japan. Cross off (B) because these simply didn’t happen—in Japan, many people practiced Buddhism and Shinto simultaneously. And cross off (D) because military conquest wasn’t part of the equation—Korea was a vassal-state by choice, and Japan was entirely independent of China at this time.
3. A Choice (A) is a correct description of Osman Bey’s rule over the Ottoman Turks. Cross off (B), as it describes one of his successors, Suleiman I. The Cossacks were peasant soldiers in Russia under Ivan III and Ivan IV, so cross off (C). Cross off (D), as Osman Bey had nothing to do with Spain or the Moors.
4. B The daimyo were major landholders who owed allegiance to the shogun but divided their land among lesser samurai (for whom peasants, in turn, worked the land), much like lords in feudal Europe. They were warriors, not peasants, so cross off (C). While some daimyo may indeed have been advisers to the shogun, that isn’t what made them daimyo, so cross off (D). Also, this isn’t about Buddhism, so cross off (A).
5. C This is an accurate description of non-Muslims’ status under most Muslim regimes, even if non-Muslim faiths were technically tolerated under Muslim law. This was no condition to support a renaissance, though, so cross off (A), and the caste system was very much in effect, so cross off (B), but if they paid their higher taxes, Hindus were entitled to own property and be full participants in society, so cross off (D).
6. B Remember that you’re looking for the one that isn’t true. While Islam did reach China during the Yuan Dynasty, the Yuan rulers were not Muslim. They were, however, Mongols who overran the Song Dynasty and whose last members escaped a popular uprising to form the Northern Yuan, a dynasty-in-exile that remained at loggerheads with the Ming for several generations—so cross off (C) and (D). Yuan society was highly stratified, too, with little upward mobility, so cross off (A).
7. C Shortly before Genghis Khan’s death, he split his empire among his four sons (one of whom died shortly before he did, resulting in his territory being divided between that son’s two sons), so after his death, there were four Khanates, and Genghis Khan’s successors expanded his empire for another century as trade continued to flourish along the Silk Road—so cross off (A), (B), and (D).
8. D During the Heian period, beginning in 794 C.E., Japan deliberately turned inward to focus on domestic cultural development. The aristocratic Fujiwara family, which had intermarried with the imperial family, was largely responsible for this rejection of external cultural influences. The shoguns and the Code of Bushido belong to the following period of Japanese history, so cross off (A) and (B). Cross off (C) because Shinto was a native Japanese faith, so this answer goes against the nature of the question. It also isn’t true.
9. D The Mamluks beat the Mongols in 1260 at the Battle of Ain Jalut and drove the Crusaders from the Levant by 1291. The Abbasids lost power in 1258—so, close but no cigar. Cross off (C). The Delhi Sultanate is the right time, but Delhi should make you think India, which isn’t where the Crusades were happening, so cross off (B). Finally, the Mughals didn’t build their empire until the 1500s, long after the Crusades, so cross off (A).
10. D The Alhambra was built by the Moorish Nasrid kings in Andalucia’s capital city of Granada. The Hagia Sofia, while a former mosque, is not located in Spain, so cross off (C). Both Madrid and Granada are in Spain, but Madrid was not in Moorish territory, and the fact that (A) is a chapel while not a definitive indicator of a lack of Muslim influence, does reflect its Catholic origins—so cross off (A) and (B).
1. D While the Bantu both learned and spread the practice of animal husbandry, this did not have the effect of transforming the region’s economy, so cross off (C). They were not a maritime people, so cross off (B). Some Bantu peoples did participate in the spread of Islam, but not all, and not tribal religions in any significant way, so cross off (A). The ability to make iron tools, though, was tremendously important for the societies the Bantu encountered.
2. B Each of these names should suggest something Muslim or Arabic, because they were. The sultanates were Islamic governments—so, too, was that of Muslim Iberia. And the Abbasid Caliphate was a Muslim dynasty headquartered in Baghdad that ruled Persia and much of the Middle East. All arose in the late first millennium C.E. While the other answers have some applicability to one or two regimes in this group, only (B) correctly and completely describes all three.
3. C While these weren’t exactly egalitarian societies, these women were not entirely powerless in public terms as European women were—good reason to like (C), cross off (A), and cross off (D). They were not, however, undisputed leaders, so cross off (B).
4. D The key here is food. As the climate changed for the colder, there were significant agricultural failures. Famine devastated cities, so cross off (B), as well as (C), because agricultural technology just couldn’t keep up. Commerce was developing in some quarters, but it had nothing to do with the Little Ice Age and in fact sometimes occurred in spite of it, so cross off (A).
5. B Prince Henry of Portugal was not himself a navigator but took great pride in allowing his palace to become a place for navigators to meet and trade knowledge and discoveries. There was better cataloguing of West African climate and geography, but that was the result, not the cause so cross off (C). New ship designs alone were not the key factor, so cross off (D). And locals serving as officers was not any coordinated phenomenon with larger results, so cross off (A).
6. B The Abbasid Caliphate inaugurated a resurgence of interest in classical knowledge, as well as new developments in literature, art, architecture, and other aspects of culture. The Mongol conquest of Baghdad, the Abbasid capital, effectively ended the Islamic Golden Age, so cross (A) off. The Silk Road reached into China well before the spread of Islam, so cross off (C). And while the Ottoman Empire did rise from some remnants of the Mongol Khanates, this was well after the founding of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, so cross off (D).
7. D These images are from Easter Island and San Agustin, Colombia, respectively. Statues from each culture would have been created sometime between the mid-thirteenth century and the end of the sixteenth century. This timing puts them well after (A) or (B), so cross those off. They are not African, though, so cross off (C).
8. A During this period Tamil, Hindi, and other modern Indian tongues largely achieved their current form. The development of Tamil devotional hymns spread as a cultural phenomenon, driving a resurgence of interest in Hindu culture. Rather than a period of decline in elaborate temples, these centuries saw the development of more temple towns consistent with the resurgence in interest in Hinduism, so cross off (B). Cultural and political systems were not imported at this time, but rather exported to other countries in southeast Asia, so cross off (C). This cultural export, while it was more about what went out than came in, didn’t mean India isolated itself from other influences, so cross off (D).
9. C The pope exhorted his Crusaders to free the Holy Land from Muslim occupation to restore Christian pilgrims’ access to sacred sites. This had no bearing on African trade routes, so cross off (A). The Great Schism, in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, was significantly later than the First Crusade (1096–1099 C.E.), so cross off (B). And while several communities of European and Middle Eastern Jews fell victim to the advances of the Crusaders, this was not the explicit purpose with which Urban II set the Crusaders off, so cross off (D).
10. A Yaroslav the Wise was Grand Prince of Kiev and vice-regent of Novgorod when his older brother Svyatopolk went on a power-hungry murderous rampage, killing three other brothers. The Novgorodians supported Yaroslav’s successful move against his brother. By uniting the principalities of Novgorod and Kiev, Yaroslav streamlined governance and laid down the Russkaya Pravda, codifying legal customs into formal law. There was no large-scale institutionalized support for arts, literature, and technology, despite a few isolated cases; nor was any collaboration between the Prince and the Eastern Orthodox Church a significant factor in inaugurating the Golden Age—so cross off (B) and (D). Kievan Rus also did not expand past the principalities of Novgorod and Kiev at this time, so cross off (C).
1. A Remember that you’re looking for the one that isn’t true. While the Black Death killed off 30 to 60 percent of the populations of Europe and Asia, European diseases brought to the Americas by explorers killed off approximately 90 percent of the native population. It did, however, begin in Asia, in all likelihood, and spread west via fleas on rats and other animals carried along the Silk Road, so cross off (B). The death of so many people from across so many segments of society did change the economic and social landscape, and religious upheavals occurred as people questioned why the priests of the Church could not save them from such devastation and death so cross off (C). And its effects were indeed made worse by the chronic malnutrition that had plagued Europe for a century as climate change caused by the Little Ice Age devastated grain harvests, so cross off (D). This latter problem was improved by the arrival of the potato as a crop from the Americas after Columbus’s transatlantic voyages.
2. C Arab people arrived from the seventh through ninth centuries, bringing with them the burgeoning knowledge and technology of the Arab world, and in approximately 1000 C.E., Bantu-speaking peoples brought with them the zebu, a long-horned cattle domesticated in herds. (A) refers to crops that came to Africa from the Americas after Columbian contact, centuries later, so cross that off. (B) describes the initial settling of Madagascar between the fourth century B.C.E. and the sixth century C.E., so cross that off. Finally, irrigated rice paddies in Madagascar date only to about 1600 C.E., so cross off (D), too.
3. A Portugal, as well as other nations, used the Portuguese-designed carrack to do most of their exploration of the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the years after the mid-second millennium C.E. The Chinese junk did form the basis of China’s first navy, but that was a couple centuries before the Portuguese developed the carrack, so cross off (B). While these ships did have deep hulls, and while some of these ships were used to carry slaves between Africa and the Americas, that was not the purpose behind their development, so cross off (C). The carrack was also not the first ship to employ a fixed rudder as an improvement over the unstable steering oar, so cross off (D).
4. B Kublai Khan was the only Mongol khan to expand his holdings after 1260, the first non-Chinese emperor to bring all of China under his control. Mansa Musa, or Musa I, expanded his holdings to include major salt-producing regions north of Timbuktu. Only Mansa Musa, though, was a Muslim, so cross off (A). Neither introduced his empire’s first coinage system, so cross off (C). And while Kublai Khan was a non-Chinese ruler of China, Mansa Musa was Malian, so cross off (D).
5. C While the Islamic Empire under the Abbasids developed an economy reliant on merchants and trade, the Europe of the early Middle Ages instituted the feudal system. This farming-centric economy led to a more individual, less worldly general population. Remember, however, that as surplus food is produced, those from the lower classes began to learn skills and create materials for trading. As this progressed, the economy of the Middle Ages changed, until cities and towns developed.
6. D The Black Plague, or the Black Death, originated in China, where it killed an estimated 35 million people. Spread through Europe through trade routes (like most diseases, ideas, and religions, historically), the Plague killed a third of Europe’s population within 50 years. Crowded conditions in Europe’s cities and the lack of adequate sanitation and medical knowledge all contributed to its rapid spread.
7. B Omar Khayyam (B) wrote the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Saladin (A) you should remember for retaking large parts of the Levant (modern-day Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan) back from Crusader invaders. Muhammad ibn Qasim (C) conquered the Sindh and Punjab regions, opening the East up to Muslim invaders. Mira Bai (D), along with Kabir, is responsible for the bhaktic movement, which stemmed conversion to Islam. Mira Bai is also out of context; she won’t show up until the end of the fifteenth century.
8. A In the seventh century, Muslim conquerors invaded India. The open, tolerant, and inclusive Hindu religion was based on a social system dominated by castes; whereas Islam was doctrinaire, monotheistic, evangelical, and egalitarian. In the earlier period of contact, conflict predominated, but as time passed, although tensions persisted, peaceful commercial and religious exchange occurred in a society where Muslim rulers governed Hindu subjects.
9. C The spread of Islam across the northern third of the African continent produced significant effects on the continent. From the mid-seventh century, Muslim armies pushed westward from Egypt across the regions called Ifriqiya by the Romans and the Maghrib (the West) by the Arabs. By 711 they crossed into Spain. These conquerors linked the African continent more closely to the outside world through trade, religion, and politics. Trade and long-distance commerce were carried out in many parts of the continent and linked regions beyond the Muslim world. Though the northern region of the continent was well integrated into the world economy, until about 1450, with the arrival of the Portuguese, Islam provided the major external contact between sub-Saharan Africa and the world.
10. B Due to its size, the African continent boasted diverse societies. Differences in geography, language, religion, politics, and other aspects of life contributed to Africa’s lack of political unity over long periods of time. Unlike in many parts of Asia, Europe, and north Africa, neither universal states nor universal religions characterized the history of sub-Saharan Africa. Stateless societies, organized around kinship or age sets—people of a certain age—did not need rulers or bureaucracies and existed side by side with states. Among peoples of the west African forest, secret societies of men and women controlled customs and beliefs and were able to limit the authority of rulers.
1. C Shi’a and Sunni Islam developed out of disagreements over the proper mode of succession after the death of Muhammad. Sufism is a mystic and ascetic movement which begun in the ninth century after the wide geographical spread of Islam, and the absorption of mystic traditions from outside Arabia, especially Greater Persia. Sufism became a more formalized movement in the twelfth century and has adherents mostly in non-Arab parts of the world.
2. D In another example of worlds colliding, many converted African groups who began to follow Christianity held to former beliefs of ancestor worship. Interestingly, Christians began to see Jesus as an ancestor, a unifying of local custom and tenets of a foreign faith. As to the Ark of the Covenant—the chest described in the Bible which, according to Jewish and Christian tradition, carries the tablets of stone on which God wrote the Ten Commandments—some biblical archaeologists (those studying things related to the time the Bible refers to) believe that, at some point, the Ark made it down to present-day Ethiopia, and may still be there today. A modern-day Indiana Jones adventure!
3. A The Church of St. George (Bete Giyorgis) is one of eleven monolithic (made from stone) churches in Lalibela, an ancient city in Ethiopia. Christianity was spread to Ethiopia and Kush by the Egyptian Christians (Copts), way back in the first century C.E. These great stone churches built by King Lalibela. You don’t need to know about King Lalibela. What’s important to remember is, as Islam encroaches into the African continent, Ethiopia will stay largely Christian.
4. D Mali king Mansa Musa’s trip to Mecca to make his hajj was the stuff that legends are made of. Musa was a devout Muslim and his pilgrimage made him well-known across northern Africa and the Middle East. To Musa, Islam was the foundation of the “cultured world of the Eastern Mediterranean.” He worked to grow of Islam in his empire. Musa made his pilgrimage in 1324, with a procession reported to include 60,000 men, 12,000 slaves who each carried 4-lb. gold bars, heralds dressed in Persian silks who bore gold staffs, organized horses, and handled bags. Also in the train were 80 camels, which varying reports claim carried between 50 and 300 pounds of gold dust each. He gave the gold to the poor he met along his route (remember alms-giving is another of the Five Pillars of Islam). Musa not only gave to the cities he passed on the way to Mecca, including Cairo and Medina, but also traded gold for souvenirs. Musa’s generous actions, however, inadvertently devastated the economy of the region. In the cities of Cairo, Medina, and Mecca, the sudden influx of gold devalued the metal for the next decade. Prices on goods and wares super inflated in an attempt to adjust to the newfound wealth that was spreading throughout local populations. To rectify the gold market, Musa borrowed all the gold he could carry from money-lenders in Cairo, at high interest. This is the only time recorded in history that one man directly controlled the price of gold in the Mediterranean.
5. B Though Muslim invaders conquered parts of all these regions, associate this mud brick building with Sudanic architecture in Africa, something said to have been perfected under the famous Mali king, Mansa Musa. Mali architects used the materials available to them, so since Islam needed a mosque (notice the two minarets at the front of the building), stone wasn’t available, and wood was hard to come by, this one is built of beaten earth reinforced by wood or reeds, which create bristles on the outside of the building.
6. C Even though most of the population in the Sudanic states (Mali and Songhay are the most famous) did not convert to Islam, the introduction of the faith in the tenth century reinforced, not undermined, ruling power. Not all Islamic traditions took hold, however. Men and women mixed freely; women went unveiled and young girls at Jenne in Songhay were naked. However, although slavery had existed in Africa prior to the coming of Islam, Muslim demand for slaves and the commercialization of the region intensified the practice.
7. D The Bantu languages are a family of languages which spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa as early as 3000 B.C.E. This expansion into modern-day central, east, and south Africa led to over 250 languages, of which Swahili (A) is the most popular. Amharic (B) is the Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia (Ethiopia is a country, not a language).
8. D Women in the African continent lived in more egalitarian societies than did European women. Many Sudanic societies were matrilineal and did not seclude women. Slavery and a slave trade to the Islamic world lasting more than 700 years had a major effect on women and children. All individuals might become slaves, but the demand for concubines and eunuchs increased demand for women and children. Men did not have the power over their wives to sell them into slavery, however. Life expectancy was not markedly different between African and European populations.
9. A Remember that as Muslim armies swept across the northern stretch of the African continent, they brought their religion along with them, just as they had in Asia. Before Islam, though, Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, had spread their influence to Kush (also called Nubia, but we find the name Kush in the Bible) and Ethiopia. These civilizations will have a rich Christian tradition they’ll adhere to, even after the arrival of Islam. Before all this, though, an animist religion—a belief in natural forces personified as gods—was common in Africa, and affected the way this continent developed its faith systems. Africa’s religious makeup, then, was very diverse, just like the cultural and economic makeup of the continent. Keep that in mind as you answer all your questions about the beginning of Africa’s history.
10. B The east coast of Africa is known as the Swahili Coast. The word comes from the Arabic word for “coasters,” or traders. Trade with the Muslims began in the early tenth century as Swahili traders brought gold, slaves, ivory, and other exotic products to the coast. Chinese pottery and Arabian beads have been found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe.
1. D There is a laundry list of reasons why the church split in 1054 C.E., the date that the pope excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople, who did the same to the pope. This date became known as the East-West Schism and from then on Orthodoxy influenced the East and Roman Catholicism influenced the West. Things had been bad for a while. The two camps disagreed over the sacrament of communion, whether priests should be allowed to marry, and the use of local languages in church. The East read the Bible in Greek and translated it from this language, while the West in Latin. Subtleties in translations led to different traditions. They even were at odds regarding the nature of God, specifically God as a trinity, and they disagreed over the placement of icons during worship.
2. C Like the Chinese, the Byzantines educated their bureaucrats. Technically, anyone could study and become a cog in the government machine, but because the lower classes tended to need to farm to survive, most of those who made it through the process were from the higher classes. Both painted the emperor as semi-divine, appointed by god to rule. Emperors were surrounded by elaborate court ritual and headed both the church and the state. Women occasionally ruled, the Byzantine Theodora likely the most famous woman to rule and the Empress Wu Zetian on the Chinese side.
3. A Hagia Sophia began life as a church, first for the Eastern Orthodox, then Roman Catholics. After the area (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) was taken over by the Turks, it was converted to a mosque. Today, it’s a museum. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and was the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site, the previous two having both been destroyed by rioters.
4. C Population growth was made possible by better farming, which allowed civilizations to feed their populations. Once these groups developed beyond subsistence farming, with the help of new farming technologies, into surplus farming, people were freed up to pursue other interests. People became craft- and tradesmen, creating markets and interactions with other communities. Though some civilizations were very intolerant of other faith systems, others (most significantly Indian Hindus and some African groups) were able to absorb evangelical beliefs, such as Islam and Christianity. So, postclassical civilizations weren’t universally intolerant.
5. B The moldboard plow (which helped to turn the soil), the three-field system (in which three fields, one fallow to rest), and horse collars were all introduced to Medieval Europe and created surpluses of crops, which allowed for population growth and freed individuals so they could take on other trades. Irrigation is just about as old as farming, so Medieval Europe had forms of it. Oxen were domesticated already, likely during the Neolithic era, so that answer choice is out of context.
6. C The Eastern Orthodox Christians in eastern Europe and Russia spent much time and effort defending themselves from the colonization of various western invaders. It wasn’t until 1242 that Russia succumbed to the Tatars (a group of Mongols from the east) under Genghis Khan. The Tatars ruled a large chunk of Russia for two centuries, leading to a cultural rift that further split eastern and western Europe. The Roman Catholic church worked in the eleventh century to reform the Church and will, most significantly, work against the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. The Eastern Orthodox church will not go through any reforming movements, so these reforms will more significantly distance the churches from one another.
7. D Parliaments were representative bodies, the beginning of a distinctive political process not present in other civilizations. Manors were self-sufficient agricultural estates, where serfs worked the land and gave parts of what they grew to the lords of the estate. Guilds grouped people in similar occupations, regulated apprenticeships, maintained good workmanship, and discouraged innovations. They played an important political and social role in cities, as they in one sense controlled commerce. Though these three were developed in the Middle Ages, kingdoms had been around for a while.
8. B The Crusades, though many were unsuccessful in conquering land in the east, prove that even the efforts of conquest and expansion that fail to reach their goals still have a major impact on world history: They lead to interaction between cultures that might not otherwise interact. The Crusades put Europe back into the sphere of the Eastern Mediterranean for centuries. That interaction fueled trade and an exchange of ideas. It also led to western Europe’s rediscovery of its ancient past, which was being preserved by the Byzantine and Islamic Empires. That rediscovery fueled huge changes in Europe (the Renaissance, for one).
9. A Remember that as urbanization happens, women will lose grounds as to their rights. With women’s history, hunter-gatherers were the most egalitarian. Once the world moves onto farms, women begin to lose power, and their power is eroded until the twentieth century. Women in western Europe were not as restricted as their counterparts in the Islamic world, but they definitely lost ground. They were increasingly restricted by patriarchal structures. They could help with the family business. Christian emphasis on spiritual equality remained important, while female monastic groups offered a limited alternative to marriage. Veneration of the Virgin Mary and other female religious figures provided positive role models for women. They could not run services, though.
10. C Aztecs were relatively equal, though think of the Aztecs in this way—the civilization’s lack of technology holds it back (for example, the absence of milling technology meant that women spent many hours daily in grinding maize by hand for household needs, which kept them busy a lot). Remember that patterns of urbanization tend to take power away from women. In Mesoamerica, women inherited and passed on property, but in political and social life they were subordinate to men. Though women’s rights actually progressed in the Tang and early Song dynasties, by the end of the Song, foot binding became vogue and women found it harder and harder to find educational opportunities. In communities in which women don’t have many rights, keep in mind that ideas such as women’s purity become important, so female virginity before marriage was important in both societies.
1. C The city is Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas. The Andes should be a red flag that you’re talking about the Inca, one of the great Native American tribes of the New World, and the only group centered there. The Cherokee are out of context. Before the arrival of Europeans, the most important American civilizations to know are the Mayan (who disappear before the arrival of Europeans), the Aztecs (more north, in what is modern-day southern Mexico), and the Inca (obviously, in the Andes Mountains, in modern-day Peru). Though the Aztec built roads, the Inca were the most impressive engineers of the new world, with almost 2,500 miles of road, complicated agricultural terraces, and impressive stonecutting.
2. D Remember that the Egyptians mummified their dead and built tombs (such as the pyramids) to house their famous, wealthy dead. The Inca venerated their royals and mummified them, as well. The Chinese, since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), formed schools specifically to educate a bureaucratic class. The Incas developed a state bureaucracy in which almost all nobles played a role. The Incas’ real genius was best displayed, though, in their land and water management, extensive road system, statecraft, and architecture and public buildings. They developed ingenious agricultural terraces on the steep slopes of the Andes (which can be seen in the remains of the famous city Machu Picchu). The empire was linked together by almost 2,500 miles of roads, many of which included rope suspension bridges over mountain gorges and rivers. They were also awesome stonecutters, and were able to build huge buildings.
3. B Both the Aztecs and Incas required tribute (with the Aztecs, this included humans for sacrifice) from their conquered and allied neighbors. This is how the cities fed themselves. Though both had bureaucracies, the Incas did not have a distinct merchant class. Both conquered, but did not colonize. Neither had a writing system.
4. A In the postclassical era, China will rely more heavily on the agricultural riches of the south. The Grand Canal, which Yangdi (Tang dynasty) risked his throne to have built, was designed to link the original centers of Chinese civilization on the north China plain with the Yangtze River basin more than 500 miles to the south. Because of this impressive engineering success, the Tang were able to reopen the Silk Roads to Persia. All this led to an explosion of trade, which eventually led to impressive urbanization, with the Tang capital and its suburbs boasting a population of 2 million.
Railroads are WAY out of era. Get rid of (D). Though roads were important, associate the Tang and Song with the canal system; it’s what changes everything for this population.
5. B The Korean hwacha was a multiple rocket launcher developed and used in Korea in the late fourteenth century. It was highlighted in a MythBusters show in 2008 and it was confirmed that it can shoot as far as 500 yards. Archery is a technology out of era, so get rid of it, as is metalwork. Military organization is also as old as civilization.
The Tang and Song are famous for their accomplishments in science, technology, literature, and the fine arts. Technological and scientific discoveries—new tools, production methods, weapons—passed to other civilizations. The arts and literature passed to neighboring regions. Engineering feats, such as the Grand Canal, dikes and dams, irrigation systems, and bridges, were especially noteworthy. New agricultural implements and innovations—such as banks and paper money stimulated prosperity. Explosive powder was invented. On the domestic side, chairs, tea drinking, the use of coal for fuel, and kites were introduced. Compasses were applied to ocean navigation, and the abacus helped numerical figuring. In the eleventh century, the artisan Bi Sheng devised printing with movable type. Combined with the Chinese invention of paper, printing allowed a literacy level higher than that in any other preindustrial civilization.
6. D Remember that Arabic traders will have the most contact with the Swahili people (Arabic for “coasters,” or traders) of east Africa. Though the Swahili may have had a Bantu language specific to their group, the language, to be elevated to a trading language, absorbed a multitude of Arabic words, since many of the goods and techniques for trade weren’t needed before contact with traders. Arabic, Latin, and Sanskrit may have changed as they came in contact with other cultures, but the languages’ developments were not driven by trade the way Swahili was.
7. C Remember that these are your three great monotheistic faiths. If a person mentioned is someone before Jesus (Moses, Abraham, Adam; i.e. important to Judaism), then the faiths likely share the person as a prophet. The Jewish people worship from the Tanakh (or Jewish Bible) and the Talmud (the commentary on the Bible). Christians pray from books containing the Old and New Testament, which includes the Gospels. Muslims pray from the Quran. Everyone cares about Jerusalem, but Jews don’t have an interest in other cities. Catholics care about Rome, but Copts don’t. Muslims care about Mecca and Medina, as well.
8. D One of the common themes throughout postclassical civilizations, as surplus farming led to further urbanization and the creation or growth of cities, was that women more and more had their rights compromised. Remember that upper-class women, in the Islamic world and western Europe and China, all go through some process of losing rights, whether it’s foot binding in China or veiling in Arabia, for example. The feudal system in western Europe and Japan usually put more power in the hands of local nobles. In most places, rulers were chosen by a battle of power politics; in very few places in the world, and not to a large extent, did anyone vote for a ruler or government official. It happened, but it just wasn’t common.
9. A Remember that both Vikings and Mongols were militaristic peoples who raided due to the poor resources they could access in their home regions. What was unique about the Mongols, and contributed to why they were so successful at keeping their empire together, was that, in conquered lands, Mongols usually set up governments populated by the former local government. Both groups were open to conquered communities keeping their former traditions, and spread rather far and wide—the Vikings to the New World and the Mongols to all of Asia. The Mongols were horsed and the Vikings used the fastest ship in European waters.
10. B Keep in mind that Buddhism will be the great driving force adopted and adapted by all the civilizations China affects—the Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. The Vietnamese belong to the Southeast Asian culture, though—they had a language which developed separate from the Chinese. Since Japan is being affected by China, Japan wasn’t affecting Vietnam. China’s great failure with the Vietnamese, why Vietnam failed to assimilate when Korea and Japan did, was that peasants did not absorb the Chinese culture. Buddhists were more deeply entrenched.
1. B The Mongols were nomadic herders of goats and sheep who lived off the products of their animals. Boys and girls learned to ride as soon as they could walk. The basic unit of social organization, the tribe, was divided into kin-related clans. Confederations were organized for defensive and offensive operations. Men held dominant leadership positions; women held influence within the family. Leaders were elected by free men. They gained their positions through displays of courage and diplomatic skills and maintained power as long as they were successful.
2. D Genghis Khan started his conquering in 1207. During this time, Rus’ was actually a Medieval polity of Europe and had begun to break up into separate elements in the twelfth century, into three separate nations and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, with no real centralized power. This division helped Genghis Khan take over the area piece by piece.
3. D Think about this one logically. Rarely does a conquered area ever completely convert to the conqueror’s religion. It also wasn’t the case with the introduction of the Mongols and their animist faith to Islamic lands. Remember that Islam was founded in a region that had enjoyed an animist faith prior to Muhammad. Also, conquerors are even less likely to take on religious practices from the groups they conquer. Though it’s possible to destroy a whole population, this wasn’t the case with the Mongol invasions and Shi’ism, especially since the Mongols practiced a “live-and-let-live” governing policy, for the most part, in the places they took over. Mongols were very destructive, though, and tended to decimate cities. If that happens, it destroys a center of culture, which was the case with the attacks on Islamic cities.
4. A The Renaissance represented the first great surge of curiosity, really, that helped launch Western Europe into a world power. It initially was a movement native to southern Italy which concentrated on literature and art. It introduced techniques such as chiaroscuro and perspective to European art, and renewed interest in the literature of the great Greek philosophers. It’s important to keep in mind none of this would have been possible without Islam’s preservation of these works, and then the Mongol invasions to create a bridge between east and west. Choice (A) is correct because Gothic architecture emerged during the Middle Ages (prior to the Renaissance).
5. C Associate the Mongols with openness of trade and exchange of culture. The Islamic armies were being pushed back at this time throughout Europe. African civilizations were traders, but did not boast pirate armies. Europeans could not go too far into the oceans due to lack of technological tools. Europeans solved problems through building better ships and learning from the Arabs the use of the Chinese compass and astrolabe. European mapmaking also steadily improved. These improvements allowed Europeans to go farther afield.
6. D Islam comes to Africa through the Swahili coast. Remember that you’ll have a great Egyptian Copt (Orthodox Christian) community, which will spread the faith down the Nile to Ethiopia, where it’ll take hold and stay even after Islam sweeps the continent.
7. B The Ottoman Empire’s out of era; get rid of that answer choice. The Islamic Empire is known for its trade, especially with sub-Saharan Africa. Merchants were a significant part of the Empire’s economy, so associate merchants, and not manufacturing with the Islamic Empire.
8. B The Polynesians were the last group of humans who had developed in isolation. Before their introduction to the “civilized” world, they traveled from the Society Islands (Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji) to Hawaii, New Zealand, and surrounding areas. They lacked metallurgy and a writing system, relying heavily on oral traditions.
9. D The religion of Islam is often quoted as having started around the year 622 C.E. which coincides with the migration of Mohammad and his followers from the city of Mecca to Medina (called the hijra). This also marks the first year of the Muslim calendar.
10. D The Five Pillars of Islam are confession of faith (A), prayer five times per day (B), charity to the needy, fasting during Ramadan, and a pilgrimage to Mecca once during a lifetime (C). Confession of sins is a practice associated with Christianity and is not a pillar of the Islamic faith.
1. A The Islamic empire was ruled by a caliph, whose role consisted of ruling by religious doctrine. The caliphs of the Islamic empire were both head of state and served as chief religious leader.
2. A Zoroastrianism remained most closely associated with people of the Persian Empire and never became a dominant religion of the Islamic Empire. The capital of the Umayyad Dynasty did move to Damascus (although Mecca remained a key religious center). Muslims advanced on the Iberian peninsula during 732 C.E. and Shia and Sunni sects developed due to issues related to succession within the empire.
3. A The emergence of the Shia and Sunni sects was due to issues related to succession. As the two religious camps fought for control the Islamic state eventually declined and was replaced by the Abbasid Dynasty around 750 C.E. Although disease did spread throughout Asia and the Middle East, it was not directly tied to the demise of the Umayyad Dynasty. Mongol attacks would not result in a transference of power until the thirteenth century (far after the fall of the Umayyad Dynasty).
4. C The height of the Abbasid dynasty occurred during the early to mid-ninth century C.E. which coincided with the rise of Baghdad as a key cultural center. The Umayyad Dynasty (B) fell and gave way to the Abbasid Dynasty in the mid-eighth century C.E. about the same time as the fall of the Merovingian Dynasty (D) in France. Although the T’ang Dynasty (A) coincided with the rise of Baghdad, the Chinese did not control the city.
5. D The Qu’ran established many rights for women; however, Islamic society remained largely patriarchal and men could have many wives providing that they would be able to support them equally.
6. B Constantinople was the heart of the Byzantine Empire and during the reign of Justinian, was associated with great advancements in the arts and sciences (including the building of the Hagia Sophia). Although the Byzantines controlled Rome, Athens and Jerusalem during Justinian’s rule, the seat of power remained in Constantinople.
7. D During the early Middle Ages, no true empire emerged until the unification of much of Western Europe under the Holy Roman Empire. Charles Martel was instrumental in forming the Carolingian dynasty and uniting the Franks to resist the spread of Islam by Muslim invasions (A). His son’s (Pepin the Short) succession was legitimized by the pope (B) and later his grandson Charlemagne established what became known as the Holy Roman Empire (C).
8. A At the peak of the Holy Roman Empire, it encompassed northern Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium. This area was markedly smaller than the peaks of the Byzantine, Islamic, and Persian Empires. However, the unification of a large region of Western Europe was significant as it began to restore stability to the region and would lay much of the groundwork which would carry Europe into the next millennium.