Foundations Unit
1. Which of the following characterized Paleolithic society?
A. Urban life B. Hunting technology and primitive art
C. Written language D. Farming and irrigation
9. The law code of King Hammurabi
A. included much legislation on agriculture and irrigation canals.
B. handed down mild punishments for almost all crimes.
C. treated all social classes equally.
D. did not protect the consumer.
11. Geography influenced Sumerian society by
A. making communication within the region easy.
B. making communication within the region difficult.
C. providing the inhabitants with everything they needed.
D. providing an abundance of precious metals.
12. Rivers in Mesopotamia were important because they
A. were a unifying factor. B. drained off excess water.
C. kept out invaders. D. made irrigation possible.
13. The Sumerians responded to their environment by
A. achieving rapid political unification. B. developing a pessimistic view of life.
C. appreciating the value of floods. D. developing an appreciation of nature.
20. Akhenaten was interested in fostering
A. military expansion. B. worship of Aton.
C. agricultural improvements. D. a return to traditional values.
3. The most brutal and militaristic of all the Near Eastern cultures was that of the
A. Persians. B. Assyrians C. Phoenicians D. Hebrews
5. The Zoroastrian religion stressed which of the following?
A. The rejection of individual free will B. The constant battle between evil and good
C. The impossibility of eternal life D. The absence of a Last Judgment
10. Zoroastrianism was adopted by
A. the early Hebrews. B. the Egyptians.
C. Darius, the Persian king. D. most of the Mediterranean world.
17. As rulers of conquered territory and peoples, the Persians preferred to rely on
A. diplomacy. B. brutal repression.
forced assimilation of Persian ways. D. democratic strategies.
18. The Phoenicians are best known as
A. great militarists. B. prosperous urban merchants and sea traders.
C. religious innovators. D. rulers of the entire Near East after the fall of Persia.
22. Monotheism means
A. adherence to the Ten Commandments. B. the worship of nature.
C. marriage within one's race. D. worship of one god alone.
23. During the sixth century B.C., Persian religion was given new life by the religious
Thinking of
A. Ahuramazda. B. Mithra. C. Zarathustra. D. Ahriman.
24. The Hebrew god was known as
A. Moses. B. Solomon. C. Yahweh. D. Zoroaster.
25. Persia’s geographical position and topography explain its
A. isolation from its neighbors. B. role as the highway between East and West.
C. absence of any urban culture. D. failure to attract peoples migrating from elsewhere
1. The early Indus civilization developed writing
A. connected to Sumerian but remains B. similar to cuneiform.
undeciphered today.
C. related to Chinese pictographs. D. that was phonetic in character.
2. The Harappan civilization declined because of
A. Aryan overthrow. B. absence of strong cities.
C. unknown internal problems. D. outside invasion.
5. In India, the untouchables were
A. foreigners. B. heretics.
C. the lowest caste. D. a blanket term for lepers, criminals, and other pariahs.
8. The Eightfold Path is
A. the place caravan routes converged in Mesopotamia.
B. Buddha's code of conduct.
C. the Hindu version of the Ten Commandments.
D. a series of garden paths in Emperor Ch'in's palace.
9. Buddha's Four Noble Truths teach that
A. pain and suffering in human life stem from greed and selfishness.
B. it is possible to understand human frailties and to triumph over them.
C. both a and b.
D. none of the above.
14. The Persian conquest affected India in that it
A. depressed economic growth.
B. brought a large Persian population into India.
C. isolated India from world affairs.
D. introduced many new ideas into India.
16. The Indian ruler who embraced and tried to spread Buddhism was
A. Chandragupta. B. Gautama. C. Ashoka. D. Kautilya.
17. The Indo-European invaders of India who established a new civilization based, in
part, on a caste system and a religion presided over by Brahmans were
A. the Persians. B. the Mauryans C. the Upanishads. D. the Aryans.
19. For this religious person, farming was impossible, wearing clothing was to be avoided, and eating meat was wrong.
A. a Christian. B. a Hindu. C. a Jainist. D. a Buddhist.
8. The system of thought that centered on the need to find a balance between feminine
and masculine, yielding and assertive, weak and strong, is known as
A. Confucianism. B. Legalism. C. Mozi. D. Yin and Yang.
9. The rulers of China who set up a system of decentralized, feudal governmental
Structure was the
A. Di. B. Zhou. C. Mencius. D. Shang.
10. The Chinese Yangzi river valley is best suited for
A. silk production. B. rice production C. wheat production. D. desert/grasslands
12. The Chinese form of script writing based on a single symbol for each word is called
A. Logographic. B. Shi. C. Shang. D. Confucian.
13. Overall, it is believed that the Chinese writing system that evolved in the Shang
period
A. was copied from the Japanese.
B. made literacy available to virtually everyone.
C. allowed for communication among a wide range of people.
D. did little to promote education and scholarship.
The Book of Documents assumes a close relationship between Heaven and the king,
Who was called
A. Di. B. Laozi. C. the Son of Heaven. D. Duke of Zhou.
18. The Zhou solution to ruling a huge territory was to
A. eliminate the trend toward hereditary fiefs.
B. destroy the power of the regional lods
create a highly centralized state
D. create a decentralized, feudal system.
23. Confucius' main goal was to
A. spread the teachings of Mozi.
B. see China reject the idea of people accepting the parts assigned to them.
C. serve as an advisor and moral philosopher to a ruler.
D. help Chinese people regard the state and not the family as the basic unit of
society
24. Daoism was based on the belief that
A. the natural order of life is the immaterial and indescribable.
B. government could be made to work well for all.
C. human beings were at the center of the cosmos.
D. an assertive and activist life is the best.
1. The two major rivers of China proper are the
A. Yellow and the Yangzi. B. Indus and Ravi.
C. Ganges and Xi. D. Salween and Mekong.
3. Overall, the Romans' greatest achievements were in the field of
A. empire building. B. agriculture. C. the arts. D. literature
.
4. Rome succeeded where Greece had failed because it
A. conquered peoples and let them govern themselves.
B. always lived peacefully with its neighbors.
C. always peacefully incorporated peoples into the Roman system.
D. conquered peoples and incorporated them into the Roman system.
11. During the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian leader who attempted to conquer
Rome was
A. Philip of Carthage. B. Hannibal. C. Alexander. D. Menenius Agrippa.
12. Most ordinary Roman women
A. had little influence in family affairs.
B. spent most of their time performing religious rituals.
C. had considerable influence and responsibility in the family economy.
D. exercised total control of their children's upbringing.
14. Direct contact between the West and China was advanced when the Chinese Han
emperor
A. visited Greece.
B. opened the Silk Road to the West.
C. closed Iran to the West.
D. destroyed the Stone Tower in what is now modern Afghanistan.
15. The government that developed under Augustus is best described as a
A. dictatorship. B. constitutional monarchy. C. republic. D. democracy.
16. The man most responsible for the spread of Christianity to non-Jews was
A. Emperor Diocletian. B. St. Peter. C. Livy. D. Paul of Tarsus.
21. Many people in the Roman era were attracted to Christianity because
A. Christianity didn't discriminate by class or sex.
B. Christianity did not share any of the features of mystery religions.
C. Christianity was passive.
D. Christianity would not have anything to do with the worldly and the sinner.
22. Before Constantine legalized Christianity, the Romans demanded that the Christians
A. worship the Roman gods. B. observe the ritual of sacrifice to the gods.
deny Christ as a god D. go back to their Jewish beliefs.
2. SKIP A comparison of Western and Eastern worlds shows that
A. The Rule of Benedict was accepted by all.
B. only the Eastern monasteries were interested in establishing schools.
C. Eastern monasteries regarded missionary work as their primary function.
D. The Eastern monasteries each adopted its own rules rather than adopting a universal rule.
9. In the course of the sixth through the eighth centuries the Germanic peoples of Europe slowly adapted to the attitudes and patterns of behavior of
A. Byzantine society. B. pagan Roman society only.
C. British society. D. Greco-Roman and Christian society.
19. Benedictine monasticism replaced other forms of early Christian monasticism largely because
A. of its moderation, flexibility, and balanced life.
B. the emperors encouraged it.
C. Benedictine monks were clever.
D. Europeans were especially suited to the eremitical life.
21. The CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS was
A. snippets of the works of Herodotus, Procopius, and Aristotle.
B. Russian, Roman, and Greek laws.
C. Roman law and Greek practices.
the body of civil law of Justinian.