Exam: 007679RR – THE AXIAL AGES AND FITFUL TRANSITIONS

Exam: 007679RR – THE AXIAL AGES AND FITFUL TRANSITIONS
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Questions 1 to 20: Select the best answer to each question. Note that a question and its answers may be split across a page
break, so be sure that you have seen the entire question and all the answers before choosing an answer.
1. Which of the following were major items of trade in the West African states of Ghana and Gao?
A. Bananas and copper
B. Coffee and sugar
C. Gold and salt
D. Cacao beans and slaves
2. The Chinese philosopher Xunzi wrote that if a person attempted to cure rheumatism by beating a drum
and sacrificing a pig to the gods, then the
A. drum would be worn out, and the pig would be gone.
B. rheumatism wouldn’t get better because proper therapy required playing a flute and sacrificing a chicken.
C. rheumatism would be cured.
D. rheumatism would get better, but the person wouldn’t be happy.
3. After its conquest by Alexander the Great, the government of the Persian Empire
A. was ruled by a traditional Macedonian monarchy.
B. became a democracy.
C. was maintained more or less intact.
D. was transformed into a democratic monarchy.
4. In the Rome of Marcus Aurelius, a recurrent formula for saving the state from crisis involved
A. enlisting the aid of Persian allies.
B. politicizing the military.
C. paying tributes to Germanic peoples in Europe.
D. dividing the government and delegating authority.
5. The Emperor Charlemagne spread Christianity among the Saxons by
A. giving pagans a choice of conversion or death.
B. imposing taxes on those who didn’t convert.
C. excluding pagans from trade and commerce.
D. by way of exemplary faith that set an example.
6. In the development of the Roman Empire, the Romans treated citizenship as
A. something to be shared with conquered people.
B. a benefit worthy only of peoples who had freely joined them.
C. meaningless because the Roman Empire was tyrannical.
D. belonging only to native Romans.
7. Confucius believed that human beings are essentially
A. evil.
B. gods.
C. good.
D. sinful.
8. What geographic feature at times made life difficult for the Moche of South America?
A. Desert
B. Unpredictable rivers
C. Mountains
D. Lack of access to the sea
9. Which of the following was a Chinese school of thought during the fourth century B.C.E. that
denounced ethics in favor of obedience?
A. Buddhism
B. Confucianism
C. Daoism
D. Legalism
10. The animating principles of Benedict’s rules for monks are the quest for salvation and
A. the subordination of willfulness.
B. knowledge obtained solely through communion with God.
C. the application of personal resistance to God’s work.
D. extremes of self-mortification.
11. What group colonized many small islands in the Pacific Ocean?
A. Polynesians
B. Chinese
C. Koreans
D. Japanese
12. _______ was the first thinker to postulate that numbers are real, not abstractions.
A. Parmenides
B. Aristotle
C. Pythagoras
D. Hui Shih
13. What did Islamists spread throughout the Old World starting in the eighth century?
A. Democracy
B. Disease
C. Metals used to make new weapons
D. New crops
14. Which of the following did the Mayans consider to be worthy of recording?
A. Trade records
B. Ceremonial rituals
C. The laws of their society
D. Information about everyday life
15. With the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, the emperor
A. stopped using images of pagan gods.
B. was no longer worshipped as a god.
C. ended pagan rituals and ceremonies.
D. was called God’s deputy on Earth.
16. A staple food transplanted from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean world as a result of the Islamic
Empire was
A. wheat.
B. potatoes.
C. yams.
D. rice.
17. In the sixth century, kingdoms in India were
A. adopting Buddhism as their official religion.
B. developing traditions that would become Hinduism.
C. adopting Islam as their official religion.
D. undergoing successive waves of conversions to Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam.
18. What strategy did Buddhist and Christian missionaries employ to spread their faith that Muslims didn’t?
A. Conversion of kings and other elite figures
B. Conversion of merchants
C. Forceful conversion of others
D. Use of artifacts
19. How did Alfred the Great secure his modern reputation as a state-builder?
A. He encouraged trade through tax incentives to merchants and businessmen.
B. He gave free land and tax breaks to peasants.
C. He was lavishly generous to monks.
D. He forced people to live in militarized colonies.
End of exam
20. Which of the following is not one of the new thoughts of or about God that were formulated in the
Axial Age?
A. Many Gods
B. Involved God
C. Divine God
D. Single God