Download First Semester Exam Review (Please study the

First Semester Exam Review (Please study the following information from the first semester carefully in order to be prepared
for your final exam.) Turn in all answers on your exam day and receive 10 points on the semester exam. All answers must be
numbered and complete on notebook paper in order to receive credit.
Buddhism
1. Know the differences between Buddhism and Hinduism
2. Describe how Buddhism spread throughout Southeast Asia during the Gupta Dynasty.
Islam
1. What is Sharia law? Why did it facilitate the spread of Islam
2. What are the five pillars of Islam?
3. What are the restrictions on art imposed by Islamic beliefs?
4. Describe the advantages of the Arabian Peninsula for the cultures there.
5. Explain how the Bedouin earned their living in the Arabian Peninsula.
6. Describe how social relations are arranged amongst Arab tribes.
7. What is the importance of religious shrines to Arab society?
8. Define Caliph.
9. Why was the Battle of Tours important?
10. How did the Muslims maintain such a vast empire peacefully?
11. Describe how the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates rose.
12. Define Sunni.
13. List the four classes of Muslim society.
Confucianism
1. What is the role of the Confucian scholars in Chinese politics and society? What is their main goal?
Christianity
1. Describe Christianities reaction to other religions during the post-Classical period.
2. List the reasons Christianity spread so rapidly in the Roman Empire.
3. What caused the division of the Christian church in 1054?
4. What was the greatest threat to the Byzantine Empire throughout its history?
Neolithic Revolution and the Four River Valley Civilizations Period
1. What is the definition of the Neolithic Revolution?
2. What changed from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic periods?
3. What are the names of and location of each of the River Valley Civilizations?
4. What led to the fall of the Great River Valley Civilizations?
5. What was the state of technology during the River Valley Civilizations? Was it increasing rapidly or declining?
6. What kinds of new technologies arose during the River Valley Civilizations period?
7. What were the two major human social groups (types of human societies) that were competing during the Great River Valley
period?
8. Where did sedentary agriculture first begin? Was this the only place it began or did it develop independently in other parts of the
world?
9. What were the roles of the city during the early civilizations?
10. Describe the religions of the early River Valley civilizations?
11. Define patriarchy and matriarchy.
12. What was the role of kings in all of these early River Valley Civilizations?
13. Chart the order of metal development for bronze, copper, iron, and steel.
India
1. Why is it so difficult to interpret the nature of the Harrappan society that developed during this period?
2. Describe the Aryan invaders of India and their reaction to the Harrappan society they conquered.
3. List the Indian caste in order from highest to lowest.
4. How did the Hindu caste system react to foreign invaders?
5. List the scientific and mathematical achievements of the Gupta Dynasty.
China
1. What is the Mandate of Heaven?
2. List the Chinese dynasties in order from the Shang to the Han.
3. Why did Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism develop in China?
4. Describe the role of social relationships in Confucianism. What are the five key relationships?
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5. What political changes took place in China at the end of the Han dynasty?
6. What was the Tang examination system based upon?
7. Why was the Empress Wu Zhao unique in Chinese history?
Egypt
1. Describe the important pharaohs that rose up during the Great River Valley civilizations.
Mesopotamia
1. Describe the role of the Fertile Crescent in trade during this period.
2. What are the names of some of the major city-states in ancient Sumer?
3. What did Sargon of Akkad do?
Greece
1. What role did geography play in the development of Greek city-states?
2. Describe Athenian democracy. Who was allowed to participate?
3. What was the major result of Alexander the Great's conquest in Asia?
4. Describe Greek religious beliefs.
5. Describe Greek philosophy. What was it based upon?
Rome
1. Which culture did Rome borrow most heavily from?
2. What was the social status of merchants in all of the Classical civilizations?
3. What was the Roman view towards other religions (except Christianity)?
Classical Period
1. What role did religions take on at the end of the Classical Period?
1.
List the ways in which classical civilizations differed from river valley civilizations:
2.
Define patriarchy and patriarchal society:
3.
As compared with Paleolithic and Neolithic societies, the agriculture of civilizations changed man’s physical
environment.
4.
The period of the Neolithic Revolutions and river valley civilizations ended when various civilizations first established
contacts between the regions.
5.
The first truly revolutionary transformation of human society was the Agricultural Revolution.
6.
In most ancient and classical civilizations and societies, priests developed considerable social power and influence
because they interpreted the gods’ wishes and placated the deities.
7.
Periodic nomadic invasions in the early history of Eurasia caused disruptions, but facilitated innovations and
prompted synthesis.
8.
Unlike Sumer and Egypt, the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization had a system of writing that has never been
translated.
9.
Compared with river valley cultures in Egypt and Mesopotamia, civilization in China probably developed after
civilizations in the Nile Valley and Southwest Asia.
10. Historically, pastoral nomads lived on the grassy plains of the continents, where sedentary agriculture was extremely
difficult.
11. Contacts between sedentary and nomad peoples resulted in trade, tribute payments by weak sedentary societies to
stronger nomadic groups, raids and warfare between both groups, and nomads serving as mercenaries to some
sedentary societies. Pastoral nomads from the Central Asian steppe who had threatened sedentary civilizations
throughout world history include the Indo-Europeans, Hsiung-nu (Huns), Scythians, and Turks.
12. In comparison to women in sedentary societies, women in nomadic, pastoral societies belonged to paternalistic
societies as strong as any sedentary societies.
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13. The requirements for a new period in world history to begin are:
a. The world map must change
significantly.
b. New types of contacts between civilized regions must develop.
c. New patterns and parallel institutional developments will occur.
d. New technologies may arise.
14. The major impact of Alexander the Great’s conquests was the spread of Greek culture throughout the Eastern
Mediterranean, Southwest Asia, and into India. This is called Hellenism.
15. In comparison to the Hindus, Persians, and Jews, religiously, the Greeks never developed a major religion.
16. Much of what is called classical Greek and Chinese philosophy traced its origins to the cultural crisis and intellectual
uncertainty that followed prolonged periods of war.
17. Classical China and the post-classical Muslim world are similar in that unity and cultural identity were provided by
commonalities of the spoken or written language.
18. Rural population pressures in classical societies such as China, India, and Rome were avoided by infanticide, high
death rates, and selling children into slavery.
19. Despite their material success and increased wealth, in China and Rome merchants often ranked below peasants and
had little societal influence. Classical civilizations in Rome, Greece, China, and India were ambivalent towards
merchants despite their vital roles in commerce.
20. Unlike Qin legalist philosophy, Roman Imperial law rested heavily on toleration and local autonomy.
21. When looking at Roman and Chinese gender relations it is clear that while subordinate to men, Roman women were
considerably freer and less oppressed than were their Chinese counterparts. Women in most Classical Age societies at
all class levels were legally subordinated to fathers and husbands.
22. Far more than classical Greece, India, or China, slavery in Rome dominated the labor markets – Rome became
dependant on slavery. Although they varied greatly in wealth and social status in the classical world the commoners,
especially the peasants, remained the largest group.
23. Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, as well as Buddhism originated as responses to societal problems during times
of disruption.
24. The major difference between Buddhism and Hinduism was that Buddhism denied the need for castes, rites, and
sacrifice to achieve nirvana.
25. In contrast to Mahayana Buddhism, as Christianity evolved and spread, it was intolerant of other faiths.
26. As had Hammurabi’s Code (Mesopotamia), Justinian’s Code (Byzantine) became the basic unified law code for states,
which existed after its original creator. Within the Byzantine state, as had been the case with government in most of
the dynasties of China, the chief power and influence was emperors and their trained bureaucrats. Unlike monarchs
in Western Europe, but like the caliphs, the Byzantine emperor headed both church and state; there was no
separation of power.
27. At the end of the Classical Age there was a religious upsurge as a result of social and economic problems. In
comparison with the end of classical civilizations in china and India, the collapse of the Roman Empire was more
severe and extensive.
28. The Post-classical age is characterized by these developments:
a. Expanding influence of the Arabs and
Islam.
b. Spread of civilization to new regions such as West Africa and Southeast Asia.
c. Widespread shift in basic belief systems such as Christianity and Islam. d. Development of a world network for
trade, ideas, and diseases.
29. Besides the Italian city-states, the geographic region or state in West Europe most supportive of change at the end of
the post-classical era was the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). The major barrier to West European expansion
prior to the 15th century C.E. was the low level of European technology.
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30. The leading civilization during the Post-classical Era (450 – 1450 C.E.) was Islam. One of the strengths of Islam that
made it a successful universalizing faith similar to Christianity and Buddhism was its egalitarianism that transcended
previous loyalties, ethnicities, or allegiances. The Pillar of Islam that helped create the first trans-regional civilization
was the pilgrimage by the faithful to Mecca. Initially, Islam, with regard to women and gender roles greatly
strengthened the position of women. Unlike merchants in classical civilizations, Muslim traders acquired great wealth
and were protected and encouraged by Muslim states.
31. Mameluks were Turkish-speaking slave armies used by Muslims. The Seljuks settled in the lands of modern Turkey
and became the Abbasids’ protector.
32. The impact of the Crusades was minimal to the Islamic civilization. It was greater on the Europeans because it
brought Europe into contact with Muslim civilizations and their accomplishments. Contacts between Hindus and
Muslims led to the absorption by the Muslims of many Hindu social practices. Prior to the 15 th century C.E., Islam
was spread through West and East Africa as well as Southeast Asia by merchants who established Muslim families
and traditions. The slave trade from West Africa to the Muslim world preferred male slaves for administration and
military occupations.
33. Neo-Confucianism emphasized tradition, authority, and harmony at the expense of innovation. Both foot binding in
China and the harem and veil in Islam symbolized the increasing subordination of women to men.
34. Tang military expansion into central Asia promoted renewed commercial contacts between China and west Asia. The
group that most directly challenged Chinese influences in Japan and Vietnam during the Post-Classical era was
aristocrats and local provincial administrators. The typical pattern for relations between China and its neighbors
during the post-Classical period was for states to acknowledge Chinese superiority, pay tribute, but remain
independent. The Ming Chinese naval expeditions of the early 15 th century C.E. ended because they challenged
Confucian values and typical expenditures.
35. When scholars began to study Greek classics, most early West European intellectuals and scholastics, like their
Muslim counterparts found the Greek notion of reason troubling because it questions faith.
36. In order to counterbalance feudalism and its tendency to decentralize ruling power, and in order to maintain their
influence, leaders in Japan, China, and Western Europe created strong national armies capable of suppressing
aristocratic independence. Peasants in Zhou China, serfs in Medieval Europe, and slaves in Aryan India were
burdened by obligations to the rulers and local nobles.
37. Manorialism in Medieval Europe was characterized by all of these conditions:
A. Most peasants were serfs
B. Peasants were obligated to give their lord a portion of their produce
C. The lords protected the peasants D. Levels of production and technology were low and limited European serfs
differed from slaves in that they could not be bought or sold, and owned some of the land they farmed.
The events that led to the weakening or end of Medieval West European institutions were:
a. The Bubonic Plague
b. Political and theological attacks on the Roman Catholic Church
c. The rise of national monarchies.
d. The rise of non-aristocratic armies loyal to national monarchs
38. Although the Mongols were often brutal, they were tolerant of religious differences and supportive of trade. the
greatest long-term demographic impact of the Mongol unification of much of Central Eurasia was the spread of the
Black Death from China to Europe and the Muslim world. The transformation that most immediately weakened the
power and influence of pastoral nomads over sedentary civilization was due to newer technologies, especially
weapons, used by sedentary civilizations.
39. As happened in the Fertile Crescent, India, and China, the fall of civilizations in the Americas was often due to
migrating nomadic invaders. Although the Maya developed similarly to other civilizations, they never developed
complex religions.
40. When the Bantu migrated across Africa, they spread agriculture, crops, and iron technologies. Unlike the Americans,
sub-Saharan Africa was never totally isolated from other civilizations. Sub-Saharan African societies are similar to
Latin American Indian societies in that both are so numerous that it is impossible to generalize about them.
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