1. Which of the following was the greatest of the Third-Wave
civilizations, having a massive impact with ripple effects across Afro-Eurasia?
a. India
b. China
c. The Abbasid
Caliphate
d. Indonesia
The answer is b. China was massive and powerful, creating a
“world order” that included most of eastern Asia and sending ripple effects
across the Afro-Eurasian world.
2. This dynasty reunified China in 589 C.E. after centuries
of political fragmentation.
a. Tang
b. Song
c. Han
d. Sui
The answer is d. The Sui dynasty (589–618) reunited China
after it had been politically fragmented for over three centuries.
3. What era of history is known as the Chinese golden age of
arts and literature?
a. The Han dynasty
b. The Qin dynasty
c. The Tang and Song
dynasties
d. The Yuan dynasty
The answer is c. The period of the Tang and Song dynasties
(618–1279) was a golden age for both art and literature in China.
4. By 1200 C.E., which state was the most urbanized in the
world?
a. China
b. Japan
c. Korea
d. Vietnam
The answer is a. China was the most urbanized country in the
world, containing dozens of cities with populations over 100,000.
5. Which statement best describes the economy of Tang and
Song China?
a. The Chinese
economy was stagnant in this period, failing to keep pace with population
growth.
b. The Chinese
economy was thrown into disarray by the growth of cities, since all economic
resources had to be focused on providing food to urban dwellers.
c. China’s internal
economy flourished in the period but had little trade with the world beyond
China.
d. The Chinese economy
was the world’s largest.
The answer is d. China had a dense economic web that
included both a lively import/export trade and a vast system of internal trade
along internal waterways.
6. Which of the following countries produced the world’s
first printed books?
a. Vietnam
b. China
c. Japan
d. Korea
The answer is b. The Chinese invented both woodblock and
movable type printing, creating the world’s first printed books.
7. Which of the following statements best describes women in
Song China?
a. Women enjoyed
greater freedom, as foreign influences spread among the Chinese population.
b. Women enjoyed
about the same economic and social position that they had always experienced in
China.
c. Women moved to
positions of economic centrality with increasing trade, greatly increasing
their economic value and thus their status.
d. Patriarchal
restrictions on women tightened in this period.
The answer is d. As China reacted against foreign influence,
a revived Confucianism reinforced patriarchy in the Song dynasty.
8. Which of the following statements best describes the
relationship between China and the northern nomads in the period 500–1300?
a. The nomads were
parasites on China, desperately needing Chinese products while giving little in
return.
b. Each society
needed the products of the other.
c. The Chinese were
parasites on the nomads, desperately needing nomadic products like horses,
skins, and furs while giving little in return.
d. The only
relationship between China and the northern nomads was adversarial, each side
raiding the other whenever opportunity allowed.
The answer is b. Northern nomads traded with China for grain
and other products, while the Chinese craved the nomads’ horses, furs, amber,
and other products.
9. How did the Chinese tribute system work?
a. Chinese emperors
demanded ritual submission from foreigners, in return granting trade privileges
and gifts that were frequently worth more than the foreigners paid in tribute.
b. China imposed
annual payments on territories it conquered.
c. The Chinese
government paid annual subsides to Chinese nobles in return for their peaceful
cooperation.
d. Nomadic raiders
imposed annual payments on China in return for the promise not to attack again.
The answer is a. The Chinese government was usually happy to
deal with anyone who would acknowledge China’s superiority with ritual
submission and token tribute.
10. Which is the correct definition of Xiongnu?
a. A Chinese stringed
musical instrument, popularized during the Song era
b. A foreign resident
given a license to trade in China
c. The Chinese
practice of footbinding
d. An early nomadic
confederacy that was a serious threat to China
The answer is d. The Xiongnu confederacy was established in
c. 200 B.C.E. Devastating Xiongnu raids into northern China forced the emperor
to recognize the nomadic state as a political equal.
11. What is the significance of the Jin or Jurchen peoples?
a. They were an urban
underclass in Chinese cities that frequently threatened rebellion.
b. They were nomadic
peoples who established a state that included much of the steppes as well as
parts of northern China.
c. They established
the first state in Vietnam.
d. They established a
vital trade link between China and Japan.
The answer is b. The nomadic Jurchen ruled parts of China in
the period 1115–1234.
12. Which of the following statements best describes Chinese
influence on the peoples of the steppes?
a. The steppe
peoples, attracted to Chinese sophistication, adopted Chinese culture on a
large scale.
b. The steppe peoples
adopted agriculture, but not other elements of Chinese culture.
c. The steppe peoples
kept their own culture.
d. The steppe peoples
adopted the Chinese language without giving up their own cultural traditions.
The answer is c. Unless they settled in Chinese territory,
the steppe peoples accepted relatively little cultural influence from China.
13. Which period of Chinese history saw a great love for the
“western barbarians,” including the adoption of new religions, fashions, and
art?
a. The Tang dynasty
b. The Qin dynasty
c. The Song dynasty
d. The Sui dynasty
The answer is a. The Tang dynasty of the seventh and eighth
centuries saw a vast introduction of cultural elements from the “western
barbarians,” including religions, fashions, and art.
14. The Silla kingdom brought political unity for the first
time to which country in the seventh century C.E.?
a. Angkor
b. Japan
c. Korea
d. Vietnam
The answer is c. The Silla kingdom brought some political
unity to the Korean Peninsula for the first time, thanks to an alliance with
Tang-dynasty China.
15. Which of the following statements best describes
relations between China and Korea in the period 500–1300?
a. China gradually
penetrated Korea, popularizing Chinese culture before turning to conquest.
b. China engaged in
trade with Korea but made no effort to dominate the region except culturally.
c. Korean elites felt
deep resentment at Chinese efforts to dominate their country, thus limiting
cultural penetration.
d. At first the
Chinese attempted conquest, but soon withdrew their military forces in favor of
a tributary relationship with independent Korea.
The answer is d. Korean resistance soon convinced the
Chinese that it was not in their interest to rule Korea directly, so they
settled for a tributary relationship with independent Korea.
16. In which cultural area did Chinese influence in Korea
extend beyond the elite to the main populace?
a. Language
b. Art
c. Confucianism
d. Buddhism
The answer is d. Buddhism in its Chinese form became very
popular among the general populace of Korea.
17. This state was ruled by China for over a thousand years.
a. Tibet
b. Vietnam
c. Korea
d. Siam
The answer is b. China ruled Vietnam from 111 B.C.E. to 939
C.E.
18. Popular religion in which country included female nature
deities and a “female Buddha,” usually taken as evidence of women’s higher
status in the region?
a. Vietnam
b. Kitan
c. Japan
d. Korea
The answer is a. Popular religion included female nature
deities and a female Buddha; many other elements of Vietnamese culture show the
relatively high status of women.
19. Japan’s deep borrowing from China occurred
a. because the
Japanese were under military threat.
b. thanks to
intensive Chinese missionary activity.
c. voluntarily.
d. because Chinese
forces occupied Japan.
The answer is c. Japan was secure from China, and its
extensive cultural borrowings from Chinese civilization were completely
voluntary.
20. Why is Shotoku Taishi important to world history?
a. He was the founder
of Korea’s Silla dynasty.
b. He was the leader
of the great rebellion that drove China out of Vietnam.
c. He was a major
Japanese poet.
d. He was the first
leader of the effort to turn Japan into a centralized bureaucratic state.
The answer is d. Shotoku (572–622) created the image of the
Japanese ruler as a Chinese-style emperor and sent hundreds of Japanese
students and scholars to China to learn bureaucratic and cultural procedures
that they could then institute back home.
21. What is the name of the Japanese document that proclaims
the Japanese ruler as a Chinese-style emperor and encourages both Buddhism and
Confucianism?
a. The Seventeen
Article Constitution
b. The Articles of
Confederacy
c. The Laws of Manu
d. The Twelve Tablets
The answer is a. Shotoku Taishi produced the Seventeen
Article Constitution in the early seventh century, proclaiming the Japanese
ruler as an emperor in the Chinese style and incorporating both Buddhism and
Confucianism.
22. What is bushido?
a. A sophisticated
form of Japanese court poetry that developed c. 1000 C.E.
b. A Vietnamese
musical instrument
c. The ethic of the
samurai warrior class
d. A Korean national
food
The answer is c. Literally meaning “the way of the warrior,”
bushido is the code of proper conduct for a samurai, focusing on martial arts,
bravery, and loyalty.
23. Murasaki Shikibu’s great novel of c. 1000 C.E., which
describes Japanese court life, is called
a. Pillow Book
b. Dream of the Red
Chamber
c. Ramayana
d. The Tale of Genji
The answer is d. The Tale of Genji, by the court lady Murasaki
Shikibu, provides a firsthand look at the intrigues and romances of life at the
Japanese court in c. 1000 C.E.
24. Which of the following statements best describes the
Japanese belief system later known as Shinto?
a. Beliefs and
practice focused on sacred spirits associated with human ancestors and natural
phenomena
b. The popular form
of Buddhism that developed in Japan
c. The popular form
of Confucianism that developed in Japan
d. The popular form
of Daoism that developed in Japan
The answer is a. Central to Shinto is belief in the kami,
sacred spirits who can be either human ancestors or natural phenomena.
25. What is the most important factor that made Japanese
women begin to lose status in the twelfth century and later?
a. The spread of
Confucian values among the Japanese elite
b. The rise of
samurai culture that emphasized warrior virtues and relationships between
warriors and their lords
c. A series of
conquests that led to the import of large numbers of female slaves, who
competed with free Japanese women for the available men
d. Population
pressures that made the Japanese limit family size, thus reducing the role of
Japanese women as mothers of families
The answer is b. Samurai culture tended to reduce women’s
influence, as marriage alliances became less important.
26. Buddhism heavily influenced the development of which of
these technologies?
a. Silk manufacture
b. Windmills
c. Metallurgy
d. Printing
The answer is d. Buddhism holds that reproducing sacred
texts conveys religious merit, so Buddhists strongly encouraged the development
of printing.
27. What caused the Chinese to develop the frontier region
south of the Yangzi River?
a. Large-scale
migration away from the northern border to escape nomadic incursions
b. Introduction of a
new, drought-resistant strain of rice from Vietnam
c. Settlement that
became so heavy in more northerly China that it could not support any further
population increase
d. A change in world
weather patterns that made agriculture in the area south of the Yangzi possible
for the first time
The answer is b. China adopted new, fast-ripening, and
drought-resistant strains of rice from Vietnam in c. 1000 C.E.
28. What was the world’s first printed book?
a. The Bible
b. The Analects of
Confucius
c. The Diamond Sutra
d. The Tale of Genji
The answer is c. The Buddhist text known as the Diamond
Sutra was the world’s first printed book, produced in 868 C.E.
29. What was the only large-scale cultural borrowing in
Chinese history before Marxism in the twentieth century?
a. Writing
b. Daoism
c. Buddhism
d. Civil service
examination system
The answer is c. Buddhism was China’s only large-scale
cultural borrowing before the twentieth century.
30. This branch of Buddhism emphasizes salvation by faith
without study or intensive meditation; it became very popular in China.
a. Theravada
b. Mahayana
c. Lotus Sutra
d. Pure Land
The answer is d. The Pure Land school of Buddhism involves
faithful repetition of the name of Amitabha Buddha, regarding that as
sufficient to ensure rebirth in a heavenly realm.
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