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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Diamond argues that China is which of the following?
(a) Less populous than Australia
(b) More diverse than we tend to think
(c) Racially inferior to Europeans
(d) Very homogeneous

2. Where did writing develop?
(a) Mesopotamia
(b) Europe
(c) Australia
(d) China

3. Which societies were the most advantaged in Polynesia?
(a) Those that could hunt large mammals
(b) Those with wild plants that could be domesticated
(c) Those with large, native domesticated animals
(d) Those with natural immunity to smallpox

4. Why is food production important for inventions?
(a) It allowed people to be nomadic and spread inventions.
(b) People had the energy to create.
(c) It allows for a sedentary life.
(d) People did not get diseases which stopped inventions.

5. What was the biggest difference between the histories of Old World Europe and the New World Americas?
(a) More intelligent people
(b) Sparser populations
(c) Denser populations
(d) The domestication of large mammals

6. Recent research shows that crops from Mexico spread into eastern North America via an indirect route through where?
(a) Peru
(b) The southwest
(c) Canada
(d) Australia

7. How many large mammals in Africa were suited to domestication?
(a) 10
(b) 5
(c) 0
(d) 2

8. What is necessary for a disease to become an epidemic?
(a) A hunter-gatherer society
(b) A small population
(c) A large, sedentary population
(d) Bad sanitation

9. Once something is invented, what must happen?
(a) The inventor must keep people from copying the invention.
(b) The inventor must convince society to make use of it.
(c) The inventor must patent the invention.
(d) The inventor must keep people away from the invention.

10. Archeological evidence links what early culture with later Pacific island cultures?
(a) Japan
(b) Cherokee
(c) Taiwan
(d) Indian

11. What gave Europeans an advantage in information about the groups they encountered?
(a) Writing
(b) Spies in other countries
(c) Speaking many different languages
(d) Domesticated mammals

12. Australia was once joined together what what other land mass?
(a) Greenland
(b) Cuba
(c) New Guinea
(d) England

13. The Americas have what type of axis?
(a) North-South
(b) East-West
(c) Northwest-Southeast
(d) Northeast-Southwest

14. How do inventions spread?
(a) Societies are forced to use an invention.
(b) Societies see an invention and adopt it.
(c) Inventions don't typically spread.
(d) Through gift-giving practices

15. Where does Diamond believe that more research needs to be done?
(a) How intelligence differences influence development
(b) How racial differences influence development
(c) How cultural differences influence development
(d) How biological differences influence development

Short Answer Questions

1. Diamond suggests that inventions occur because of what?

2. Africa is home to how many major human groups?

3. China has how many "big" languages?

4. Chiefdoms disappeared in which century?

5. Who introduced pottery, chickens, dogs, and pigs to New Guinea?

(see the answer keys)

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