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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Independent food production began in how many places?
(a) A few
(b) Only one
(c) Many places
(d) Only one place on each continent

2. What is true about the greater Polynesian area?
(a) It is very diverse.
(b) The societies are all warrior societies.
(c) The groups had no contact with each other.
(d) The islands are all large.

3. People often assume that there are what type of differences between people living on different continents?
(a) Biological
(b) Imaginative
(c) Monetary
(d) Historical

4. At 11,000 B.C., which continent was most likely to develop quickly?
(a) Any of them could have developed most quickly
(b) Asia
(c) Africa
(d) North America

5. Germs from what produced epidemics in Native American and Australian societies?
(a) Domesticated animals
(b) Contaminated water
(c) Dirt
(d) Air-born organisms

Short Answer Questions

1. What is one explanation that Diamond gives for why food production didn't begin earlier in some ecologically better areas?

2. Domesticated animals need to have what type of disposition?

3. What animal was domesticated in southwest Asia?

4. Why was the first occupation of Australia important?

5. Which of these areas does not have a climate similar to the Fertile Crescent?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happened in the encounter between the Incas and the Spanish?

2. Why did infectious diseases give some groups an advantage over others?

3. What is Diamond's objective in studying the societies of Polynesia?

4. How does food production relate to a greater population?

5. Why did Eurasia have an advantage in the domestication of animals?

6. Why did Australia not develop writing or complex societies as early as other groups, according to Diamond?

7. Why is the axis of a continent important?

8. How do inventions spread between societies?

9. How did the ability to use domesticated plants and animals differentiate the Polynesian societies?

10. Why were Europeans able to conquer Africans according to Diamond?

(see the answer keys)

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