View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a factor that influenced a group to adopt agriculture?

2. How does Diamond feel about the traditional theories of human development?

3. Studies have failed to show differences in what among people on different continents?

4. What is Diamond's primary question in Chapter 7?

5. Which of the following was not a domesticated animal?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why did plant domestication and food production did not develop earlier in some of the ecologically better areas?

3. Why are the societies of Asia and the Pacific important according to Diamond?

4. Why was a north-south axis a disadvantage in the domestication of plants?

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

6. What was the development of humans like before the Great Leap Forward?

7. What is one new piece of information that has come to light since Diamond's work was first published?

8. Why does Diamond think inventions occur?

9. Why does Diamond argue that wealth and power are distributed unevenly across the globe?

10. Why was writing an advantage to the groups that had it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are the advantages that the Fertile Crescent has that allowed it to be the one of the earliest sites of development? How do these advantages relate to Europe's advantages?

Essay Topic 2

How do civilizations and denser populations lead to epidemics? What are epidemics? What effects do they have on societies?

Essay Topic 3

Why does Diamond use the Polynesian Islands as a test of his theory? What conclusions does Diamond get from his examination of these societies?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 953 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample