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. Independent food production began in how many places?

2. The Giant Leap Forward was which of the following?

3. What factor meant that population could grow?

4. Which of the following did domestic livestock not provide people?

5. Why were the Europeans not affected by the infectious diseases that they brought to places like the Americas and Australia?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did the Maori and the Moriori differ?

2. Why did food production not occur earlier in history?

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

4. What made the spread of Austronesian culture possible?

5. How is the production of food related to the advantages of guns, germs, and steel?

6. Why do some scholars argue that Europeans expanded and conquered others but China did not?

7. Why does Diamond object to many of the traditional views on the uneven distribution of wealth and power?

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

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

10. Fourteen species of large mammals were domesticated. Why weren't other species?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How would you answer Yali's question: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Do you think that Diamond missed any aspects in his answer to Yali's question?

Essay Topic 2

What are some of the other theories that try to explain the differing development of societies? How does Diamond refute these theories? Why does he believe that they are not correct?

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 985 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample