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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What Hapsburg King of Spain was obsessed with religious wars, draining Spain's coffers and exploited Latin America?
(a) Louis XI.
(b) Ferdinand of Aragon.
(c) Charles V.
(d) Henry VIII.

2. What do coffee and petroleum have in common?
(a) They each need very particular growing conditions.
(b) They are each rapidly falling in price and usefulness.
(c) They each foster higher profits for the consuming country than for the producing country.
(d) They are each dark in color and used all over the world.

3. How did Asia acquire rubber tree seeds?
(a) Henry Wickham smuggled seeds out of Brazil.
(b) Christopher Columbus took seeds back for Ferdinand and Isabella.
(c) Chinese merchants came to Brazil and took the seeds back.
(d) The trees were discovered deep in the forest.

4. What are the origins of the Indian women's style of dress?
(a) The styles were copied from peasant woman in Spain and imposed by Charles III.
(b) The styles were imposed in modern times by a fascist government.
(c) The styles were passed down through generations of native women.
(d) The styles were popularized by the Spanish nobility and worn by the natives as cast-offs.

5. What are the environmental problems with many of Latin America's cash crops?
(a) Many of the cash crops are eaten by animals.
(b) Many of the cash crops are failing and leaving large swaths of empty land.
(c) Coffee, sugarcane, and cotton all require mass deforestation.
(d) Coffee, sugarcane, and cotton are primarily consumed by the farmers.

6. What did the export of guano help stave off in Europe?
(a) Hunger.
(b) Disease.
(c) Annoyance.
(d) War.

7. How were the rubber workers in Brazil paid?
(a) They were paid with fine cloths and ribbons.
(b) They were paid with gold coins on an hourly rate.
(c) They were paid in kind, with dried meat, manioc flour, and unrefined sugar.
(d) There were paid with visits to their families abroad.

8. What is the world's chief fuel?
(a) Petroleum.
(b) Iron.
(c) Copper.
(d) Water.

9. What practice have Protestant church missionaries encouraged to Amazonian peoples?
(a) Boiling water.
(b) Birth control.
(c) Dental braces.
(d) Eye exams.

10. What did Mariano Melgarejo force a British ambassador to drink as punishment for sneering at the local chichas?
(a) Water from the Amazon.
(b) A bottle of bad wine.
(c) A barrel of chocolate.
(d) A tub of stale beer.

11. Who was Aleijadinho?
(a) One of the greatest artists in Brazil's history, nicknamed "Little Cripple."
(b) The governor of Minas Gerais.
(c) A Portuguese merchant who exported gold from Brazil.
(d) A Brazilian slave who worked in the diamond mines.

12. What great mathematical principle did the Mayans discover before any other people in history?
(a) General relativity.
(b) The circumference of the earth.
(c) Pi.
(d) The concept of zero.

13. What resource was at the center of the city of Potosi's prosperity?
(a) Gold.
(b) Salt.
(c) Sugar.
(d) Silver.

14. What is the most universal health problem in Latin America?
(a) Poor eyesight.
(b) Infectious disease.
(c) Malnutrition.
(d) Cancer.

15. Who was William Walker?
(a) He was a British explorer who ventured deep into the Amazon.
(b) He was a Haitian revolutionary who led a rebellion against landowners.
(c) He was a US historian who sought to tell the truth about the history of Latin America.
(d) He was a US assassin who made his way through Central America, eventually taking Panama for the Panama Canal.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did the USA attempt to curtail Brazil's petroleum trade?

2. What nickname does the author give the USA?

3. Concerning petroleum, where is the most money to be made?

4. What is silicosis?

5. What resources caused the boom of the Minas Gerais region?

(see the answer keys)

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