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

Short Answer Questions

1. Harari asserts that most of the foragers left by the first century AD had NOT been living where?

2. The Code of Hammurabi was written in what year?

3. Humans in what two areas evolved into Homo neanderthalensis?

4. What does Harari NOT provide as an example of an imagined order?

5. For how long did humans feed themselves "by gathering plants and hunting animals that lived and bred without their intervention" (77)?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the author emphasize his view that societal orders are imagined?

2. What are two examples of templates for collective action?

3. Discuss the significance of the author's focus on fictive language.

4. What is the significance of the era that occurred on Earth 70,000 years ago?

5. How does Harari define the term history?

6. What does the author name as the most important step in convincing people to believe a shared myth?

7. What evidence does Harari provide for his conclusion that foragers had been better off than their counterparts living after the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution?

8. What types of examples does Harari provide when he discusses concepts that help to structure order and cooperation, but do not actually exist in tangible form?

9. Analyze Harari's use of the term “curtain of silence” (61) within his discussion of our limited understanding of human history.

10. What is the author's definition of the word natural and how does he support his claim?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What message is Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens sending regarding the source of human unhappiness?

Essay Topic 2

Examine how Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens invites readers to learn particular lessons from the history of humankind and to apply those lessons to their own lives in the modern world. How does Harari accomplish these goals and how do these goals relate to the overarching themes of the text?

Essay Topic 3

How does the author utilize or discuss irony within Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens? Discuss at least three uses of irony within the book and explore each instance's connection to larger themes contained within the narrative.

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