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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Paz mean by the word, "community"?
(a) A place of stable government and economy.
(b) A gathering of people who are invested in each other.
(c) A place of safety, especially for women and children.
(d) A place of liberty where men recognize themselves in each other.

2. Why does poetry tend to eradicate history? (Chapter Seven).
(a) Because it attempts to explicate history.
(b) Because it disdains history.
(c) Because it does not understand history.
(d) Because it transcends history.

3. What was the purpose of the publishing house Fondo de Cultura Economica?
(a) To print books as cheaply as possible.
(b) To act as a façade for Revolutionary pamphlets.
(c) To print texts about economics for South Americans.
(d) To print texts about Mexican life and culture.

4. How did the Reform want to justify itself?
(a) Through its past.
(b) Through its changes.
(c) Through its popularity.
(d) Through the future.

5. What did positivism do with the ideals of the Reformation?
(a) Made them irrelevant to Mexican life and culture.
(b) Made them reality.
(c) Blurred them into vague, utopian dreams.
(d) Pushed them into the background.

6. What did Moctezuma think as the Spaniards approached?
(a) He would finally become Divine.
(b) The gods had abandoned him.
(c) That was the time to prove his manliness.
(d) That was the moment of his deliverance.

7. When did Spain begin to lose her hold on Mexico?
(a) The middle of the 19th Century.
(b) The end of the 17th Century.
(c) The early 19th Century.
(d) The end of the 16th Century.

8. Why did the Spaniards not exterminate the Indians after they were conquered?
(a) They respected the Indians.
(b) They needed labor.
(c) Their Catholicism prevented mass slaughter.
(d) They wanted to learn from the Indians.

9. Why have Mexican culture and politics vacillated from one extreme to another? (Chapter Seven, page 157).
(a) Because Mexicans have difficulty synthesizing experiences.
(b) Because there has never been a strong Mexican leader.
(c) Because Mexicans cannot invent their history from the beginning.
(d) Because Mexicans deny their Spanish and Indian heritage.

10. What was sacrificed when Porfirio Diaz took power and subdued anarchy?
(a) Nothing.
(b) Liberty.
(c) Equality.
(d) Possibility.

11. Who was Emiliano Zapata?
(a) The leader of the Revolution of the South.
(b) The replacement in Diaz's regime.
(c) The military leader in Diaz's regime.
(d) The first leader of the Revolution.

12. According to Paz, why did the Revolution become a compromise?
(a) Because the extremists were a minority.
(b) Its leader was not strong enough to carry their ideals forward.
(c) The Revolution's worldview synthesized too many elements.
(d) It could not synthesize Mexican tradition with the desire for universality.

13. What was an important element of all ancient cultures?
(a) Historical records.
(b) Religion.
(c) Familial relationships.
(d) Military superiority.

14. What was the Mexican intellectual's goal?
(a) Cultural education.
(b) Educational reform.
(c) Propagation of the arts.
(d) Political action.

15. Why did the Church support Spanish power?
(a) The Church owed its Mexican existence to the Spanish Conquest.
(b) The Church was threatened by Spain.
(c) The Church was bribed by the Spanish monarch.
(d) The Church owned large portions of land.

Short Answer Questions

1. What horror did Cortez's rule not commit?

2. What question did Edmundo O'Gorman try to answer?

3. Why did the Mexican Revolution have to begin before the beginning?

4. In Asia and Africa, what two seemingly-contradictory ideologies are being used?

5. What economic goal did the Revolution have?

(see the answer keys)

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