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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why is a study of colonialism important in understanding Mexican history?
(a) The nation's beginnings were heavily influenced by North Americans.
(b) The nation was founded through a peaceful Spanish immersion into Indian culture.
(c) The nation began through the colonization of several surrounding nations.
(d) The nation was founded by a Spanish conquest of Indians.

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

3. According to Paz, what must be the first step toward reform?
(a) A return to traditionalism.
(b) A struggle against rampant government corruption.
(c) A struggle against the lie that makes colonialism official.
(d) A complete overthrow of the socialist state.

4. What was Vasconcelos' philosophy regarding the material world?
(a) The supernatural world governs the material world.
(b) Intellect, rather than emotions, comprehends the world and creates reality.
(c) The material world cannot be understood nor explained.
(d) Emotions, rather than intellect, comprehend the world and create reality.

5. What did the Revolution force the Mexican people to do?
(a) Overcome the institutions of colonialism.
(b) Confront history and invent their future.
(c) Synthesize their colonial past with the pre-Catholicism past..
(d) Think about the future in global terms.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Paz's solution for the lack of capital?

2. Whom did Paz call the "guardian of freedom and traitor to his country"? (Chapter Six, page 125).

3. During the Revolution, whom did the intelligentsia make the focal point of its activities?

4. Who was Emiliano Zapata?

5. Following the Revolution, why was socialist education not widely implemented in Mexico?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was Sor Juana? Why was she an unusual person both in South America and in old Spain?

2. How does Paz explain the suicides of the Aztec people? Is it a reasonable explanation?

3. Why did the new Constitution mandate that education be secular? How might that have made the Mexicans feel?

4. Why was the Aztec nation able to unify so many diverse tribes? How were they quite skilled with that type of action?

5. When did Independence begin in Mexico? How was it similar to or different from the Conquest?

6. Mexico has entered a new phase of thinking and history. How does Paz explain that phase?

7. How was the Revolution similar to a fiesta? Because of any existing similarity, why do the people cling to that time in history? Can that be considered healthy?

8. What does Paz think of the Soviet Union? How does it compare to Mexico?

9. How did Catholicism reduce the Indian converts into passive believers? How was that a significant blow?

10. What role did Catholicism play in the lives of the conquering Spaniards? Was that role contradictory?

(see the answer keys)

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