Song China
This fast-ripening rice variety came to China from Vietnam and helped increase agricultural output and support population growth.
Champa rice.
It allowed earlier or multiple harvests in some regions, contributing to food surpluses.
This Confucian principle required respect and obligation toward parents, elders, and ancestors and also reinforced a hierarchical view of society.
Filial piety.
This term describes the broad cultural world in which Islam was influential. It was not the name of one single empire.
Dar al-Islam.
Islam taught an ideal of equality among believers. What existing South Asian social institution did this belief challenge?
The Hindu caste system / hereditary caste distinctions.
These animals, combined with improved saddles and organized caravans, made regular long-distance trade across the Sahara much easier.
Camels
Unlike the politically fragmented kingdoms of Western Europe, this eastern empire retained a more centralized Roman imperial tradition. Its emperor claimed divinely sanctioned authority and had significant influence over Church affairs. Bonus 50:What was the Capital?
The Byzantine Empire. Constantinople.
The Aztecs often allowed conquered communities to retain local rulers. In return, what did those communities have to provide to the Aztec Empire?
Answer: Tribute
Food
Textiles
Luxury goods
Resources
Labor
Captives
Song government officials were ideally chosen based on education and performance rather than simply inheriting their government positions. What system was used to select many of these officials? What did they study?
The civil service examination system / merit examination system.
What did they study? Confucian classics and literature.
Compared with parts of the Tang period, elite women in Song China faced greater restrictions. Give two specific examples of how women’s lives became more restricted. What intellectual tradition reinforced these patriarchal expectations?
Any two:
Restrictions involving inheritance
Restrictions on remarriage
Reduced educational opportunities
Reduced public roles
Greater expectations of deference to men
Spread of foot binding among elite families
Neo-Confucianism.
Your review used the “Three M’s” as a memory trick for three major ways Islam expanded. Name all three.
Military expansion, merchants, and missionaries.
This Hindu devotional movement emphasized a personal relationship with a chosen deity and sometimes gave women and lower-status people greater religious voice.
The Bhakti movement.
This wealthy ruler of Mali demonstrated his empire's wealth and connection to the Islamic world during his famous pilgrimage to Mecca.
: Mansa Musa
Which term describes the economic and social organization of rural estates, where peasants owed labor, rent, or payments to a local lord:
Manorialism.
The Inca required conquered populations to perform this rotational labor obligation, which helped build roads, terraces, storehouses, and other state projects.
Mit'a
The Song examination system was based on the idea of merit, but it did not give everyone an equal opportunity to enter government. Give one way it increased opportunity and one reason access still favored wealthier men.
Increased opportunity: office was based more on exam performance/education rather than simply hereditary aristocratic birth.
Still unequal: preparing for the examinations required literacy, books, tutors, education, money, and time, and women were excluded from the examinations.
Neighboring rulers sometimes sent goods or tribute to the Chinese emperor. In return, name one benefit those rulers could receive from China.
Any one:
Access to trade
Gifts
Titles
Political prestige/recognition
By 1200, Muslim lands were politically divided among different states, yet they remained part of a connected Islamic world. Give two things besides one central government that continued to connect Muslim societies across Afro-Eurasia.
Any two:
Shared religion
Islamic legal traditions
Arabic/Persian intellectual traditions
Pilgrimage
Trade
Scholarship/education
Networks of merchants
Sufi networks
Islam spread widely through Southeast Asian port cities even though Muslim armies did not conquer the entire region. Explain one reason merchants or rulers might choose to convert to Islam
Reason for conversion:
Improved commercial connections with Muslim merchants
Improved diplomatic relationships
Membership in wider Indian Ocean trading networks
Political prestige/relationships
It was a more egalitarian religion then religions such as Hinduism with it's hierarchical caste system.
This African state was known for it's monumental stone enclosures/walls. It was not Islamic but became wealthy from cattle, gold and connections to the Indian trade through the East African coastal ports.
Great Zimbabwe.
Western European kings and the Catholic Church could strengthen one another. What did kings provide the Church, and what could the Church provide kings?
Kings/rulers → protection, enforcement, land/support
Church → religious legitimacy / sanctification of the ruler's authority
Name two specific systems or technologies the Inca used to control or connect their large empire, and explain what each did.
Any two:
Qhapaq Ñan — road system connecting the empire
Mit'a — supplied state labor
Quipu — recorded numerical/administrative information
Chasquis — relay runners carrying messages
Tambos — storehouses/support stations
Provincial officials — administered conquered regions
Name this major Chinese waterway and one thing the Song government or economy used it to transport between southern and northern China.
The Grand Canal + one of:
Grain
Taxes
Government officials
Commercial goods
It connected the Yangzi rice-producing south with northern political centers.
Name two of the branches of Buddhism you need to recognize for AP World.
Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism.
Muslim scholars did more than preserve older knowledge. Give two examples of knowledge they received from another civilization and one field in which scholars in the Islamic world advanced knowledge themselves.
Knowledge transferred:
Greek philosophy/scientific works
Indian mathematics/numerals
Chinese papermaking
Fields advanced:
Mathematics
Astronomy
Medicine
Philosophy
Geography
Literature
Specific example: Nasir al-Din al-Tusi made major contributions to mathematics and astronomy.
Sufism and the Bhakti movement came from different religions, but give one important similarity between the two movements.
Both:
Emphasized personal/devotional religious experience
Could make religion more emotionally accessible
Sometimes crossed established social boundaries
Used teachers, saints, poetry, or devotional traditions to reach followers
Give two ways trans-Saharan trade strengthened West African states such as Mali.
Any two:
Rulers could tax trade
Gold trade increased state wealth
Trade supported larger cities
Connections with North African merchants expanded commerce
Muslim scholars and merchants connected West Africa to the wider Islamic world
Trade supported political elites and armies
Cities such as Timbuktu became commercial/intellectual centers
The Black Death killed a massive share of Europe’s population. Explain one way the resulting labor shortage changed the relationship between peasants/workers and landowners.
Any one:
Workers gained greater bargaining power
Wages increased in many areas
Peasants challenged feudal obligations
Serfdom weakened in much of Western Europe
Peasant revolts increased
The Aztec and Inca Empires both conquered large territories. Give one similarity in how they built or justified their power and one major difference in how they controlled conquered peoples.
Similarity:
Military conquest
Sacred/religious authority
Agricultural intensification
Extraction of resources
Built upon earlier regional civilizations
Difference:
Aztec: relied more heavily on tribute and often allowed local rulers to remain in power.
Inca: relied more heavily on direct administration, roads, bureaucracy, redistribution, and mit'a labor.
Song emperors deliberately placed educated civilian officials above military leaders. Explain one reason this helped the Song maintain political control and one problem this policy could create for the dynasty.
Benefit: It prevented powerful generals from becoming independent threats and strengthened civilian/central government.
Problem: It could contribute to military weakness against northern rivals, including the Liao, Western Xia, Jurchen Jin, and eventually the Mongols.
Japan, Korea, and Vietnam all borrowed from China, but they did not experience Chinese influence in the same way. Explain the major difference between Japan’s experience and Vietnam’s experience.
Japan largely adopted Chinese ideas voluntarily and selectively, including writing, Buddhism, court customs, architecture, and governmental ideas.
Vietnam experienced long periods of direct Chinese rule before independence, then continued borrowing Chinese bureaucracy, Confucianism, and writing while repeatedly resisting Chinese political control and maintaining distinct local traditions.
Acceptable added distinction: Japan ultimately developed a more decentralized warrior system involving shoguns and samurai, rather than reproducing Song China's civilian bureaucracy.
Name two powerful Islamic political groups during this time:
This empire centered at Angkor used monumental architecture and massive water-management systems while drawing on both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
The Khmer Empire.
Africa between 1200 and 1450 was extremely politically and religiously diverse. Give three different examples that demonstrate this diversity and identify what makes each different.
Any three:
Mali — powerful West African empire with Muslim rulers
Ethiopia — Christian kingdom
Great Zimbabwe — non-Islamic southern African state connected to Indian Ocean trade
Swahili city-states — Muslim coastal commercial societies blending African and Indian Ocean influences
Decentralized/stateless societies — governed through kinship, elders, lineage leaders, and customary traditions
Give two examples of technologies or bodies of knowledge that Europe received from outside Western Europe and explain one way this borrowing changed European society, government, commerce, or warfare
Gunpowder — China
Paper — China through Islamic lands
Hindu-Arabic numerals — India through Islamic/Mediterranean exchange
Compass technology — China
Astrolabe/navigation knowledge — developed and transmitted across Mediterranean/Islamic networks
Greek works preserved/commented on in Byzantine/Islamic intellectual traditions
his Aztec farming technique used highly productive raised fields in shallow lake areas around Tenochtitlan.
Chinampas