“The examiners sealed the names, so that no man's family could aid him.” This describes the fairness of what system?
What is the civil service examination? — MC TIP: Anonymity equals merit. The point is loyalty to the state, not to a clan.
100
Because Champa rice allowed two harvests a year, this happened in Song China.
What is rapid population growth and urbanization? — MC TIP: Always push the chain one more link: more food, more people, bigger cities.
100
This empire staffed its government through merit exams rather than birth.
What is Song China? — MC TIP: Merit exam equals China. Nothing else in Unit 1 works this way.
100
Continuity: this South Asian social system survived centuries of Muslim rule.
What is the caste system? — MC TIP: Political change does not automatically mean social change.
100
Any Unit 1 answer describing American crops or silver reaching Europe is wrong until this year.
What is 1492? — MC TIP: Date-check every choice against the unit window before reading further.
200
“In every city of the Sultan's lands I found a judge trained in the same law and a mosque facing the same direction.” This unity is evidence of what?
What is Dar al-Islam? — MC TIP: Shared religion, law, and language across political borders.
200
Because Sufi missionaries adapted to local customs rather than demanding total change, this resulted.
What is the widespread and largely peaceful spread of Islam? — MC TIP: Conversion by trade and missionary work, not mainly by the sword.
200
These two American empires collected labor rather than money from their subjects.
What are the Aztec and the Inca? — MC TIP: Tribute and mit'a. No coinage-based taxation in the Americas.
200
Change: this religion expanded dramatically into Africa and South Asia during this period.
What is Islam? — MC TIP: Merchants and Sufis carried it. Know the mechanism, not just the fact.
200
“Feudalism made European monarchs powerful” is backwards. Feudalism actually did this.
What is decentralize and weaken royal power? — MC TIP: If a choice sounds like the opposite of the textbook, it usually is.
300
“Along the coast the traders speak a tongue that is Bantu in its bones but Arabic in its words of commerce.” What does this language reveal?
What is the cultural blending of the Swahili city-states? — MC TIP: Language is evidence of sustained contact, not just occasional trade.
300
Because land and military power were held by local lords, European kings in 1200 had this problem.
What is weak or limited royal authority? — MC TIP: Feudalism decentralizes. A choice saying it strengthened kings is backwards.
300
Name one significant thing Song China and the Byzantine Empire had in common.
What is a centralized bureaucracy of trained officials? — MC TIP: Both also used religion or philosophy to legitimize the ruler.
300
Continuity: revived Confucian thought kept this group in a subordinate position in China.
Who are women? — MC TIP: Neo-Confucianism tightened gender hierarchy. Foot binding is the usual evidence.
300
A choice says Islam spread mainly through forced conversion. The better-supported answer is this.
What is trade and Sufi missionary activity? — MC TIP: Conquest expanded the territory. Conversion followed through contact.
400
“The lord grants the land; the villein works three days upon the lord's own fields and may not depart without leave.” Name the economic system.
What is manorialism (serfdom)? — MC TIP: Manorialism is the economy. Feudalism is the political side. Do not swap them.
400
Because the Delhi Sultanate was a Muslim state ruling a Hindu majority, this was a constant condition.
What is religious tension and resistance to its rule? — MC TIP: Minority rule over a majority is the structural problem of the whole sultanate.
400
State the core structural difference between European and Chinese government in this era.
What is European decentralization under feudal lords versus Chinese centralization under a merit bureaucracy? — MC TIP: This single contrast answers a large share of Unit 1 compare questions.
400
Change: Buddhism blended with Daoist ideas in China to produce this school.
What is Chan (Zen) Buddhism? — MC TIP: Syncretism means blended, not replaced.
400
A choice credits Europeans with inventing paper, gunpowder, or the compass. All three came from here.
What is China? — MC TIP: Europe adopts in this era. It does not originate.
500
“Our lord sends no scribe, for the cords remember: each knot a measure, each color a good.” What is being described?
What is the quipu? — MC TIP: Records without writing. A choice saying the Inca could not administer an empire is the trap.
500
Because Mali's rulers converted to Islam, they gained this concrete commercial advantage.
What is access to and trust within Muslim trade networks? — MC TIP: Shared faith meant shared law, shared contracts, and merchants willing to deal.
500
Name the one tool nearly every state in this period used to justify its right to rule.
What is religion? — MC TIP: Mandate of Heaven, divine right, caliph, Inca sun god. Different names, same function.
500
Change: the Abbasid Caliphate still existed in name by 1450, but real power had passed to these groups.
What are Turkic and Mamluk military states (Seljuks and Mamluks)? — MC TIP: A caliph on paper is not a caliph in power. Watch for that distinction.
500
A stimulus describes an African society with no king, and a choice calls it undeveloped. The CED term is this.
What are kin-based networks? — MC TIP: Stateless is a form of organization, not an absence of one. That framing is always the wrong answer.