Topic 6 AP Exam Practice
Multiple-Choice Questions
Questions 1 to 3 refer to the passage below.
“Generally speaking, the strength or weakness of a country is dependent on the wealth or poverty of its people, and the people’s wealth or poverty derives from the amount of available products. The diligence of the people is a major factor in determining the amount of products available, but in the final analysis, it can all be traced to the guidance and encouragement given by the government and its officials. . . . Your subject respectfully recommends that a clear-cut plan be established . . . to determine the priorities under which industries may be encouraged. . . . If the people are adequately wealthy, it follows naturally that the country will become strong and wealthy. . . . If so, it will not be difficult for us to compete effectively against major powers.”
Okubo Toshimichi, “On the Role of the State in
Industrialization,” 1874
1. The main idea of this passage is that the government of Japan should
- (A) persuade people in Japan to work more diligently
- (B) create a plan to encourage foreign investment in Japanese industry
- (C) avoid influencing private economic decisions
- (D) encourage industrialization to enable Japan to compete economically
2. Which possible government policy would most directly support the goal stated by the writer?
- (A) Reforming the Japanese educational system to increase training of workers and managers
- (B) Improving the Japanese agricultural system to feed the foreign residents brought into Japan to work in the industrial factories
- (C) Providing subsidies to the poor so they would not rebel
- (D) Passing laws that would encourage people to remain on farms
3. Which list of events related to the topic of the excerpt is in the correct chronological order?
- (A) Perry’s ships arrive in Tokyo Bay, the Meiji Restoration, the Shogunate collapses, Japan industrializes
- (B) Japan industrializes, the Meiji Restoration, the collapse of the Shogunate, Perry’s ships arrive in Tokyo Bay
- (C) Perry’s ships arrive in Tokyo Bay, the Shogunate collapses, the Meiji Restoration, Japan industrializes
- (D) The Shogunate collapses, Perry’s ships arrive in Tokyo Bay, the Meiji Restoration, Japan industrializes
Short-Answer Questions
1. Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.
“It was cotton production, especially, that characterized the beginnings of Egypt’s integration into the global capitalist system. Cotton was an important part of the British Industrial Revolution, as textile mills in Lancashire and elsewhere came to symbolize the changes that occurred as a society transitioned from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist one. Egypt’s initial role in this chain of developments was to supply cotton to British textile mills, especially when the American Civil War cut off supplies of cotton from the southern United States (Beckert, 2004, p. 1405).
. . . Many of the major changes in Egyptian agriculture, and in rural Egyptian society more broadly, can be traced to the development of the global capitalist system. As the British promoted cotton cultivation in Egypt, large estates took over land that had supplied the means of subsistence for peasants under pre- capitalist modes of production. The result was that ‘the great majority of the peasantry was by the end of the nineteenth century either landless or land- poor, while a new class of large landowners—an agrarian bourgeoisie—had emerged’ (Beinin and Lockman, 1987, p. 8). This agrarian bourgeoisie assumed much of the power in rural Egypt, yet the influx of foreign capital during this development of agricultural production in Egypt meant that the foreigners who controlled the capital also held much of the power over Egypt as a whole.”
Peter Bent, Agrarian Change and Industrialization in Egypt (2015)
2. Answer all parts of the question that follows.