Topic 7 AP Exam Practice
Multiple-Choice Questions
Questions 1 to 3 refer to the passage below.
“It [creating a monopoly in the oil industry] was forced upon us. We had to do it in self-defense. The oil business was in confusion and daily growing worse. Someone had to make a stand. . . . This movement was the origin of the whole system of economic administration. It has revolutionized the way of doing business all over the world. The time was ripe for it. It had to come, though all we saw at the moment was the need to save ourselves from wasteful conditions. . . . The day of combination is here to stay. Individualism is gone, never to return.”
John D. Rockefeller, interview, 1880
1. Which individual would most likely have agreed with the views expressed by Rockefeller on business combinations?
- (A) James Hargreaves
- (B) James Watt
- (C) Gugliemo Marconi
- (D) Cecil Rhodes
2. Which statement summarizes an important difference between Rockefeller and Enlightenment thinkers?
- (A) The perspective that an action could be “forced upon us” by others
- (B) The desire to end traditional practices that led to “wasteful conditions”
- (C) The conclusion that an innovation could have impact “all over the world”
- (D) The belief that “individualism is gone.”
3. Which example provides support for the claims made by Rockefeller?
- (A) The Krupp steel industry in Germany.
- (B) The decline of the Ottoman Empire
- (C) The rise of cottage industries
- (D) The support for the American Declaration of Independence
Short-Answer Questions
1. Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.
“It is especially difficult to explain why consumers chose to use the increasing incomes which they had at their disposal for consumption rather than for saving or investment. Some historians suggest that consumption increased because consumers shared an almost instinctive desire to enjoy a higher standard of living and improve their material and psychological well-being. Others believe that consumers consumed in order to emulate those around them; as Perkin suggests, ‘If consumer demand was the key to the Industrial Revolution, social emulation was the key to consumer demand. By the eighteenth century nearly everyone in England and the Scottish Lowlands received a money income, and nearly everyone was prepared to spend a large part of it in keeping up with the Joneses.’ Other historians maintain that consumers were manipulated by the machinations of advertisers and other commercial interests. According to Royle, ‘The lubricant to make the consumer society of the late twentieth century function smoothly was advertising, which was made all the easier with the advent of television.’ ”
John Benson, Consumption and the Consumer Revolution, 1996
2. Answer all parts of the question that follows.