Reading Assessment

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Directions Read each of the passages below. Answer the two questions that follow each reading. Mark your responses on the form provided. In Rome, the family was all-important. The father was head of the household. His word was law. He arranged the children's marriages to improve social position or to increase wealth. Until they were 12 years old, most Roman boys and girls went to school together. Then, the sons of poor families went to work, while sons of rich families began their formal education. They studied reading, grammar, writing, music, geometry, commercial arithmetic, and shorthand. When they were 15 years old, they entered school of rhetoric (ret' uhr ik), or speech and writing, to prepare for a political career. Some went to schools in Athens or Alexandria for philosophy or medicine. 1. What is the focus of this passage? a. It describes the different educational opportunities for the rich and poor. b. It describes the training girls received to become better wives and mothers. c. It describes how boys were chosen to attend schools in Athens or Alexandria. d. It describes the jobs available to poor Romans. 2. Who continued their education after the age of 12? a. Rich girls b. Poor boys c. Rich boys d. Poor girls

When Henry VIII died, his nine year old son became King Edward VI. Since Edward was too young and sick to rule, a council of nobles governed England for him. Most of the council members were Protestants, and they brought Protestant doctrines into the English Church. Thomas Cranmer supported the council. He wanted the people to have an orderly form of Protestant worship. To help achieve this, he wrote a worship service in English called the Book of Common Prayer. It was used in all the churches in England. When Edward died in 1553, the council of nobles tried to bring a Protestant noblewoman to the throne. Their attempt failed, however, because the people of England refused to accept any ruler who was not a Tudor. They wanted Henry's daughter Mary, as their monarch. Mary was Catholic. As soon as she became queen, she accepted the Pope as head of the English Church. She then insisted that all English men and women return to the Roman Catholic Church. Many Protestants refused and were persecuted. More than 300 of them, including Cranmer, were burned at the stake for heresy. The people turned against their queen calling her "Bloody Mary." 3. What is the main idea of this paragraph? a. The English people wanted Henrys daughter, Mary, to succeed Edward VI because she was Catholic. b. After Henry died, there was conflict over whether Englands kings and queens should be Catholic or Protestant. c. After Edward VI died, the English people were unsure if a woman could rule England. d. The Book of Common Prayer was used in all the churches in England. 4. Why was Mary known as Bloody Mary? a. She killed many Protestants. b. She was injured during Protestant persecutions. c. She killed many Catholics. d. She waged war with the Tudors.

Victory in the Persian Wars increased the Greeks sense of their own uniqueness. The gods, they felt, had protected their support form of government the city-state against invaders from Asia. Athens emerged from the war as the most powerful city-state in Greece. To continue the struggle against Persia, it organized the Delian League, an alliance with other Greek city-states. An alliance is a formal agreement between two or more nations to cooperated and come to one anothers defense. From the start, Athens dominated the Delian League. It slowly used its position of leadership to create an Athenian empire. It moved the league treasury from the island of Delos to Athens, using money contributed by other city-states to rebuild its own city. When its allies protested and tried to withdraw from the league, Athens used force to make them remain. Yet, while Athens was enforcing its will abroad, Athenian leaders were championing political freedom at home. 5. What is the focus of this paragraph? a. After the Persian Wars, Athens became more and more powerful. b. The gods were responsible for Athens success. c. The Delian League proved to be advantageous for all who were involved. d. Athens intended to establish their form of government abroad.

6. How did Athens benefit economically from the Delian League? a. There was an increase in political freedom. b. Athens now had more city-states to come to its defense in times of war. c. Athens used the money from the other city-states to rebuild itself. d. The gods protected democracy.

By the 800s, peasants were using new iron plows that carved deep into the heavy soil of northern Europe. These plows were a big improvement over the old wooden plows, which had been designed for the light soils of the Mediterranean region. Also, a new kind of harness allowed peasants to use horses rather than oxen to pull the plows. Because faster moving horses could plow more land in a day than could oxen, peasants were able to enlarge their fields and plant more crops. A peasant might look up and see another new device, a windmill, turning slowly against the sky. Where there were no fasting moving streams to turn a water mill, the power of the wind had been harnessed to grind the peasants grain into flour. 7. What is the main idea of this passage? a. New uses of horses allowed for farming expansion. b. Geography and soil conditions of Northern Europe provided many challenges in farming. c. New technologies helped improve European farming techniques. d. Mediterranean technologies were not easily adaptable for Europe. 8. How did the new harness help increase food production? a. It allowed for faster flour production. b. It decreased the cost of oxen for farmers. c. It allowed farming away from streams. d. It allowed farmers to farm more land.

The conquests of Mexico and Peru are among the most dramatic and brutal events in modern world history. Small military forces armed with advanced weapons subdued, in a remarkably brief time, two powerful peoples. The spread of European diseases, especially small pox, among the Native Americans, also aided the conquest. The native populations had long lived in isolation, and many of them succumbed to the new diseases. But beyond the drama and bloodshed, these conquests, as well as those of other Native American peoples, marked a fundamental turning point. Whole civilizations with long histories and a record of enormous social, architectural, and technological achievements were effectively destroyed. Native American cultures endured, accommodating to European dominance, but there was never any doubt about which culture had the upper hand. In that sense, the Spanish conquests of the early sixteenth century marked the beginning of the process whereby South America was transformed into Latin America. 9. What is the focus of this paragraph? a. It explains the effects of the Spanish conquests in the Americas. b. It explains the reasons the Spanish started exploring in the new world. c. It explains the key components of the Aztec and Incan civilizations. d. It explains the economic advantages the conquest of the New World brought to Spain. 10. South America changed into Latin America for which of the following reasons? a. The native populations found a cure for small pox. b. Spanish culture dominated over native cultures. c. Native populations lived in isolation. d. Native populations had a long history of social, architectural, and technological achievements.

Parliament had favored the war with Spain, but would not adequately finance it because its members distrusted Buckingham. Unable to gain adequate funds from Parliament, Charles I (r. 1625-1649), like his father, resorted to extraparliamentary measures. He levied new tariffs and duties and attempted to collect discontinued taxes. He even subjected the English people to a so-called forced loan (a tax theoretically to be repaid), imprisoning those who refused to pay. The government quartered troops in transit to war zones in private homes. All these actions intruded on life at the local level and challenged the power of the local nobles and landowners to control their districts. When parliament met in 1628, its members were furious. Taxes were being illegally collected for a war that was going badly for England and that now, through royal blundering, involved France as well as Spain. Parliament expressed its displeasure by making the kings request for new funds conditional on his recognition of the Petition of Right. This important declaration of constitutional freedom required that henceforth there should be no forced loans or taxation without the consent of Parliament, that no freeman should be imprisoned without due cause, and that troops should not be billeted in private homes. It was thus an expression of resentment and resistance to the intrusion of the monarchy on the local level. Though Charles agreed to the petition, there was little confidence he would keep his word. 11. According to the first paragraph, what was the central issue of the conflict between Charles I and Parliament? a. Charles Is foreign policy decisions which led to wars with France and Spain. b. Parliament refused to provide Charles I with the finances he requested c. Charles I was harshly oppressing the English people d. Charles I was suspected of being a Roman Catholic

12. What is the main idea expressed in this passage? a. Parliament would not adequately fund the war with Spain because its members distrusted Buckingham. b. Ever growing expenditures on the part of the monarch caused a financial crisis in the English government. c. The English people asserted their constitutional rights against the increasing power of Parliament and the king. d. The overextension of royal power led to increasing tensions between the English monarch and Parliament.