Aug
2
Final Exam questions — finalized!
August 2, 2007 | | Leave a Comment
These is the final version of the three final exam questions, expanded from the early draft I posted last week. Note how similar they are to the midterm. This is not an accident! I want you to build on that first test and improve. I’ll be using the same grading grid as I did before. You should compare your midterm to your final and try to improve the weak areas, because I will be comparing this test with that earlier submission.
Just to be clear, questions 1 and 2 cover the entire time period of the course. This means that you will need to mention some of the material you discussed in the midterm as you answer these questions. Most of the midterm essays I graded could have been improved in two ways: editing down the general statements and finding better historical examples that substantiate the thesis.
As always, plagiarism is a “flunkable” offense and this includes close paraphrasing. Since you’re submitting an electronic test, plagiarism is very easy for me to find. Write everything in your own words. If you have to cite someone else’s words, use quotation marks and write exactly where you found the quote.
The limit for each of the essays is 1,200 to 1,500 words. I’ll apply this loosely, but I will take off points if you go more than 10% past the limit. I’m doing this to get you to edit your answer to make it more concise and more convincing. The deadline for submitting your answers is 10 am Wednesday, August 8. Send them to garrigus@uta.edu. Answers received before 4pm Tuesday will get a 5% bonus.
Question 1. Many of the civilizations we have studied this semester continue to play a very important role in world history up to the present day. What were the common ingredients behind the long-term success of these three civilizations: China, the Islamic World, and western Europe? By “long-term success” I’m referring to three things. BUT DON’T WRITE ABOUT THESE THINGS. Write about their causes. Here are the successes you could think about: these civilizations all had: ability (up to 1500, and after) to attract and/or conquer people outside their borders, to develop ideas and technologies that other cultures adopt, and to create identities that are still alive and evolving today. Answer this question using evidence from the period 3,000 BCE to 1500 CE (though obviously your knowledge of later events will shape your answer.)
2. As we said at the beginning of the semester, students of history sometimes make the mistake of thinking that history’s “star civilizations”[see Question 1] necessarily represent the best ways of living humanity has devised. But there are many important areas of our planet that did not produce large, long-lasting violent empires and this does not indicate that their value to humanity is any less than those that did have such empires. In other words, I’m not suggesting that these areas “failed” in any way. Still, the contrast is interesting and this is why many people have asked themselves this question: “Why is it that large, long-lasting [over a thousand years] empires did NOT emerge the Americas, in Africa and in India?” Your answer should discuss the common elements of the history of these areas that help explain this? It should also describe the distinctive forces that act only on one or two of these areas?
3. Primary source question — what does Marco Polo’s account of the military tactics of the Mongol Empire tell us about world history? [note that I'm not limiting this to the history of Asia ... Polo was a European, writing for Europeans.] Your answer should include historical context [that is, background and outside information] as well as analysis of this primary source.
