overview
The Western Civilization I: Ancient Near East to 1648 exam covers material typically taught in the first semester of a two-semester Western Civilization course. Questions deal with the civilizations of ancient Greece, Rome and the Near East; Middle Ages; Renaissance and Reformation; and early modern Europe. You may be asked to choose the correct definition of a historical word, select a historical figure whose political views are described, identify the correct relationship between two historical factors, or identify the wrong pairing of a person with a historical event. Groups of questions may require you to interpret, evaluate, or relate the content of a passage, a map, or a picture to other information, or to analyze and use data in graphs or tables.
Around 120 questions are to be answered in the exam in 90 minutes. Some of these are pretest questions that will not be scored. The chronological designations used in this test are bce (before the common era) and ce (common era). The labels correspond to bc (before Christ) and ad (ano Domini), which are used in some textbooks.
Knowledge and skills are required
Western Civilization I exam questions require candidates to demonstrate one or more of the following skills:
- Understanding the important practical knowledge of the development of Western civilization
- Ability to identify cause and effect of major historical events
- Ability to analyze, interpret and evaluate historical text and graphic materials
- Ability to distinguish relevant from irrelevant
- Ability to reach conclusions based on data
The content of the Western Civilization I exam is drawn from the following topics. The percentages next to the main topics indicate the approximate percentage of exam questions in that topic
Ancient Near East (8%-10%)
- Political evolution
- Religion, culture and technological development in and around the Fertile Crescent
Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Civilization (15%-17%)
- Political Evolution in Periclean Athens
- Periclean Athens through the Peloponnesian War
- Culture, Religion and Thought of Ancient Greece
- Hellenistic political structure
- Culture, Religion and Thought of Hellenistic Greece
Ancient Rome (15%-17%)
- Political Evolution of Republics and Empires (Economic and Geographical Context)
- Roman thought and culture
- Early Christianity
- Germanic invasion
- Late Empire
Medieval History (23%–27%)
- Byzantium and Islam
- Medieval Politics and Culture through Charlemagne
- Feudal and manorial institutions
- Medieval Church
- Medieval Thought and Culture
- Rise of cities and changing economic patterns
- Feudal Monarchy
- Late Medieval Church
Renaissance and Reformation (13%–17%)
- Renaissance in Italy
- The Renaissance outside Italy
- The new monarchy
- Protestantism and Catholicism were reformed and reformed
Early Modern Europe, 1560-1648 (10%-15%)
- Opening of the Atlantic
- Commercial Revolution
- Dynasty and religious conflict
- Thought and culture
