Deck 33: The Contemporary World in Historical Perspective

Question 1

What have several former Soviet republics done with their nuclear weapons since the breakup of the Soviet Union?

A) Destroyed them
B) Transferred their nuclear capabilities to energy plants
C) Returned their nuclear weapons to Russia
D) Sold them to the United States and Great Britain

Answer 1

Returned their nuclear weapons to Russia

Question 2

What is the purpose of the caricatured Japanese features and Japanese flag in this poster?

A) To dehumanize the Japanese
B) To draw attention to the prevalence of malaria
C) To build support for World War II
D) To suggest that malaria was the only enemy to fear more than the Japanese

Answer 2

To dehumanize the Japanese

Question 3

Of the increasingly assertive middle powers, what has become the dominant nation-state in South America?

A) Peru
B) Brazil
C) Argentina
D) Chile

Answer 3

Brazil

Question 4

Which country has abandoned its nuclear weapons program?

A) Libya
B) India
C) Pakistan
D) Israel

Question 5

Who makes up the great majority of Asian and African migrants to the cities?

A) Entire families
B) Young married couples
C) Young men
D) Single women

Question 6

The emerging multipolar political system has been characterized by which of the following?

A) The rise of new superpowers to challenge the United States and Russia
B) Economic consolidation and cooperation among superpowers
C) New and continuing regional wars
D) Increased reliance on the United Nations to resolve conflicts

Question 7

In 2004, 191 people were killed by a bombing in a train station in what European city?

A) Hamburg
B) London
C) Paris
D) Madrid

Question 8

Which of the following has led to more than half of urban growth?

A) Improved health care in cities
B) The attraction of new industrial jobs
C) Rural migration to cities
D) Wars, food shortages, and disease epidemics

Question 9

How did the growing migration of men change the lives of rural African and Asian women?

A) It left many of them destitute as their husbands abandoned them to find work in the cities.
B) It reduced the overall number of children as many married later.
C) It created more pressure to get married and travel to the city with a husband.
D) It encouraged women's independence as many became heads of households after men left.

Question 10

The attack on mosquitos and rats in this image is indicative of which of the following?

A) That the French viewed their enemies during the First World War as vermin
B) An increased focus on combating public health issues
C) That diseases such as the plague were having a major impact on European populations
D) That many people feared there was no defense against life-threatening illnesses such as the plague or malaria

Question 11

Which of these is one of the three main factions that emerged in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion?

A) Persians
B) Slavs
C) Turks
D) Kurds

Question 12

Many of the civil wars since the 1990s have been caused by which of the following?

A) Economics and trade
B) Political ideology
C) Ethnic rivalries
D) Industrialization

Question 13

Why has the triumph of liberal ideology tended to produce activism?

A) Liberalism has tended to increase inequality.
B) Liberalism often involves the imposition of fundamentalist beliefs.
C) Liberal leaders have tended to be tyrants.
D) Activism seeks to expand opportunities for wealth creation.

Question 14

What was meant by scholars who argued that the fall of the Berlin Wall led to an "end of history"?

A) They meant that the past no longer mattered.
B) They meant Western-style liberalism had triumphed for all time.
C) They meant that universities would soon serve no purpose.
D) They meant that all that mattered was science.

Question 15

How many megacities (those with 5 million or more inhabitants) were there in 1950, and how many do estimates suggest there will be by 2017?

A) Zero, seventeen
B) Four, twenty
C) Eight, fifty-nine
D) Twelve, eighty-four

Question 16

Which of the following describes the bazaar economy common in cities in the developing world.

A) It largely caters to urban elites and tourists.
B) It is generally controlled by organized crime.
C) It is tightly regulated by the government.
D) It is largely composed of small traders and unskilled labor.

Question 17

One concern about North Korea's nuclear program is that it will produce warheads capable of reaching what country?

A) India
B) Japan
C) The United States
D) The United Kingdom

Question 18

How has the presence of multinational corporations in developing nations affected those nations?

A) Multinational corporations have encouraged the sale of products specifically tailored to the interests of the local markets.
B) Multinational corporations have spread the products and values of a consumer society among the elites of developing nations.
C) Multinational corporations have led to sharp declines in unemployment and poverty.
D) Many multinational corporations have created social tensions as they often refuse to hire local business leaders to important positions in their operations.

Question 19

What are the major factors driving global migration?

A) Pursuit of economic opportunity and flight from persecution
B) Declining costs associated with travel
C) The relative ease of returning to native countries
D) Warfare

Question 20

What has contributed to growing restrictions on immigration since the 1980s?

A) Increasing cultural homogeneity in host nations
B) Growing reluctance from employers to hire foreign workers
C) Slowing economic growth in host nations
D) Stricter United Nations regulations affecting the treatment of migrants

Question 21

How have United Nations' member states viewed the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child?

A) Most have rejected it.
B) It has been ratified by virtually every country.
C) Western countries have rejected it, whereas developing countries have accepted it.
D) Most Western countries have accepted it, whereas developing countries have rejected it.

Question 22

Which of these statements is true regarding the impact of climate change on the spread of disease?

A) Drought has reduced the breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
B) In many areas, temperature extremes have shortened the length of active seasons for many disease-carrying organisms.
C) It has accelerated the spread of airborne diseases such as tuberculosis.
D) It has allowed the number of habitats for disease-carrying organisms to expand.

Question 23

About 90 percent of all persons who die from AIDS and 86 percent of those currently infected with HIV live in

A) South Asia.
B) sub-Saharan Africa.
C) North America.
D) East Asia.

Question 24

As the world's population continued to rise in the twentieth century, how did agricultural technology keep pace with that change?

A) Better irrigation techniques were developed.
B) Genetically engineered seeds were cultivated.
C) Crop rotation was practiced.
D) Better engineered plows became available.

Question 25

The green revolution began with the development of new strains of wheat in what country?

A) India
B) Egypt
C) Austria
D) Mexico

Question 26

Which of these has contributed to the spread of AIDS in Africa?

A) The high cost of AIDS drugs
B) The 2008 financial crisis
C) Political instability
D) The growing number of non-African immigrants

Question 27

Rachel Carson is most famous for her book

A) The Population Bomb.
B) Silent Spring.
C) Fatal Harvest.
D) North America Tomorrow.

Question 28

The accelerated population growth of the developing world since 1945 was primarily a result of which of the following?

A) The green revolution
B) The medical revolution
C) Industrialization
D) The decline in terrorism

Question 29

The evidence in Map 33.2, "People Living with HIV/AIDS Worldwide, ca. 2010," suggests that the people of which region have less access to healthcare?

A) The Middle East
B) East Asia
C) Sub-Saharan Africa
D) South America

Question 30

Which of the following occurred in India in 1966 and 1967 and caused widespread concern that food production could no longer keep pace with population growth?

A) Drought
B) Trade embargo
C) Famine
D) Record number of births

Question 31

Which of the following was one of the ways in which many African and Asian countries improved medical care after gaining their independence?

A) They trained paramedics to care for patients in rural areas.
B) They replaced the hospitals inherited from colonial regimes with their own.
C) They addressed the political instability that had allowed for the uncontrolled spread of many diseases.
D) They opened their first major medical schools.

Question 32

Based on Map 33.1, "The Global Distribution of Wealth, ca. 2010," which of the following is true regarding the GDP of most European members of the European Union?

A) Their per capita GDP is higher than the world average.
B) Their per capita GDP is lower than the world average.
C) Their per capita GDP is among the lowest in the world.
D) Their per capita GDP decreased significantly after joining the European Union.

Question 33

What was the greatest environmental concern at the beginning of the twenty-first century?

A) Nuclear waste
B) Global warming
C) Acid rain
D) Species extinction

Question 34

Which of these issues was addressed by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol?

A) Ethnic violence
B) The AIDS crisis
C) The feminization of poverty
D) Global warming

Question 35

What was the thesis of Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb?

A) That the poverty of the Third World would result in savage racial wars.
B) That a green revolution could solve the world's overpopulation problem.
C) That conflict between liberalism and communism would destroy the world.
D) That it was too late to prevent hundreds of millions of people from starving.

Question 36

What influenced the development of the 1981 World Health Organization's new standards for breast-milk substitutes?

A) Pressure from governments in Africa
B) Mass deaths in the non-Western world
C) The Nestlé boycott
D) Reforms suggested by formula producers

Question 37

According to this map, how does the distribution of Sunni and Shi'ite in 2010 compare to their distribution in the late twentieth century?

A) Their distribution has not changed much at all.
B) The Kurdish region used to contain a heavy mix of Sunni and Shi'ite.
C) The Sunni population is much larger in the twenty-first century.
D) The "mixed" region was once home to a significant Sunni majority.

Question 38

Which of these has limited the medical benefits of scientific advances?

A) Unequal access to health care
B) Limited funding for most forms of medical research
C) The advent of national healthcare systems
D) High profile medical science failures

Question 39

The green revolution's greatest successes have come in which Asian countries?

A) Those dominated by large-scale estate farms
B) Those that have collectivized farming
C) Those with broad-based peasant ownership of land
D) Those where tenant farming predominates

Question 40

Which of these was a major postwar medical advance?

A) The discovery of the link between sanitation and disease
B) The discovery of a cure for malaria
C) The advent of the germ theory of disease
D) The discovery of vaccines for many deadly diseases

Question 41

How has the digital revolution affected the problem of inequality?

A) Communication has made inequality harder to sustain.
B) Technology has encouraged the breakup of large corporations.
C) Rural areas have been relatively advantaged by new technologies.
D) A "digital divide" has emerged that perpetuates inequalities.

Question 42

What led to the communication revolution?

Question 43

What were some of the notable successes of the twentieth-century medical revolution? What challenges remain?

Question 44

What percentage of the world's couples practice some form of birth control?

A) 10
B) 30
C) 50
D) 70

Question 45

What are the greatest environmental challenges facing the world? Are these environmental problems concentrated in certain regions of the world? If so, where?

Question 46

The postindependence era has seen the emergence of gigantic cities in the developing world. Why?

Question 47

What is the digital divide, and how does it reflect contemporary global realities?

Question 48

What migration patterns emerged in Africa, Asia, and Latin America after 1945?

Question 49

How has the U.S. struggle against al-Qaeda progressed, and how has it affected other nations?

Question 50

What recent technological development has had the greatest impact on human communication?

A) The Internet
B) The cell phone
C) Television
D) Film

Question 51

What attempts have been made to limit nuclear proliferation since 1945? Which attempts have been successful, and which have not?

Question 52

Which of the following is true regarding the conditional cash transfer pioneered in Mexico?

A) It provides a stipend to families that meet certain goals, such as keeping their children in school.
B) It was created to combat poverty but failed to meet expectations.
C) It is an indirect, temporary solution to combating poverty.
D) The Family Scholarship, pioneered in Brazil, was the inspiration for Mexico's cash transfer plan.

Question 53

In what sense has history not "ended"?

A) The Cold War has continued.
B) Technological change has slowed but not halted.
C) Cycles of economic growth and crisis have persisted.
D) While regional conflict has ended, change has not.

Question 54

Which country made sexual reassignment surgery a legal right in 2012?

A) Ecuador
B) Uruguay
C) Argentina
D) Brazil

Question 55

What evidence suggests that global interdependence is now a part of world affairs? Do you think these relationships will make wars more or less likely, and why?

Question 56

What are the middle powers, and how do they create "multipolar" political landscapes?

Question 57

Governments have found that new communication technologies

A) make both censorship and privacy more difficult to enforce.
B) make populations easier to manipulate.
C) can be easily controlled at "node points."
D) make revolutions less likely.

Question 58

The "information age" has developed out of the parallel development of

A) human social skills and population.
B) electrification and transport.
C) computing and communication technologies.
D) stable governments and private corporations.

Question 59

What has prevented AIDS medications from being more widely distributed in South Africa?

A) No one has been willing to distribute them for free.
B) No effective medications have been developed.
C) The lack of facilities makes them impossible to administer there.
D) Availability of the medications cannot keep up with the need.

Question 60

The personal computer and the cell phone are associated with which of these?

A) The first communications revolution
B) The second communications revolution
C) The third communications revolution
D) The fourth communications revolution

Question 61

Use the following to answer questions :
digital divide

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 62

How has rapid economic and social change in the developing world affected women?

Question 63

Use the following to answer questions :
megacities

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 64

Use the following to answer questions :
feminization of poverty

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 65

Use the following to answer questions :
multinational corporations

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 66

Use the following to answer questions :
global warming

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 67

Use the following to answer questions :
green revolution

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 68

Despite the end of the Cold War, many people still worry about new threats to world peace and security. What are these threats? How has the international community dealt with them?

Question 69

Use the following to answer questions :
middle powers

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 70

Discuss the green revolution and its successes. What factors have affected the spread of this agricultural revolution?

Question 71

Use the following to answer questions :
bazaar economy

A)Countries with significant economic influence that became increasingly assertive regional leaders after the Cold War.
B)Cities with populations of 5 million people or more.
C)Beginning in the 1950s, the increase in food production stemming from the introduction of high-yielding wheat, hybrid seeds, and other advancements.
D)An economy with few salaried jobs and an abundance of tiny, unregulated businesses such as peddlers and pushcart operators.
E)The gap between levels of access to computing, Internet, and telecommunications between rich and poor regions and populations.
F)Business firms that operate in a number of different countries and tend to adopt a global rather than a national perspective.
G)The issue that those living in extreme poverty are disproportionately women.
H)The belief of the majority of the world's scientists that hydrocarbons produced through the burning of fossil fuels have caused a greenhouse effect that has increased global temperatures over time.

Question 72

How have multinational corporations shaped the global economy? Discuss in terms of costs and benefits, as well as the history of their development.

Question 73

How have rights expanded globally in recent decades? What has contributed to this development?