2024 (June): NY Regents - Global History & Geography II
By Sara Cowley
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Last updated 22 days ago
36 Questions
Answer all questions in this part.
Base your answers to questions 1 and 2 on the illustration below and on your knowledge of social studies.
The Agricultural Revolution
Source: Philip Dorf, World History, Oxford Book Company, 1958 (adapted)
Base your answers to questions 3 and 4 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
. . . The serf question is commonly seen as the acid test of Catherine's sincerity; and her failure to solve it is taken as proof of insincerity. But Catherine was convinced, both on humanitarian and practical grounds, of the desirability of emancipation, or at least of state regulation of the relationship between noble and serf.
She voiced her beliefs clearly and often, publicly and privately. She roundly declared that 'unless we agree to alleviate the cruelties and to mitigate [reduce] a condition intolerable for human beings, they themselves will take matters into their own hands, whether we like it or not'.
On the other hand, when it came to putting her wishes into action, Catherine was faced with the almost unanimous disapproval of the nobility. They, having won wide authority over the serfs from her predecessors, were bent on exacting [forcing] still more from Catherine herself, and had little patience with her liberal ideas. . . .
. . . The gulf between noble and serf had grown too wide for Catherine to bridge it. Faced with such an impasse, she could do nothing. To push through her programme with any prospect of success, she would have had to resort to the forcible methods of Peter the Great, an option that she had neither the inclination nor the power to take. Trapped in a historical process that was none of her making and which she could not control, Catherine was compelled to yield against her private judgment.
Hence the paradox [contradiction], that under the most enlightened Russian ruler of the century, the condition of the serfs underwent so marked and rapid a deterioration. The nobility demanded payment for their support of Catherine; and Catherine had to pay at the serfs’ expense. . . .
Source: A. Lentin, "Catherine the Great and Enlightened Despotism," History Today, March 1971
Base your answers to questions 5 and 6 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
... The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. ...
Source: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848
Base your answers to questions 7 and 8 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
... Prussia’s borders according to the Vienna Treaties [of 1814–15] are not favorable for a healthy, vital state; it is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided – that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by iron and blood. ...
Source: Speech by Otto von Bismarck, 1862
Base your answers to questions 9 and 10 on the document below and on your knowledge of social studies.
ARTICLE II. The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by Imperial male descendants, according to the provisions of the Imperial House Law.
ARTICLE VI. The Emperor gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated [developed] and executed.
ARTICLE XI. The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and Navy.
ARTICLE XIII. The Emperor declares war, makes peace, and concludes treaties.
ARTICLE XV. The Emperor confers titles of nobility, rank, orders and other marks of honor.
ARTICLE XVIII. The conditions necessary for being a Japanese subject shall be determined by law.
ARTICLE XXIV. No Japanese subject shall be deprived of his right of being tried by the judges determined by law.
ARTICLE XXVIII. Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief.
ARTICLE XXIX. Japanese subjects shall, within the limits of law, enjoy the liberty of speech, writing, publication, public meetings and associations.
Source: Meiji Constitution of 1889, Asia for Educators, Columbia University online
Base your answers to questions 11 and 12 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
Source: President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, 1918
XIII... An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant [agreement].
XIVA general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. ...
Base your answers to questions 13 and 14 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
Source: Speech by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1933
My citizens,We have accomplished many and great tasks in a short time. The greatest of these is the Turkish Republic, the basis of which is the Turkish heroism and the great Turkish culture. We owe this success to the cooperative progress of the Turkish nation and its valuable army. However we can never consider what we have achieved to be sufficient, because we must, and are determined to accomplish even more and greater tasks. We shall raise our country to the level of the most prosperous and civilized nations of the world. We shall endow our nation with the broadest means and sources of welfare. We shall raise our national culture above the contemporary level of civilization. ...
Base your answers to questions 15 and 16 on the passage below and your knowledge of social studies.
It was dangerous to stand out from the crowd because of illness or any other reason. Once a prisoner became known to the guards, he or she was a target for abuse or “special” treatment. By staying invisible, by being nothing more than the number tattooed on your forearm, you stood a chance of living longer.
Disappearing in the crowd helped Helen stay alive for the two months she was in Auschwitz. During this time, she survived three more selections by Dr. Mengele. In the last, she was one of 300 women and teenage girls chosen to go to another barrack. Helen took this as a hopeful sign, because those selected for the gas chamber were never counted. Rumor soon spread that the women were going to be moved to a labor camp.
Source: Ayer et al., Parallel Journeys, Aladdin Paperbacks, 2000
Base your answers to questions 17 and 18 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
... From the mound, Mr. Tanimoto saw an astonishing panorama. Not just a patch of Koi, as he had expected, but as much of Hiroshima as he could see through the clouded air was giving off a thick, dreadful miasma [fog]. Clumps of smoke, near and far, had begun to push up through the general dust. He wondered how such extensive damage could have been dealt out of a silent sky; even a few planes, far up, would have been audible. Houses nearby were burning, and when huge drops of water the size of marbles began to fall, he half thought that they must be coming from the hoses of firemen fighting the blazes. (They were actually drops of condensed moisture falling from the turbulent tower of dust, heat, and fission fragments that had already risen miles into the sky above Hiroshima.)...
Source: John Hersey, Hiroshima, Alfred A. Knopf, 1946
Base your answers to questions 19 and 20 on the cartoon below and on your knowledge of social studies.
"LET'S GET A LOCK FOR THIS THING"
Source: Herblock, Washington Post, November 1, 1962 (adapted)
Base your answers to questions 21 and 22 on the map below and on your knowledge of social studies.
Base your answers to questions 25 and 26 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
. . . In 1991, while the attacking Tutsi rebels were gaining ground, speeches at Rwandan political meetings, notably at rallies held by the party of President Habyarimana and his ministers, consisted almost entirely of threats made against Tutsis. In Butare, home of the national university, professors vied with one another to publish historical screeds [rants] and anti-Tutsi diatribes [lectures]. In the broadcast studios of popular radio stations, Radio Rwanda and Radio Mille Collines, the Tutsis were referred to as "cockroaches." Announcers, the two best known of whom were Simon Bikindi and Kantano Habimana, used humorous sketches and songs to call openly for the destruction of the Tutsis. . . .Source: Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
Base your answers to questions 27 and 28 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
A colossal hydroelectric dam being built on the Nile 2,000 miles upriver, in the lowlands of Ethiopia, threatens to further constrict Egypt’s water supply — and is scheduled to start filling this summer.
The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the $4.5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — Africa’s largest, with a reservoir about the size of London — has become a national preoccupation in both countries, stoking patriotism, deep-seated fears and even murmurs of war.
To Ethiopians, the dam is a cherished symbol of their ambitions — a megaproject with the potential to light up millions of homes, earn billions from electricity sales to neighboring countries and confirm Ethiopia’s place as a rising African power.
After years of bumpy progress, including corruption scandals and the mysterious death of its chief engineer, the first two turbines are being installed. Officials say the dam will start filling in July.
That prospect induces dread in Egypt, where the dam is seen as the most fundamental of threats. . . .
Source: Walsh and Sengupta, “For Thousands of Years, Egypt Controlled the Nile. A New Dam Threatens That,” New York Times, February 9, 2020
Base your answer to question 29 on Document 1 below and on your knowledge of social studies.
Base your answer to question 30 on Document 2 below and on your knowledge of social studies.
Base your answer to question 32 on Document 1 below and on your knowledge of social studies.
Base your answer to question 33 on Document 2 below and on your knowledge of social studies.