AP World History Exam: The 20th Century
1) Which of the following was NOT an event leading to the outbreak of World War I?
A) The assassination of the Austrian archduke
B) Austriaʹs declaration of war on Serbia
C) Franceʹs invasion of Belgium
D) The rise of the alliance system
2) By 1915, conflict on the Western Front
A) had become a shifting game of rapid maneuver with few major battles.
B) had resulted in victory for the British and French troops, who pushed the exhausted enemy to the borders of Germany.
C) had settled into a deadly stalemate in which hundreds of thousands of lives were expended for a few feet of trench.
D) had resulted in massive food shortages in both France and Great Britain.
3) Which of the following statements concerning the global aspects of World War I is most accurate?
A) The British dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand remained aloof and virtually untouched by the war.
B) American businessmen prior to 1917 profited by selling goods to both sides and by taking advantage of European distractions to seize new world markets.
C) The United States aggressively entered the war in 1914 to demonstrate its new position as a world power.
D) Most colonies of Europe refused to fight and die for their “mother” country.
4) By 1917 the war on the Eastern Front
A) had stagnated into a stalemate in which neither side had an advantage.
B) led to a major revolution in Russia that toppled the tsarist government.
C) resulted in a massive Russian offensive fueled by the numerical superiority of Russian armies.
D) had developed into trench warfare similar to the Western Front.
5) Which of the following was NOT included in the final set of treaties that ended World War I?
A) A League of Nations was formed, but the United States refused to join.
B) Russia was rewarded for its service to the Allies by the grant of substantial territories in Poland and the Baltic Republics.
C) Germany was forced to accept blame for the war and to pay huge reparations to the victorious Allies.
D) Austria-Hungary was divided up into a Germanic Austria as well as the independent states of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.
6) The British promised support for a Jewish settlement in the Middle East in the
A) Sinai Resolution B) Exodus Pact C) Fourteen Points D) Balfour Declaration
7) As a direct consequence of the war
A) womenʹs participation in the labor force increased greatly.
B) womenʹs participation in the labor force increased only slightly.
C) womenʹs participation in the labor force decreased significantly.
D) womenʹs participation in the labor force stayed basically at the same levels.
8) The sea warfare during World War I consisted largely of
A) major surface battles between the fleets of Britain and Germany.
B) a single major battle in which the German fleet destroyed the Russian navy.
C) German submarine warfare.
D) the British attempt to destroy the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean.
9) The mid-1920s in western Europe could best be described as a period of
A) war and destruction. B) stability and optimism. C) depression and unemployment. D) international tensions building between East and West.
10) What event historically triggered the Great Depression?
A) World War II B) World War I C) U.S. stock market crash
D) The attack on Pearl Harbor
11) Which of the following did NOT occur in the West in the 1920s?
A) An American named Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
B) Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler rose to power as part of the fascist movement in Western Europe.
C) New luxury items like automobiles and radios were mass-produced and more readily available to people of the middle-class.
D) Women felt more empowered and gained voting rights in the U.S., Germany, and Great Britain.
12) Which of the following was NOT a popular cultural phenomenon in the West during the 1920s?
A) television B) radio C) automobiles D) “talkies”
13) Which of the following countries was NOT a member of the Axis powers?
A) The Soviet Union B) Italy C) Germany D) Japan
14) Hitler came to power in Germany
A) with the support of communists.
B) as a result of entirely legal and constitutional means.
C) after a short, but violent, overthrow of the constitutional government.
D) after a lengthy civil war between forces of conservatives and communists.
15) Who was the leader of fascist Italy?
A) Benedetto Croce B) Benito Juarez C) Benito Mussolini D) Erwin Rommel
16) In order to avoid a two-front war, Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with this country in 1939.
A) Spain B) France C) The United States D) The USSR
17) Universally recognized as the greatest naval battle in history, the Japanese fleet was effectively put out of commission at
A) Midway B) Tarawa C) Coral Sea D) Iwo Jima
18) Japanʹs surrender in the Pacific was precipitated by
A) the use of atomic weapons on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the U.S.
B) a massive land and sea assault on the Japanese home islands.
C) the loss of the Philippines to the U.S.
D) the loss of China to combined British and American forces.
19) This combined Allied invasion of northern France in June 1944 began the liberation of western Europe from the Nazis.
A) Battle of the Bulge B) Battle of Midway C) Operation Barbarossa D) D-Day
20) Hitler’s decision to invade this country in 1941 overextended the Nazi war machine and is usually seen as a strategic mistake for Germany in World War II.
A) France B) The Soviet Union C) Britain D) Poland
21) Which of the following statements concerning warfare in the European theater during World War II is most accurate?
A) France mounted a fanatic defense of its home territories, only succumbing to the Nazi advance in 1944.
B) British resistance crumbled before the air assaults of Germany, and an amphibious assault knocked the British from the war.
C) From 1939-1941, Nazi Germany quickly conquered most of continental Europe using “blitzkrieg” tactics with tanks and airplanes.
D) The war quickly turned into a trench warfare stalemate with both sides working to gain additional allies.
22) Though the United States supported the Allies, they did not officially enter World War II until
A) Japan invaded China in 1937.
B) Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
C) Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938.
D) Germany declared war on the United States in 1942.
23) Hitler promoted the Nazi ideology that many of Germany’s problems were caused by
A) socialists and capitalists.
B) Jews and communists.
C) Jews and Czechs.
D) fascists and communists.
24) The mass murder of 6 million Jews living in Nazi occupied areas from 1938-1945 is called
A) The Holocaust B) The Munich Pact C) Kristallnacht D) Auschwitz
25) All of the following groups were targeted by Hitler in the mass executions that would become known as the ʺfinal solutionʺ EXCEPT
A) musicians B) homosexuals C) Gypsies D) mental deviants
26) Where was the focal point of the cold war in Europe immediately after World War II?
A) France B) Germany C) Hungary D) Czechoslovakia
27) Which of the following statements concerning the German government after World War II is most accurate?
A) Germany remained divided among three Western powers until 1980.
B) During the cold war, France, Britain, and the United States merged their territories to form the Federal Republic of Germany.
C) Germany fell under the direct government of the Soviet Union along with the rest of eastern Europe.
D) Germany reunited in 1960 after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
28) The independent labor movement in Poland that challenged Soviet dominance was called
A) Comintern B) Solidarity C) Izvestia D) Pravda
29) Despite the loosening of Soviet control over eastern Europe following Stalinʹs death, what aspects of Soviet domination continued to be enforced?
A) Single-party dominance and military alignment with the Soviet Union
B) Centralized economic planning
C) Total rejection of Catholicism
D) Agricultural collectivization
30) What Russian leader significantly altered political, diplomatic, and economic policies in the Soviet Union after 1985?
A) Yuri Andropov B) Leonid Brezhnev C) Mikhail Gorbachev D) Nikita Krushchev
31) Which of the following was NOT considered a “hot spot” during the Cold War? (hot spot meaning area of tension between the US and USSR)
A) Paris B) Berlin C) Vietnam D) The Korean Peninsula
32) In 1949, democracies in Europe and the Americas formed ______in order to oppose the threat of communist aggression; the Soviet Union responded by signing the ______Pact in 1955 with members of Eastern Europe.
A) the European Union; Warsaw
B) the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Warsaw
C) the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); Paris
D) the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); Warsaw
33) Americans introduced all of the following reforms to Japan during their occupation EXCEPT
A) giving women the vote.
B) abolishing Shintoism as a state religion.
C) outlawing labor unions.
D) making the emperor a symbolic figurehead.
34) In 1949, communists led by this man achieved victory in China.
A) Chiang Kai-shek B) Ho Chi Minh C) Kim Il-Sung D) Mao Zedong
35) In the 1960s, the United States waged an unsuccessful guerilla war in the small Asian nation of ______; in the 1980s, the Soviet Union did the same in the Middle Eastern nation of ______.
A) Korea; Iraq
B) Korea; Afghanistan
C) Vietnam; Afghanistan
D) Vietnam; Iraq
36) Maoʹs 1958 program of pushing industrialization through small-scale projects integrated into the peasant communes was called
A) the May Fourth program.
B) ʺThousand Flowers Bloom.ʺ
C) the Great Leap Forward.
D) The Long March
37) A common technique among communist nations in the 20th century were state-run economic development initiatives called
A) five-year plans B) Bolshevism C) Mass Lines D) shock therapy
38) The communist leader of North Vietnam from 1945-1969 was
A) Zhou Enlai B) Ho Chi Minh C) Chiang Kai-shek D) Deng Xiaoping
39) The term perestroika refers to
A) a new freedom to comment and criticize the Soviet government.
B) economic restructuring and more leeway for private ownership.
C) the Soviet space program.
D) the establishment of a liberal democracy.
40) In 1991, what occurred in East and West Germany?
A) The Berlin Wall was officially dismantled.
B) The tense “Berlin Crisis” began, which almost led to nuclear war.
C) East Germany boycotted the Summer Olympics held in Munich.
D) East and West Germany reunited, creating one German nation.
41) A communist revolution took place on this island nation in 1959, only 90 miles off the coast of the United States.
A) Hawaii B) Cuba C) Haiti D) Puerto Rico
42) The common thread running through all of the military regimes of Latin America was
A) they were all supported by the United States.
B) they were all supported by the working populations.
C) they were all reform-minded.
D) they were all nationalistic.
43) Which of the following statements concerning military governments in Latin America after 1960 is most accurate?
A) Military governments tended to favor labor and the working classes at the expense of the traditional oligarchy.
B) Political repression and torture were often used to silence critics.
C) None of the military governments was successful in introducing social or economic reforms.
D) Military governments were uniformly surrogates for conservatives in Latin American society.
44) Which of the following statements most accurately reflects the progress of democratization in Latin America in the 1980s?
A) Despite return to democratic government in many Latin American countries, problems with populist movements, threats from military leaders, inflation, and the drug trade weakened the new regimes.
B) Once democratic governments were restored in much of Latin America, the influence of the U.S. in the region began to wane.
C) The return of democracy to Latin America was so universal that military governments ceased to exist.
D) Democratic governments in the 1980s ceased to be troubled by the existence of leftist, guerilla movements.
45) What led to the U.S. return to more aggressive policies regarding Latin America including direct military intervention following World War II?
A) The desire to contain communism and the cold war
B) The discovery of uranium in Mexico
C) The increasing intervention of Japan into Latin American economies
D) The alliance of many Latin American countries with fascist governments during the war
46) Which of the following statements concerning women in Latin American politics and society is most accurate?
A) Nowhere in Latin America did women achieve the right to vote before 1955.
B) Women tended to join the national political parties, where traditional prejudices against women in public life limited their ability to influence programs.
C) Women continued to be excluded from the Latin American industrialized labor force, although they played a major role in agricultural production.
D) Women were unwilling to challenge the traditions that kept them out of the political arena.
47) Besides Cuba, what country today is still communist?
A) Armenia B) Turkey C) Russia D) China
48) Why have ethnic rivalries and communal violence been endemic in decolonized African states?
A) The level of civilization in Africa was more primitive at the time of colonization.
B) Tribal life in Africa was traditionally more violent than other cultures.
C) Africans received training and weapons from European colonists.
D) Europeans hastily colonized Africa and established boundaries without reference to ethnic groups or cultural homogeneity.
49) One of the most common elements of African and Asian governments since decolonization is
A) the creation of liberal democracies.
B) military takeovers.
C) communism.
D) stable economic systems.
50) Who was brought to power in 1979 in Iran through a radical revolution?
A) Saddam Hussein B) Hosni Mubarak C) Ayatollah Khomeini