English-Speaking Countries' Society and Culture

Multiple Choice

1. Please listen to the music clip. In this song, which British rock group used instruments from India, including the sitar and the tablas, and had lyrics inspired by Hinduism?

The answer is C.

(a) The Rolling Stones – plays classical rock with guitar, bass, and drums.
(b) M.I.A. – is a female singer with a Sri Lankan background.
(c) The Beatles – after 1965, visited India and began to be influenced by its traditional music.
(d) The Clash – plays punk rock music with simple melody.

2. Which event launched “The Scramble for Africa,” in which European countries competed to colonize the African continent?

The answer is B.

(a) The Protestant Reformation (1517) – was led by Martin Luther against the Catholic Church.
(b) The British Takeover of the Suez Canal (1882) – caused other European powers to become nervous and compete with Britain over the rest of Africa. The canal is located in Egypt and cut the travel time for the British to sail to and trade with India, their colony.
(c) The Fashoda Incident (1898) – showed the intensity of “The Scramble for Africa,” particularly between the British and French.
(d) The Second Boer War (1899-1902) – represented another example of British imperialism in Africa, over the diamond industry.

3. John Locke’s philosophy of natural rights argued that governmental authority should be based on human reason. Before his philosophy, kings in England took their power from:

The answer is B.

(a) Their ability to rule – There were many bad rulers of England who held power, regardless.
(b) The belief that God chose them to rule – Many people believed in “the divine right of kings.” This is also true in Chinese history with “the mandate of heaven.”
(c) Whether or not their father was a good ruler – Being a good ruler has no relationship with a father’s ability to rule.
(d) The support of the kings of neighboring countries – Neighboring countries often tried to take over England, like France.

4. Which country banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering its waters, and which country signed a treaty to buy nuclear materials for peaceful use?

The answer is A.

(a) New Zealand banned, India bought
(b) Australia banned, Canada bought
(c) Canada banned, Australia bought
(d) United States banned, New Zealand bought

5. Which of the following was NOT a result of mass Chinese migration to the U.S.?

The answer is B.

(a) The Exclusion Act (1882) – prevented further immigration of Chinese to the U.S.
(b) The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) – freed blacks from slavery during the Civil War.
(c) The widespread popularity of Chinese restaurants in America – resulted from Chinese immigrants cooking native foods in the U.S.
(d) The construction of the Transcontinental Road in the 1860s – was completed mostly by Chinese immigrant labor.

6. Social Darwinism, the idea that environmental conditions influence society’s development, was a theory developed by:

The answer is C.

(a) John Locke – discussed the foundations of democracy.
(b) Charles Darwin – discovered the scientific theory of evolution.
(c) Herbert Spencer – applied evolutionary theory to society’s development.
(d) Max Weber – talked about the relationship between capitalism and Protestantism.

7. Which of the following does NOT characterize the Romantic Era poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, and William Blake?

The answer is C.

(a) Focus on the individual, common man – is a characteristic of Romantic Era poetry.
(b) Emotional and introspective writing style – is a characteristic of Romantic Era poetry.
(c) Stream-of-consciousness style – is a characteristic of Modernist literature.
(d) Interest in ancient history and exotic places – is a characteristic of Romantic Era poetry.

8. Why have the Maori people of New Zealand been able to preserve their cultural traditions, despite an overwhelming white majority in that country?

The answer is B.

(a) The Maori do not have to pay taxes in New Zealand. – The Maori are like other citizens in New Zealand and pay taxes.
(b) The Maori formed a political party to represent the interests of their culture. – This organization advocates for Maori rights to preserve indigenous language and culture.
(c) The New Zealand government created a Maori autonomous region called Nunavut. – Nunavut is an autonomous region for the Inuit, located in Canada.
(d) Australian Aborigines have given considerable financial support to the Maori. – There is no financial relationship between the Maori and the Aborigines, who are as disadvantaged as the Maori.

9. The Hudson Bay Company was a chartered company started in England in order to compete with:

The answer is D.

(a) The Portuguese for the trade of tea in India. – The Hudson Bay Company was based in Canada.
(b) The Dutch for the trade of slaves in Africa. – The Hudson Bay Company was based in Canada.
(c) The Americans for the trade of opium in China. – The Hudson Bay Company was based in Canada.
(d) The French for the trade of fur in Canada. – The French traded in Quebec, while the English worked in western Canada.

10. Which of the following choices is NOT one of the genres used to describe Shakespeare’s plays?

The answer is C.

(a) History – is a genre of Shakespearean play, like “Julius Ceasar.”
(b) Comedy – is a genre of Shakespearean play, like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
(c) Sonnet – is a type of 14-lined poem that Shakespeare often wrote.
(d) Tragedy – is a genre of Shakespearean play, like “Romeo and Juliet.”

11. The American idea that the government should be a secular institution is known as:

The answer is B.

(a) Federalism – means that the national government should have more power than the state governments.
(b) The Separation of Church and State – is another name for secularism.
(c) Checks and Balances – means that all three branches of the government balance each other in power.
(d) The Protestant Work Ethic – is the name of a book by Max Weber which describes the relationship between Protestantism and capitalism.

12. The Statue of Westminster (1931):

The answer is A.

(a) Declared the independence of Australia and New Zealand.
(b) Stated that the British monarchy fell under parliamentary rule.
(c) Gave political rights to the Australian Aborigines and the Maori.
(d) Claimed Australia and New Zealand as British colonies.

13. The Gilded Age in the United States, which glorified robber barons and capitalism, was followed by which period, which championed the common man and social reform?

The answer is D.

(a) The Modern Era – described the disillusionment felt by many artists and writers after World War I.
(b) World War I – resulted from intense nationalism developed in many European countries.
(c) The Great Depression – caused the poverty of millions of people in the 1930s.
(d) The Progressive Era – witnessed the passage of many laws to protect average citizens and their rights.

14. Which royal family in England actually originated from England?

The answer is D.

(a) Tudors – originated in Wales.
(b) Stuarts – originated in Scotland.
(c) Hanovers – originated in Germany.
(d) None of the above – No royal family of Britain was actually from England.

15. Whose teachings on civil disobedience influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.?

The answer is C.

(a) Crazy Horse – was an Apache resistance leader in the Indian Wars.
(b) Abraham Lincoln – was the president who freed black slaves in the Civil War.
(c) Mahatma Gandhi – was an Indian nationalist who believed in peaceful resistance against the British.
(d) Malcolm X – was a black leader who believed in violent action, not civil disobedience.

16. The Electoral College and indirect democracy in the United States, allows:

The answer is C.

(a) Professors of America’s best universities to influence presidential decisions.
(b) The United States Supreme Court to choose a governor as president, if neither of the candidates receives more than 50% of the vote.
(c) A candidate to be elected president, even if he does not win the most overall votes among the population of the United States.
(d) Two candidates to be elected president in the same year.

17. In the 1950s and 1960s, what theory did the United States use to describe the containment of Communism?

The answer is D.

(a) Hearts and Minds – does not describe any theory.
(b) Unilateralism – describes U.S. foreign policy after the Cold War, when it became the sole superpower in the world.
(c) Isolationism – describes U.S. foreign policy until World War I, when it avoided conflicts in other countries.
(d) Domino Effect – describes the effect of Communism and how it would spread to other countries from the Soviet Union if the U.S. did not try to stop it.

18. How are Catholics different from Protestants?

The answer is A. The other answers are simply not true.

(a) Catholics care much more about ritual, ceremony, tradition, and the importance of the institution of the church.
(b) Catholics do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
(c) While Protestants have a very strong work ethic, Catholics are lazy and wait for other people to do the work.
(d) Currently, there are no Catholics living in the United States.

19. Which economic structure is NOT a result of globalization in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?

The answer is B.

(a) Sweatshops - are modern factories that produce goods cheaply in developing nations for developed ones.
(b) Mercantilism – is an economic system of the 16th and 17th centuries which argues that a country's wealth is determined by how much gold it keeps.
(c) Free Trade Agreements – are modern contracts between nations that allow the free trade of goods across borders.
(d) Outsourcing – is a modern system between developed and developing nations like the U.S. and India.

20. Separatists in the Canadian province of Quebec believe that:

The answer is D. The Separatists are French speakers who want to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada.

(a) Canada should no longer be a colony of Great Britain.
(b) Native peoples should live in their own part of Canada.
(c) American culture influences Canadian culture too much.
(d) Quebec is culturally different from the rest of Canada since the French, rather than the British, settled there.

21. Foreign companies often outsource their work to India because:

The answer is B.

(a) Many foreigners can speak Hindi, the language of India. – Many foreigners cannot speak Hindi.
(b) Many Indians speak fluent English because India was a colony of Great Britain. – Because Indians speak fluent English, they can often do the language work for a much cheaper salary compared to Americans or Britons.
(c) The country borders China, where the labor is very cheap. – The labor in India is also very cheap which is why foreign companies outsource their work to India
(d) The work that the people in India do does not require them to know how to speak English. – Outsourcing usually requires Indians to speak English.

22. The King and Queen of Britain signed the “Parliament’s Bill of Rights,” limiting the power of the monarchy, during which event?

The answer is C.

(a) The Magna Carta (1215)
(b) The War of the Roses (1455-1487)
(c) The Glorious Revolution (1688)
(d) The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588)

23. Which one of these animals is NOT native to Australia?

The answer is B. The beaver is native to Canada.

(a) Koala
(b) Beaver
(c) Kangaroo
(d) Platypus

24. Which group of present-day American Protestants advocates for intelligent design (also know as creation science) to be taught in school?

The answer is A.

(a) Evangelicals - are religious Americans who oppose evolution.
(b) Puritans – are the same as Pilgrims.
(c) Pilgrims – are the same as Puritans.
(d) Quakers – are religious Americans who oppose war.

25. Which event began the colonization of India, Africa, and Asia, also known as the Second British Empire?

This was a bad question. The answers are B, C, or D.

(a) Execution of Charles I (1649) – occurred during the English Civil War.
(b) Seven Years’ War with France (1763) – The class lecture states that this war determined Britain as the sole superpower, which allowed it to colonize other parts of the world, instead of France.
(c) Loss of the American Colonies (1776) – Some sources argue that the loss of these colonies let Britain focus on Asia and Africa instead.
(d) Crowning of Queen Victoria I (1837) – The textbook says this was the correct answer. Queen Victoria saw the height of the Second British Empire, but did not start it.

Essays

(1) Discuss the social, cultural, and political characteristics of the Victorian Era in the British Empire.

Social:
>>Rise of the Middle Class: the Industrial Revolution meant that more people lived comfortably, with more leisure time; the development of Victorian morality—a stricter code of conservative, Christian ethics.
>>Social Welfare: Parliament passed laws to protect the lifestyle of its citizens including the advancement of education, required holidays, and pensions for retired people.

Cultural:
>>Darwinian Revolution: the works of Darwin and Spencer influenced British thought; confidence placed in human ability rather than God’s control; the environment conditioned peoples and cultures.
>>Victorian Novels: newspaper industry encouraged the development of the Victorian novel because newspapers reached people of all class backgrounds, cheaply; Dickens’ works were serialized in newspapers, and commented on developing class issues; other figures include: Thackeray, Trollope, Bronte sisters, Eliot, and Hardy.
>>Celtic Revival: Irish writers like Wilde, Shaw, Joyce, Yeats became increasingly popular, as they stressed that Irish culture was different from English culture.

Political:
>>Height of the British Empire: England maintained lucrative colonies in India, Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, and negotiated trading rights with China; however, many conflicts also defined the era including the Sepoy Mutiny (1857), Opium Wars (1839-1860), Fashoda Incident (1898), and the Boer War (1899-1902)—student must describe these events.
>>Queen Victoria: longest reigning monarch in British history, served as a symbolic figure of modesty and sentimentality but also of imperial greatness.

(2) Discuss the influence of Protestant religion on American history and culture.

Political:
>>In Democracy in America, de Tocqueville argues that Puritanism provided the foundation of democracy because they were hardworking, egalitarian, and practiced life in moderation.
>>Followers of the Second Great Awakening spurred antebellum social reforms such as temperance, women’s suffrage, and abolition.
>>During the Third Great Awakening, religious leaders tried to apply Christian ethics to social problems, which led to Progressive Era reforms such as national income tax, child labor laws, and temperance.
>>While there is a strong belief in separation of church and state, religious leaders, known as the Christian Right, still influence the government on social issues like gay marriage and abortion in conservative ways.

Economic:
>>In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber argues that Protestants believe in personal salvation and the power of an individual to improve his own situation. Therefore they focused on hard work, and developed the capitalist system.

Cultural:
>>Religious fanatics were the earliest settlers in the colonies and established some of the longest standing cultural institutions in the U.S. such as Harvard.
>>The splintering of many protestant groups as utopian communities led to great cultural diversity in America, in terms of religious practice (such as snake worship, shape-note singing, speaking in tongues) and belief (polygamy in Mormonism, celibacy in Shakerism, pacifism in Quakerism, etc).
>>Evangelicals have shaped the way many Americans view science, in particular, evolution. They argue for creationism or intelligent design—basically that God, not biological conditions, created humans.

(3) Discuss the significance of China and Chinese people in the past and present of three different English-speaking countries. (Tanzania was an acceptable answer.)

>>India: Long tradition of cultural interactions between India and China through the transmission and permutation of Buddhism and exploratory voyages, such as Zheng He, the Ming Admiral; Sino-Indian War in the 1960s where the two countries clashed over territory that they both claimed territory; opening of trade routes since then.

>>Great Britain: There was a high demand for Chinese tea in England which traders exchanged for silver, then later with opium from India; China protested drug trade which resulted in the Opium Wars (1839-1860); Treaty of Nanjing (1842) forced China to open ports for British trade and missionaries, with some areas falling under British spheres of influence including Hong Kong and Shanghai; because Hong Kong was a colony of Britain until 1997, Britain and China continued close cultural and economic exchange.

>>The United States: Chinese immigrants first arrived on the west coast in 1820, taking jobs that demanded hard, physical labor. They worked in mines, during the California Gold Rush, built railways like the Transcontinental Railroad, etc. They also formed ethnic areas in large cities instead of assimilating to American culture, in Chinatowns, opening up Chinese restaurants and laundries, thereby introducing Chinese cuisine to Americans. Unfortunately, the willingness of these immigrants to work hard at low-wage jobs angered many white Americans who believed that they were losing jobs to Chinese people. This lead to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) which suspended Chinese immigration for over sixty years. Today Chinese people have a disproportionately large representation in America’s top universities and industries.

>>Australia: Chinese immigrated in large numbers in the nineteenth century, but from 1901-1973, “White Australia” government policy limited Chinese immigration. In particular, the Immigration Restriction Act (1901) implied that Chinese and English people were not equal. By the 1970s, the government reversed its stance on Chinese immigration, and Australia now recognizes the compelling influence of China on Australia. Even the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd is fluent in Chinese.

>>New Zealand: The government is in the process of approving a Free Trade Agreement with China (its first with a developed country). New Zealand exports dairy products to China as well as services in insurance, banking, and education. In exchange, China will send specialists in Chinese medicine, language teaching, and food services. Descendents of Chinese immigrants comprise one of the largest ethnic minorities in New Zealand.

Greetings, folks, here are the rules to the game we played, as promised. Enjoy! Let me know if you ever decide to play outside of class.

Number of people: 4-10; if you have more than 10 break into smaller groups

There are five steps to the game. Every person performs every step of the game in every round.

Step 1: Everybody starts with a blank piece of paper. The first person writes a noun phrase at the top of the page. The most basic noun phrase is a noun plus an article, as in ‘the apple,’ ‘a fish.’ More complex noun phrases would be the noun plus an adjective, ‘two apples,’ ‘a blue fish.’ Of course the more creative the better, as in ‘two worm-ridden apples that fell off of the back of the farmer’s truck’ or ‘a blue fish with an inferiority complex’. After everybody writes their noun phrase, they fold it over, hide the noun phrase, and pass it to the person next to them. THE PERSON NEXT TO THEM DOES NOT READ THE NOUN PHRASE.

Step 2: The second step is to write a verb phrase at the top of the page. Everybody writes a verb phrase on the sheet of paper they were just given. A verb phrase can also be very basic, as in, ‘eats,’ or ‘walks’. Of course, the more complex the verb phrase, the more fun it is, as in, ‘eats an entire pizza in one mouthful,’ or ‘walks on his hands while balancing a bunny rabbit on his feet.’ After everybody has written their verb phrase, pass the paper to the third person.

Step 3: The third person then attempts to draw the full sentence. For example, ‘Two worm-ridden apples that fell off of the back of the farmer’s truck+eats an entire pizza in one mouthful’ or ‘a blue fish with an inferiority complex+walks on his hands while balancing a bunny rabbit on his feet.’ Obviously all of these things are impossible to draw and will therefore lead to absurd drawings, but that is the fun part of the game. After finishing the drawing, the third person hides the original sentence and passes their paper to the next person.

Step 4: Everybody looks at the drawing that was just passed to them and tries to come up with a sentence that explains the drawing. While the goal is technically to try and guess the original sentence, it is much better to think about it as trying to come up with a funny and clever interpretation of the drawing that you are looking at. If everybody was able to guess the original sentence of their drawing there would be no sport in it. WRITE THE SENTENCE THAT YOU THINK IT IS DOWN UNDERNEATH THE DRAWING.

Step 5: Everybody shares the original sentence, the drawing, and their interpretation, and laughs like crazy.

Other important rules: your drawing cannot include any words, English or Chinese. You must speak English while you play the game.

Play this game with your friends at parties like Conrad and all his nerd friends!