Taking It Home

Whenever a test is drawing near (as it is in European History), it's a good time to review some questions to help quiz your general (and specific) knowledge. To that end, I humbly offer these as a generic guide...

1. What belief emphasizes that human reason can uncover the mysteries and laws of the universe; it was the dominant philosophy during the Scientific Revolution?

2. Medieval science was primarily based on:

1. close observation of nature
2. pure superstitions
3. the experimental method
4. a blending of Christian theology and the writings of classical authors
5. decrees emanating from the papacy

And New Philosophy calls all in doubt,

The element of Fire is quite put out;

The Sun is lost, and th’ Earth, and no man’s wit

Can well direct him where to look for it.

3. These verses by John Donne (1573-1631) refer to the scientific work of

1. Harvey
2. Leeuwenhoek
3. Copernicus
4. Paracelsus
5. Ptolemy

4. The Dutch Republic rose to prominence in seventeenth-century Europe because of which of the following factors?

1. Its agricultural innovations
2. Its military strength
3. Its literary creativity
4. Its religious unity
5. Its shipping and commerce

5. Which of the following was most typical of preindustrial European village society?

1. Single-crop agricultural production
2. Domestic manufacture of most household goods
3. Upward economic mobility from one generation to the next
4. Low infant-mortality rates
5. Long life expectancy

6. “His enthusiasm for scientific method, his belief that everything could be reduced to mathemat­ical terms, and his insistence on systematic doubt of all earlier theories left a profound mark on the thinking of scientists in the next two centuries."

The passage above is a description of the work of

1. Francis Bacon
2. Tycho Brahe
3. Isaac Newton
4. Renê Descartes
5. Baruch Spinoza