Free CLEP Western Civilization I Practice Test (2026)

Question 1

Between about 750 and 550 BCE, Greek city-states founded colonies such as Syracuse in Sicily and Massalia in southern France. A major reason for this colonization was

Accepted Answer

a shortage of good farmland at home as populations grew

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the need to escape the Roman conquest of Greece

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a ban on trade between Greek city-states

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Alexander the Great's plan to spread Greek culture

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orders from the Persian king to settle the western Mediterranean

Question 2

The split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054 grew mainly out of disputes over

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papal authority and a Western addition to the Nicene Creed

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whether kings could appoint and invest bishops

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translating the Bible into the everyday languages people spoke

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whether Christians should fight in the Crusades

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the sale of indulgences to raise church funds

Question 3

Which religion of ancient Iran taught that the world is a struggle between good, led by the wise lord Ahura Mazda, and evil, ending in a final judgment?

Accepted Answer

Zoroastrianism

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Judaism

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The worship of the sun disk Aten

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Buddhism

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The cult of Marduk

Question 4

In a medieval town, an association of shoemakers that set prices, controlled the quality of goods and trained apprentices was called a

Accepted Answer

craft guild

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monastic order

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manor

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fief

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joint-stock company

Question 5

Around 2300 BCE, which ruler conquered the city-states of Sumer and united much of Mesopotamia in what is often called the first empire?

Accepted Answer

Sargon of Akkad

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Cyrus the Great

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Ramses II

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Nebuchadnezzar II

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Hammurabi of Babylon

Question 6

As tribune in 133 BCE, Tiberius Gracchus proposed

Accepted Answer

limiting holdings of public land and giving the rest to poor citizens

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ending the distribution of cheap grain to the city's poor

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building Rome's first aqueduct with money from conquered lands

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abolishing the office of consul and ruling the city through the tribunes

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making Julius Caesar dictator for life

Question 7

Which Northern Renaissance humanist published a Greek edition of the New Testament in 1516 and mocked church abuses in The Praise of Folly, yet remained a Catholic?

Accepted Answer

Desiderius Erasmus

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Huldrych Zwingli

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Ignatius of Loyola

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Thomas More

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Martin Luther

Question 8

Charlemagne kept watch over the counts who governed the districts of his empire by

Accepted Answer

sending royal envoys, the missi dominici, to inspect them

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appointing papal legates as provincial governors

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having elected justices of the peace hear complaints

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sending intendants chosen from the middle class

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relying on the mayors of the palace to rule the provinces

Question 9

Which Renaissance writer advised rulers that, if they cannot be both feared and loved, it is safer to be feared?

Accepted Answer

Niccolò Machiavelli

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Baldassare Castiglione

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Dante Alighieri

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Thomas More

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Petrarch

Question 10

Around 594 BCE, which Athenian leader canceled debts and ended the practice of enslaving citizens who could not repay them?

Accepted Answer

Solon

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Pericles

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Peisistratus

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Draco

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Cleisthenes

Question 11

Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in 1095 partly in response to

Accepted Answer

an appeal for help from the Byzantine emperor

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the Muslim advance into France that was stopped at Tours

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a split that left rival popes in Rome and Avignon

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the Mongol sack of Baghdad

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the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople

Question 12

Which Roman emperor made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the empire in 380 CE?

Accepted Answer

Theodosius I

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Augustus

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Constantine the Great

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Nero

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Diocletian

Question 13

In the three-field system that spread in medieval Europe, farmers

Accepted Answer

planted one field in autumn and one in spring, leaving the third fallow

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grew crops only in fields watered by irrigation canals

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planted all three fields with wheat every year without rest

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farmed one field each year and kept the other two as permanent pasture for animals

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left two of every three fields fallow each year

Question 14

Around 293 CE, which emperor divided rule of the Roman Empire among four rulers, two senior and two junior, to improve its defense and administration?

Accepted Answer

Diocletian

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Augustus

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Justinian

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Constantine

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Marcus Aurelius

Question 15

Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church and made himself head of the Church of England after

Accepted Answer

the pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon

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he converted to Calvinism while visiting Geneva

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Parliament had voted to adopt Luther's Ninety-five Theses as law

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English peasants revolted against church taxes

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the pope excommunicated his daughter Elizabeth

Question 16

Around 107 BCE, the Roman general Gaius Marius changed the Roman army by

Accepted Answer

enlisting landless men as volunteers

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banning veterans from receiving land after their service

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putting all armies under the direct command of an emperor

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replacing the legions with hired Germanic soldiers

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limiting service in the legions to men who owned property

Question 17

Which of the following helped Sparta build the fleet that defeated Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War?

Accepted Answer

Money from the Persian Empire

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Troops and ships from Philip II of Macedon

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A loan from the treasury of the Delian League

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Warships supplied by the Roman Republic

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Silver from Carthage's mines in Spain

Question 18

Philip II of Spain sent the Armada against England in 1588 mainly to

Accepted Answer

end English aid to the Dutch rebels and restore Catholicism

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drive the English settlers out of their colony at Jamestown in Virginia

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help the Dutch rebels win independence

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place a Bourbon prince on the English throne

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enforce the terms of the Peace of Westphalia

Question 19

Which of the following was an important way that Western European scholars of the 1100s and 1200s gained fuller access to the works of Aristotle?

Accepted Answer

Latin translations of Arabic versions and commentaries, many made in Spain

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The palace school at Charlemagne's court

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Manuscripts found in the ruins of Pompeii

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Greek scholars who fled to Italy after the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453

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The first printed editions from Gutenberg's press

Question 20

Compared with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, the Nile gave ancient Egypt

Accepted Answer

predictable yearly floods and deserts that helped shield it from invasion

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enough rainfall that farmers never needed irrigation

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violent, unpredictable floods that forced farmers to abandon their fields

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rich iron deposits that made it the first iron-using civilization

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open borders that exposed it to constant invasion from all sides

Question 21

In his Novum Organum (1620), which English writer argued that knowledge of nature should be built through careful observation and experiment, reasoning from particular facts to general laws?

Accepted Answer

Francis Bacon

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Johannes Kepler

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Nicolaus Copernicus

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William Harvey

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René Descartes

Question 22

John Calvin's teaching of predestination held that

Accepted Answer

God had already chosen who would be saved

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the monarch should be head of the national church

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only adults who chose baptism could be saved

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salvation could be earned through good works and the sacraments

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the bread and wine of communion become the actual body and blood of Christ

Question 23

In 1598 King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, which

Accepted Answer

granted the Huguenots limited freedom of worship

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made Protestantism the only legal religion in France

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ended the Thirty Years' War in the German states

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expelled all Protestants from France and its colonies

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let each German prince choose the religion of his lands

Question 24

In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered a survey of who held land in England and what it was worth, and the results were recorded in the Domesday Book. The survey helped the king

Accepted Answer

know what taxes and services he could demand

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free the serfs who worked on royal estates

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let Parliament divide land among the common people

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limit his own power to raise taxes

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give the church a share of every estate

Question 25

Which of the following belongs to the Hellenistic period that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great?

Accepted Answer

Eratosthenes estimating the size of the earth in Alexandria

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The building of the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis

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The reforms of Cleisthenes that laid the base for Athenian democracy

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The first recorded Olympic Games

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The composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey

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