Free CLEP Western Civilization II Practice Test (2026)

Question 1

Britain's Factory Act of 1833

Accepted Answer

barred young children from most textile mills and set up inspectors

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set an eight-hour day for all adult workers in British mines and mills

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abolished slavery throughout the British Empire

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gave all working men the right to vote in parliamentary elections

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legalized trade unions for the first time

Question 2

A secret protocol in the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 1939

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divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence

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required Germany to defend the Soviet Union against Japan

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promised Soviet troops to help Germany invade Britain

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pledged to protect the independence of Poland

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promised to return Alsace-Lorraine to Germany

Question 3

Napoleon's Continental System, begun in 1806, tried to

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weaken Britain by closing European ports to British trade

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give each European nation a written constitution

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unite Europe under a single currency based on the French franc

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form an alliance with Britain against Russia

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build railways linking the capitals of Europe

Question 4

In July 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Germany promised Austria-Hungary its full support for whatever action it took against Serbia. This promise is known as

Accepted Answer

the "blank check"

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the Schlieffen Plan

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the Zimmermann Telegram

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the Reinsurance Treaty

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the Fourteen Points

Question 5

In On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin argued that

Accepted Answer

species change over time through natural selection

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traits are inherited as separate units that follow mathematical patterns

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many diseases are caused by germs

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human behavior is driven by unconscious desires

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each species was created separately and has never changed

Question 6

Beginning in the 1760s, James Watt improved the steam engine by

Accepted Answer

adding a separate condenser that greatly reduced fuel use

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inventing the first steam engine used to pump water from mines

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creating the flying shuttle for faster weaving

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building the spinning jenny

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inventing the water frame

Question 7

In 1790 the French National Assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which

Accepted Answer

made clergy elected, state-paid officials sworn to the constitution

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gave the pope the power to appoint French officials

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made Protestantism the state religion of France

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replaced Christianity with the Cult of Reason

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restored the church's confiscated lands and its right to collect tithes

Question 8

In the 1670s and 1680s a Dutch cloth merchant, using simple microscopes he built himself, became the first to describe bacteria and other single-celled organisms, reporting his findings to the Royal Society in London. Who was he?

Accepted Answer

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

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Christiaan Huygens

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Robert Hooke

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Louis Pasteur

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Marcello Malpighi

Question 9

Between 1648 and 1653, while Louis XIV was young and Cardinal Mazarin was his chief minister, French nobles, judges of the Paris Parlement and townspeople rose in a series of revolts known as

Accepted Answer

the Fronde

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the French Wars of Religion

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the Jacquerie

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the Great Fear

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Pugachev's Rebellion

Question 10

In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi led about a thousand volunteers, the Redshirts, in conquering Sicily and Naples. What did he then do with these lands?

Accepted Answer

He handed them to King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia.

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He gave them back to the Bourbon king of Naples.

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He offered them to Napoleon III to become part of France.

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He traded them to Austria in exchange for Venetia.

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He made himself king of a separate southern Italian state at Naples.

Question 11

In July 1794, the month of Thermidor in the revolutionary calendar, members of the National Convention

Accepted Answer

turned against Robespierre and sent him to the guillotine

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stormed the Bastille to seize its stores of weapons and gunpowder

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crowned Napoleon emperor of the French

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restored the Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII

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executed King Louis XVI for treason

Question 12

In the Lateran Accords of 1929, Mussolini's Italy and the papacy agreed that

Accepted Answer

Vatican City would be independent and Catholicism the state religion

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the pope would give up all claims to independent territory

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Italy would leave the League of Nations

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Italy and Germany would form the Rome-Berlin Axis

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the Fascist Party would be banned from Rome

Question 13

In the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War in 1763, France

Accepted Answer

gave Britain Canada and most of its land east of the Mississippi

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took Florida from Spain

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gained control of India from Britain

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sold Louisiana to the United States

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lost its Caribbean sugar islands to Britain but kept Canada

Question 14

In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), Lenin's Bolshevik government

Accepted Answer

took Russia out of the war at the cost of huge western lands

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won Constantinople from the Ottoman Empire

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joined the Allies in a final great offensive against Germany on the eastern front

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launched the New Economic Policy to revive trade

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ended the Russian Civil War with a Bolshevik victory

Question 15

In On Crimes and Punishments (1764), the Italian thinker Cesare Beccaria

Accepted Answer

argued against torture and the death penalty

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claimed that criminals could be identified by inherited physical traits

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defended harsh public executions as the best way to prevent crime

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called for church courts to try all criminals

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urged that judges be free to set any punishment they wished

Question 16

The July Revolution of 1830 in France

Accepted Answer

overthrew Charles X and made Louis-Philippe king

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returned Napoleon to power for the Hundred Days

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began the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII

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set up the Paris Commune

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ended the monarchy and made Louis Napoleon president of a republic

Question 17

The Compromise of 1867, or Ausgleich, reorganized the Austrian Empire by

Accepted Answer

creating the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary

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giving every nationality in the empire its own parliament

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making Hungary a republic separate from the Habsburgs

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uniting Austria with the new German Empire

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granting independence to the Czech and Slovak lands

Question 18

The European Coal and Steel Community, created by a treaty signed in 1951 on a plan proposed by French foreign minister Robert Schuman,

Accepted Answer

pooled the coal and steel of France, West Germany and four others

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set coal and steel quotas for the Soviet bloc under Moscow's direction

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introduced a single currency for its member countries

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created a military alliance against the Soviet Union

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provided American aid to rebuild Western Europe

Question 19

Which thinker began by doubting everything he could, concluded that the one thing he could not doubt was his own thinking, and argued for building knowledge through deductive reasoning modeled on mathematics?

Accepted Answer

René Descartes

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Sir Francis Bacon

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Blaise Pascal

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Isaac Newton

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John Locke

Question 20

German hyperinflation reached its peak in 1923, when

Accepted Answer

the government printed money as French troops held the Ruhr

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the Dawes Plan doubled the reparations Germany owed

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Hitler's rearmament program drained the treasury

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the new Nazi government took over the country's banks

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the New York stock market crash suddenly cut off American loans

Question 21

Early-1800s figures such as the poet William Wordsworth and the painter Caspar David Friedrich, who prized emotion, nature and individual imagination over reason and classical rules, belong to which movement?

Accepted Answer

Romanticism

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Realism

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The Baroque

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Neoclassicism

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Rococo

Question 22

Under the mandate system set up after World War I, the League of Nations

Accepted Answer

put former Ottoman lands such as Syria and Iraq under French or British rule

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gave the Ottoman Empire back its control of Egypt

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granted immediate independence to all of the Arab lands of the old Ottoman Empire

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returned Germany's African colonies to German rule

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divided Austria-Hungary between Italy and Russia

Question 23

Painters such as Claude Monet, whose 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise gave the movement its name, focused on

Accepted Answer

capturing changing light and color with quick, visible brushstrokes

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dreamlike images drawn from the unconscious mind

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copying the balance and order of Greek and Roman art

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polished historical and mythological scenes approved by the official academy

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breaking objects into geometric shapes seen from several angles at once

Question 24

In 1660, after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the collapse of the Protectorate, England

Accepted Answer

restored the monarchy by inviting Charles II to take the throne

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crowned William and Mary as joint rulers after they accepted a Bill of Rights

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was conquered by Louis XIV of France

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made General George Monck Lord Protector

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crowned Cromwell's son Richard as king

Question 25

In The Social Contract (1762), Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that

Accepted Answer

a legitimate state is guided by the general will of the whole people, who keep their sovereignty

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people should give up nearly all their rights to an absolute ruler to escape a war of all against all

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free markets guided by self-interest create the wealth of nations

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the mind at birth is a blank slate shaped by experience

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power should be split among separate branches that check one another

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