Test your basic knowledge |

CLEP Western Civilization Ancient Greece

Subjects : clep, history
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. As Greek military techniques changed from small - wealthy cavalry units to large infantry groups - soldiers who would buy spears and armor became known as hoplites who were organized into large units able known as ____ that were able to resist cavalr






2. Aristotle opposed ____ as a form of good government but rather - divided government into three types with the ideal rule by the majority - 'polity -' for the good of the people.






3. In the fifth century B.C.E. - Greek ruler Pericles ordered the construction of the ___ - a temple to the goddess Athena - on the hill known as the Acropolis.






4. The Greeks prevented further westward expansion of the Persian empire when they defeated the army of King Xerxes at the battle of ___ in 480 B.C.E.






5. ____ was the only Mycenaean Greek city state to survive when the Dorian Greeks invaded the Balkan Peninsula






6. The ________ Wars (431-404 B.C.E.) are generally thought of as an attempt of Sparta - whose military power was land-based - to prevent rival Athens - whose military power was sea-based - from taking over all of Greece.






7. Famous Greek sculptor ______ (c. 490-430 B.C.E.) was hired by Pericles to design the large statue of Athena inside the Parthenon.






8. Greek ____ was generally used to honor the gods - originally involved a chorus (group of singers) alternating verse with a single leader - and grew to include dialogue between actors






9. After the formerly illiterate Greeks acquired literacy through trading contacts with a group known as the ____ - they were able to write down and record early poetry - which has been passed down through the generations as oral traditions.






10. Early Greek philosopher _____ (c. 400 B.C.E.) theorized that physical objects were composed of atoms (the Greek word atoma meant 'indivisible').






11. The ____ Empire was established by Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy after Alexander's death and included Egypt and Palestine.






12. An elected board that was active in foreign policy and monitored the kings' and generals' exercise of military authority - Assembly of all male citizens over age 30 - two kings with limited authority - Voting using precise counts






13. Some of the greatest actors in the earliest form Greek drama - ____ - (sixth century B.C.E.) include Aeschylus - Sophocles - and Euripides; Athenians engaged in competitions for the best performers in this type of drama.






14. ____ (496-406 B.C.E.) was an ancient Greek tragedian who wrote several plays including Oedipus and Antigone which each address moral and religious issues; this playwright wrote from the perspective that humans were born into a world that lacks knowle






15. As the polis declined throughout the Hellenistic period - new religious ideas and mystery cults were brought into the region by armies returning from the Near East; the Persian cult ____ - in which religious practice centered around a cave or cavern






16. The Greek tragedies of playwright _____ (c.480-406 B.C.E.) lack the moral and religious concerns of other tragedians - but rather - restructured the traditional Athenian tragedy and focused on the inner lives and motives of his characters.






17. Between 800 and 750 B.C.E. - a Greek cultural revival began and the ___ (city-state) emerged as the central unit of economic - social - and political structure and organization; these city-states were small - self-governing units






18. Through a series of battles at land and at sea - the Athenians were able to defeat the Persians with the assistance of the city-state of _____.






19. ___ was a philosophical school of thought in Hellenistic culture that proposed that morality was relative and questioned the existence of any philosophical certainty.






20. Temples were typically very flamboyant and elaborate and included architectural structures such as pediments - friezes - and sides made of fluted columns with Doric - Corinthian - or Ionic capitals. Statues from Classical Greece included lifelike thr






21. Plato's Theory of ____ indicates that there is a higher realm that exists beyond the material - sensory world of our present reality and gives the empirical world its existence






22. The ___ Sea became an important geographical core of Greek civilization in that it stood between the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia; sea travel was much more efficient than land travel due to the terrain of the land surrounding this early Greek civili






23. Greek philosopher Plato wrote _____ in order to recount - expound upon - and defend the philosophical methods of Socrates that had led to his trial and conviction






24. Following the Peloponnesian Wars - bickering continued between the Greek city-states in an effort for supremacy and Sparta could not remain strong enough to control all of Greece. Philip II of Macedon won the Battle of _____ after invading Greece in






25. ___ of Miletus (c. 600 B.C.E.) - who believed that water was the universal substance behind all things - was the earliest known Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher.






26. ____ of Cos (c. 460-377) - the 'Father of Medicine -' was an ancient Greek physician who rejected beliefs of supernatural forces inflicting illness and is known for his great advances in clinical medicine including the doctrines of clinical observati






27. Pericles' strategy against the Spartan invasion of Attica - the peninsula on which Athens was located - in 431 B.C.E. happened early in the...






28. The ___ Method - which is perhaps Socrates' greatest contribution to Western philosophy - involves a didactic (answering a question with a question) method of examination to help an individual determine the extent of his or her knowledge and underlyi






29. The Greek poet ___ (518-438 B.C.E.) is known for his poetic odes of victory for purposes of athletic contests.






30. After unifying Greece - Macedonian King Philip II created the League of ____ as federation of Greek city-states as self-ruling entities who were required to give allegiance to Macedon and facilitate King Philip's use of military forces in foreign aff






31. The socio-economic turmoil facing Athens in the seventh century B.C.E. affected these people the worst






32. Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. - many of the Greek city-states reasserted their independence and formed the ____ League as a confederation of city-states in the southern area of Greece.






33. Cyrus the Great expanded his Persian empire into Greece in 546 B.C.E. when he gained control of a region in Asia minor known as ______.






34. Ancient Greek philosopher ____ (c. 500 B.C.E.) was the first individual in the Western world to create a forceful philosophical system and was preoccupied with the universality of change.






35. Like Draco - ___ (594 B.C.E.) was elected as archon and given a great deal of power to deal with the agrarian crisis facing Athens.






36. In order to continue the work of Socrates - Plato also founded a school in Athens called the ____ - a school which was the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.






37. The most well known Greek writer of comedies was ____ (c. 450-385 B.C.E.) - a playwright who used the medium of a comedy to make fun of other Athenians






38. In 499 B.C.E. - the Ionian Greeks in Anatolia - who had been invaded by the Persians in 546 B.C.E. - rebelled against Persian control and were aided by the city-state ___ on the Greek mainland.






39. ____ (c. 469-399 B.C.E.) - an ancient Greek philosopher who is credited with laying the foundation for Western philosophy - emphasized the welfare of the soul and believed that knowledge was gained through divine dispensation rather than through inst






40. A policy of ____ - exiling an individual for ten years - was used by the Athenians to make sure that no one politician gained too much power.






41. In order to deal with the socio-economic crisis occurring in Athens during the seventh century B.C.E. - a certain man known as _____ was given a tyrant-like status; this leader was faced with revolutionary-type violence and responded with a severe la






42. ____ __ ____ assumed power of the Macedonian empire in 336 B.C.E. when his father - King Philip II - died from assassination and is remembered for his conquest of the Persian Empire in 328 B.C.E. and creation of the largest empire in the world until






43. The plays of Aeschylus (c. 525-456 B.C.E.) - which have moral and religious themes - focus of ___ - exaggerated pride and self-confidence - that leads to individuals bringing nemesis - divine punishment - upon themselves.






44. The word '____' came from a battle in 490 B.C.E. in Attica in which greatly outnumbered Athenians defeated the Persian army under emperor Darius I and afterward - a messenger ran 26 miles to report this remarkable victory






45. Many Mycenaens who were overrun by Dorian Greeks fled to Anatolia and established Greek culture in an area called ___.






46. The Athenians were defeated in 413 B.C.E. after Alcibiades - Pericles' nephew - led them in a failed invasion of Spartan allies at the city of ____ in Sicily.






47. Greek philosopher ________ (c. 530 B.C.E.) theorized that mathematical relationships could be use to describe all of reality; this philosopher is also believed to have coined the term 'philosopher -' stating that he was a 'lover of wisdom' and the mo






48. During the transition in which the Mycenaens fled to Anatolia after being overrun by Dorian Greeks - their art of writing and related administrative skills were lost and thus - the cultural achievements of these Greeks declined leading to a historica






49. In order to protect themselves and neighboring city-states from future attacks from the Persians - the Athenians formed the ___ League (478 B.C.E.) - a naval alliance made up of over a hundred poleis (city-states) all located along the Aegean Sea sho






50. __________ (c. 310-250 B.C.E.) proposed a geocentric theory stating that the sun revolves around the earth.