The CLEP Western Civilization I exam covers Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East; the Middle Ages; Renaissance and Reformation.  The CLEP Western Civilization I exam contains approximately 120 questions to be answered in 90 minutes.   Note: This exam uses the chronological designations b.c.e. (before the common era) and c.e. (common era). The labels correspond to b.c. (before Christ) and a.d. (anno Domini), which are used in some textbooks. Exam contents:  Ancient Near East (8%–10%) Political evolution Religion, culture, and technical developments in and near the Fertile... Show more

The CLEP Western Civilization I exam covers Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East; the Middle Ages; Renaissance and Reformation. 

The CLEP Western Civilization I exam contains approximately 120 questions to be answered in 90 minutes.  

Note: This exam uses the chronological designations b.c.e. (before the common era) and c.e. (common era). The labels correspond to b.c. (before Christ) and a.d. (anno Domini), which are used in some textbooks.

Exam contents: 

Ancient Near East (8%–10%)
Political evolution
Religion, culture, and technical developments in and near the Fertile Crescent

Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Civilization (15%–17%)
Political evolution to Periclean Athens
Periclean Athens through the Peloponnesian Wars
Culture, religion, and thought of Ancient Greece
The Hellenistic political structure
The culture, religion, and thought of Hellenistic Greece

Ancient Rome (15%–17%)
Political evolution of the Republic and of the Empire (economic and geographical context)
Roman thought and culture
Early Christianity
The Germanic invasions
The late empire

Medieval History (23%–27%)
Byzantium and Islam
Early medieval politics and culture through Charlemagne
Feudal and manorial institutions
The medieval Church
Medieval thought and culture
Rise of the towns and changing economic forms
Feudal monarchies
The late medieval church

Renaissance and Reformation (13%–17%)
The Renaissance in Italy
The Renaissance outside Italy
The New Monarchies
Protestantism and Catholicism reformed and reorganized

Early Modern Europe, 1560-1648 (10%–15%)
The opening of the Atlantic
The Commercial Revolution
Dynastic and religious conflicts
Thought and culture
 

Related: CLEP Western Civilization I Practice Test 1: Ancient Near East to 1648

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CLEP Western Civilization I Practice Test 2: Ancient Near East to 1648

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25 Questions

1. People who opposed the emperors and supported the popes in the political struggles of Italy from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries were known as

Ghibellines.Janissaries.Condottieri.Guelfs.Marranos.

2. “Before he had reached the age of 33, he had conquered the Near East and founded several cities that bore his name, the most famous of which was in Egypt. He hoped to conquer India as well, but was prevented by the mutiny of his troops.”
The paragraph above describes which of the following?

Cyrus the GreatJulius CaesarPhilip of MacedonAugustus CaesarAlexander the Great

3. In ancient Greece, helots were

the poorest class of Athenian citizens.pieces of broken pottery used by the Athenians to exile citizens who seemed to pose a threat to democracy.members of the enslaved population at Sparta.middle-class Athenians who fought as infantry in phalanxes.traders in Sparta who had no political rights.

4. Which of the following works could not have been written before the Edict of Milan (313 C.E.) was promulgated by Constantine the Great?

On the Nature of Things, LucretiusPhilippics, CiceroAeneid, VirgilCity of God, Augustine of HippoOn Farming, Cato the Elder

5. Which of the following works of medieval literature was written in Old English?

BeowulfEddaCanterbury TalesSong of RolandDivine Comedy

6.
The standing sculpture shown above is known by art historians as a

caryatid.frieze.pediment.Corinthian column.Doric column.

7. The Waldensians were

a mystery cult of the third century.a military religious order, founded in the twelfth century, who were charged with the defense of pilgrims in the Holy Land.Christian reformers who denounced the accumulation of wealth and were declared heretics at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215).a commercial league of Mediterranean coastal towns headquartered in Lyons (southern France) during the twelfth to fifteenth centuries.monks who led the reform of the Church in the eleventh century.

8. “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world.”
This declaration was made by

Aristotle.Socrates.Archimedes.Pythagoras.Euclid.

9. Each of the following was true of the Pax Romana EXCEPT

Christians were publicly executed.It was a time of unprecedented prosperity in the Mediterranean.The city of Rome reached a population of about one million.There was high unemployment and poverty in the city of Rome.Roman legions were not used in war.

10. Which of the following is true of the joint-stock company of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

It revived the guilds.It was an innovative method of labor organization.It was made up exclusively of traders.It was free of government interference.It was an association of investors.

11. The democracy of Athens in the fifth century B.C.E. was revolutionary in the ancient world because

it extended the right to vote to women.it united all of the Greek city-states in their fight against the Persians.it outlawed slavery.it gave metics (resident aliens) a voice in government.all male citizens, not just those born into prominent or wealthy families, participated directly in the administration of government.

12. During the period of the Old Kingdom in Egypt (c. 2700–c. 2200 B.C.E.), the Egyptians regarded the pharaoh as

a representative of the gods.a figurehead with merely symbolic power.the foremost citizen of the republic.the chief high priest.a god.

13. An artist whose use of copper engraving and woodcuts extended the principles of Renaissance art far beyond Italy was

Donatello.Albrecht Dürer.Titian.Sandro Botticelli.Jan van Eyck.

14. The survival of the Roman Republic during the first century B.C.E. was most seriously threatened by which of the following?

Carthaginian spies and saboteursreligious leaders who converted Roman citizens to various eastern mystery cultswealthy citizens who commanded the armies of the Republichordes of northern barbariansslave revolts

15. From the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the Dutch fought a struggle for independence against

Burgundy.Spain.England.France.the Holy Roman Empire.

16. The decline of the polis in the Hellenistic period and the opening of the Near East to the Greeks after Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian Empire led to the rise of a religion in the Mediterranean known as

Christianity.the Eleusinian Mysteries.Mithraism.Epicureanism.Stoicism.

17. The primary aim of merchant guilds in the eleventh century was

to raise joint-stock companies.to promote the economic policy known as mercantilism.to restrain competition among craftsmen.to protect their own members and wares.to lend money to kings and nobles.

18. The Domesday Book is

an inventory of property in Norman England used to determine taxes.a chanson de geste composed in southern France in the twelfth century.a medieval commentary on the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation).a manual for hunting witches written in the fifteenth century.John Wycliffe’s fourteenth-century translation of the Bible.

19. The papacy became a political power in addition to a religious authority during the Middle Ages because

the barbarians that invaded the Empire were overawed by the popes.the disintegration of imperial government in western Europe forced the bishops of Rome to assume diplomatic and administrative duties.popes were able to convince Christian society that secular rulers depended on the Church’s hierarchy for their authority.the Emperor Constantine entrusted the governance of Italy to the papacy when he moved his capital to the east.Jesus of Nazareth made no distinction between religious and political authority.

20. The city of Rome was sacked in 1527 by the forces of

the Ottoman Turkish Emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent.the King of England, Henry VIII.the King of France, Francis I.the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.the Venetian Republic.

21. Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Florentine patron of arts, was a member of which influential dynasty?

SforzaViscontiMediciBorgiaHapsburg

22. The Golden Bull of 1356

declared the doctrine of papal supremacy in relations between kings and emperors.ended the Great Schism in the Latin church.ended the Investiture Controversy.established a college of electors made up of seven German states which were responsible for choosing the Holy Roman Emperor.ended the Hundred Years’ War.

23. Battles were fought at all of the following sites during the Persian Wars (490 and 480–479 B.C.E.) EXCEPT

Zama.Plataea.Salamis.Marathon.Thermopylae.

24. Machiavelli was critical of the Italian city-states for their

use of violence to attain their goals.patronage of the arts.opposition to the pope.failure to honor treaties.dependency on mercenaries.

25. Which of the following is true of the tyrant Peisistratus?

He abandoned the constitutional reforms instituted by Solon.He instituted the harsh laws that governed Spartan society.He instituted the festival of Dionysos at Athens, where Greek drama flourished.He was assassinated in a violent uprising of the Athenians.He led the Macedonians in the conquest of Greece.