AP World History Practice Test Chapter 3

Questions refer to the passage below. “In Mesopotamia, the flood was the enemy. The Mesopotamian deities who ruled the waters, Nin-Gursu and Tiamat, were feared. The forces of nature were often evil. Life was a struggle. In Egypt, on the other hand, life was viewed as a cooperation with nature. Even the Egyptian god of the flood, Hapi, was a helpful deity, who provided the people’s daily bread. Egyptian priests and priestesses were much more at ease with their world than were their Mesopotamia counterparts. And, partly because of their different experiences with the rivers, the Mesopotamians developed a civilization based on cities, while the Egyptians did not. From the first Sumerian city-states on the lower Euphrates to the later northern Mesopotamian capital of Babylon, civilization was the product and expression of city life. Egyptian civilization, in contrast, was the creation of the pharaoh’s court rather than of cities. Beyond the court, which was moved from one location to another, Egypt remained a country of peasant villages.” Kevin Reilly, world historian, The West and the World: A History of Civilization, 1989 The passage best illustrates which of the following processes in the period before 600 B.C.E.?