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AP U.S. History — Period 3 (1754–1800) — Drill 3

Drill 3 · Multiple Choice · Period 3: 1754–1800

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About This Drill

AP U.S. History — Period 3 (1754–1800) — Drill 3 is a Multiple Choice practice drill covering Period 3: 1754–1800. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.

This AP U.S. History Period 3 drill is based on an adapted excerpt from Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776). Questions test your ability to analyze rhetorical choices, interpret figurative language, understand Paine's argument about government and society, and place the pamphlet in its revolutionary context.

Passage

The following is adapted from Common Sense, a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine and published in January 1776. Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver. Some writers have so confounded society with government as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. The one promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections; the other negatively by restraining our vices. I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature which no art can overturn: that the more simple anything is, the less liable it is to be disordered.

Questions in This Drill

  1. Paine's distinction between 'society' and 'government' in this passage primarily serves to
  2. The phrase 'the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise' most directly conveys Paine's view that
  3. Common Sense was most significant in the context of the American Revolution because it
  4. Paine's argument that 'the more simple anything is, the less liable it is to be disordered' reflects the influence of which of the following intellectual traditions?
  5. Which of the following most directly occurred as a result of the widespread circulation of Common Sense in early 1776?