Drill 5 · Multiple Choice · Unit 2: Networks of Exchange
AP World History Unit 2 Drill 5 is a Multiple Choice practice drill covering Unit 2: Networks of Exchange. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
This AP World History Unit 2 drill is based on an adapted essay by historian Priya Chandrasekaran on the Indian Ocean trading network from c. 1200 to c. 1450. Questions test historical context, the decentralized nature of Indian Ocean commerce, environmental and cultural consequences, and the historian's central argument.
Adapted from a work by Dr. Priya Chandrasekaran, a historian specializing in Indian Ocean history, published 2021.
"The Indian Ocean world of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was not a collection of isolated civilizations but an integrated system in which people, goods, ideas, and pathogens moved with striking regularity. The monsoon winds — predictable, reversible, and seasonally reliable — provided the natural infrastructure that made this integration possible. What emerged was a network in which no single power dominated: the Sultanate of Malacca controlled the straits between the Indian and Pacific Oceans; Arab and Swahili merchants managed the East African coast; Gujarati merchants from western India served as indispensable middlemen across the whole basin. When trade flourished, it brought not only silk and spices but also crop varieties, religious practices, and epidemic diseases — binding distant peoples together in ways that were simultaneously enriching and devastating."