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Grade 8 · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 6

Trade & Empires

Mali, the Mongols and Ming China

What your child practises

Trade routes across Asia and Africa, the wealth of Mali and Timbuktu, the Mongol Empire, Zheng He's voyages, and how trade carried goods and ideas, and sometimes conflict.

BC Curriculum learning standard: Interactions among societies: Silk Road, trans-Saharan trade, Mali, Mongol Empire, Ming China and Japan

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    What was the Hanseatic League?

    • A Mongol army
    • A group of northern European trading towns that worked together to protect trade
    • A Silk Road caravan
    • A West African empire
    Show answer

    A group of northern European trading towns that worked together to protect trade

    Hint: Towns such as Lübeck and Hamburg joined to protect merchants and trade.

  2. Question 2

    Which region did each famous trade good or idea mainly come from?

    Sort into: 🏯 China · 🌍 West Africa · 🌶️ South Asia

    • 🧶cotton cloth
    • 🎆gunpowder
    • 📄paper
    • 🫚pepper
    • 🪙gold from the Mali empire
    • 🌰kola nuts and ivory traded across the Sahara
    Show answer

    🏯 China: gunpowder, paper · 🌍 West Africa: gold from the Mali empire, kola nuts and ivory traded across the Sahara · 🌶️ South Asia: cotton cloth, pepper

    Hint: Silk, paper and gunpowder came from China. Gold from the Sahel region of West Africa. Spices such as pepper came from South and Southeast Asia.

  3. Question 3

    Historians suggest Ming China ended its treasure-fleet voyages after 1433 partly because…

    • of the high cost and a shift of attention to defending the northern border
    • the Mongols took the ships
    • China ran out of paper
    • the ships had sunk in the Atlantic
    Show answer

    of the high cost and a shift of attention to defending the northern border

    Hint: Rulers decided the money was needed elsewhere.

  4. Question 4

    Which Chinese invention helped sailors find direction?

    • the printing press
    • the magnetic compass
    • the astrolabe
    • the telescope
    Show answer

    the magnetic compass

    Hint: Chinese sailors used the compass to navigate long before it reached Europe.

  5. Question 5

    Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He led voyages of Ming China's treasure fleet to…

    • North America
    • Southeast Asia, India, the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa
    • Australia
    • Greenland
    Show answer

    Southeast Asia, India, the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa

    Hint: The huge fleets traded and showed China's power in the Indian Ocean.

  6. Question 6

    How did the trans-Saharan trade help spread Islam in West Africa?

    • Caravans carried only gold.
    • The Sahara was empty of people.
    • Islam was banned from trade.
    • Muslim merchants and scholars travelled with caravans and settled in trading cities.
    Show answer

    Muslim merchants and scholars travelled with caravans and settled in trading cities.

    Hint: Trade routes carried religion and learning as well as goods.

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