Document 1Document 2AP European History Practice Test 2, Section II, Part A (^) ‹ 265
AP European History Practice Test 2
Section II, Part A
(Document-Based Question)
60 minutes
Directions: The following question is based on documents 1–7 provided below. (The documents have been
edited for the purpose of this exercise.) The historical thinking skills that this question is designed to test
include contextualization, synthesis, historical argumentation, and the use of historical evidence. Your response
should be based on your knowledge of the topic and your analysis of the documents.
Write a well-integrated essay that does the following:
• States an appropriate thesis that directly addresses all parts of the question.
• Supports that thesis with evidence from all or all but one of the documents and your knowledge of European
history beyond or outside of the documents.
• Analyzes the majority of the documents in terms of such features as their intended audience, purpose, point
of view, format, argument, limitations, and/or social context as appropriate to your argument.
• Places your argument in the context of broader regional, national, or global processes.
Question: Compare and contrast the views presented below concerning the value of empire in the nineteenth
century.
Source: William Rathbone Gregg, “Shall We Retain Our Colonies?” 1851
[Formerly,] our colonies were customers who could not escape us, and vendors who could sell to us alone.
But a new system has risen up, not only differing from the old one, but based upon radically opposite
notions of commercial policy. We have discovered that under this system our colonies have cost us, in addi-
tion to the annual estimate for their civil government and their defense, a sum amounting to many millions
a year in the extra price we have paid for their produce beyond that which other countries could have sup-
plied to us.... [T]hey yield us nothing and benefit us in nothing as colonies that they would not yield us
and serve us were they altogether independent.
Source: Benjamin Disraeli, “Crystal Palace Speech,” 1872
Gentlemen, there is another and second great object of the Tory party. If the first is to maintain the institutions
of the country, the second is, in my opinion, to uphold the empire of England....
[W]hat has been the result of this attempt during the reign of Liberalism for the disintegration of empire?
It has entirely failed. But how has it failed? Through the sympathy of the colonies with the mother country.
They have decided that the empire shall not be destroyed, and in my opinion no minister in this country
will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial empire, and
of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happi-
ness to this land. Therefore, gentlemen, with respect to the second great object of the Tory party also—the
maintenance of the Empire—public opinion appears to be in favour of our principles....
It cannot be far distant, when England will have to decide between national and cosmopolitan principles.
The issue is not a mean one. It is whether you will be content to be a comfortable England, modelled and
moulded upon continental principles and meeting in due course an inevitable fate, or whether you will be
a great country—an imperial country—a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount posi-
tions, and not merely obtain the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world....
26_Bartolini_QuesPrac2_243-268.indd 265 27/04/18 10:17 AM