Unit 10: Paper 3 — History of Africa and the Middle East (HL)
Topic 10.2: Pre-colonial sub-Saharan African states (c.800–1945) Questions
Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB History (2028) Topic 10.2. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.2 - Q2
According to Ashanti legend, how did the Golden Stool come to symbolize the Asantehene's authority?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.2 - Q5
What event in 1900 demonstrated that elite Ashanti women could reach the top of military leadership, not just hold ceremonial influence?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q1
Choose the correct pair: at the Battle of Kirina (c.1235), Sundiata Keita defeated which ruler of which rival kingdom?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.2 - Q1
Which two individuals are credited with founding the centralized Ashanti state around 1701?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.3 - Q4
Choose the correct answer: Which prophet led the Antonian movement from 1704, claiming Jesus was Kongolese and calling for the ruined capital to be reoccupied and rebuilt, before being burned as a heretic in 1706?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q4
Choose the term for the council of clan elders that helped legitimise and administer royal rule in Mali.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.3 - Q1
Choose the correct answer: Which battle in 1665 resulted in the death of King António I of Kongo and triggered decades of succession conflict?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q3
Choose the event in 1324 that is used as evidence of Mali's wealth reaching the wider Islamic world.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.2 - Q3
In the Ashanti succession process, what role did the Asantehemaa (Queen Mother) play when the throne became vacant?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q2
Choose the goldfields that were brought under Malinke control and helped fund the Mali Empire.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.3 - Q3
Choose the correct answer: Which Kongo coastal province broke away from central royal authority and began trading directly with Portuguese and Dutch merchants, bypassing the weakened royal court?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.2 - Q4
Which Ashanti ruler continued expanding the empire's territory through conquest and alliance in the decades after Osei Tutu, roughly 1720-1750?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q8
Discuss the view that the labour that built pre-colonial Mali's prosperity, including enslaved people, has been given too little attention compared to its rulers and trade routes.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q5
Choose the correct explanation of why the Zulu Kingdom's rise under Shaka (from 1816) is usually explained differently from Mali's rise.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q10
Evaluate the claim that Mali's adoption of Islam was primarily a religious development rather than a political and economic strategy.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q7
Evaluate the claim that economic factors were more important than social factors in explaining the emergence of the Mali Empire.
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q9
To what extent do you agree that political centralisation under a single ruler, rather than territorial size, best explains the strength of the early Mali Empire?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.1 - Q6
To what extent do you agree that military conquest, rather than control of trade, was the primary reason for the emergence of the Mali Empire?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.3 - Q2
Choose the correct answer: Which Kongo king, who ruled 1509–1543, wrote letters to the Portuguese crown complaining that unregulated slaving was depopulating his kingdom, even as his own government depended on slave-trade taxes?
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2026• Aimnova original vault - 10.2.3 - Q5
Choose the correct answer: According to this micro, what economic change happened to the Swahili city-states such as Kilwa after Portuguese ships arrived in East Africa from 1498?
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