AP U.S. History 1.3 Period 1: 1491–1607

[ failure sound effect ]

[ cheering ]

Well, all right, check out this excerpt.

I, James, by the Grace of God, King of England...

...blah, blah, blah...

[ mumbles ]

Okay, here's the question.

Increased colonization in the New World

was partly facilitated by which of the following trends?

And here are your potential answers...

And we're biting our tongue on Manolo Blahniks.

'Cause, uh, they're... [ indistinct ]

All right, so what's this question asking?

Well, all right, we've got increased colonization

of the New World.

In other words, America is this hip new development

and anybody who's anybody is moving there.

The question wants to know what facilitated that colonization.

i.e... what helped it along.

Was it a separation of church and state?

Well, no, not back in those days.

Church and state were besties.

They went to movies together and even played

on the same beach volleyball team on Sundays.

Point being, they were tight.

[ aww ]

So choice A can't be the right answer.

[ buzzer sounds ]

Was it the cooperation between European nations?

Well, trust us, there was about as much cooperation

between nations as there is between Republicans

and Democrats in today's Congress.

[ buzzer sounds ]

Okay, then is it D -

the progression from capitalism to feudalism?

Well, no way. Feudalism used to be all the rage...

but around this time much of the world

had decided to give capitalism a spin.

So, completely the opposite.

[ buzzer sounds ]

Meaning C has to be our guy -

The development of new economic organizations.

Well, sure enough, Europeans had started forming

joint-stock companies that sold pieces of a company

to the general public.

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The need for these joint-stock companies arose

mostly because of how unsafe all their voyages were.

The company's shipment would sink,

or a bunch of their slaves would die of some disease...

and they figured, "Hey, why not divide this sucker up,

spread the risk, so we're not the only ones to take a hit, right?"

And, just like that, stocks were born.

So, yeah, our answer is C,

as in "capitalism" or "capsized."

[ splat ]