Empires Expand Practice Test

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Japan expanded abroad, defeating China in 1894–1895 and Russia in 1904–1905, then annexing Korea in 1910. Japanese leaders sought resources, markets, and security, and used modern conscript armies and industrial capacity to project power. This expansion reflected broader patterns of imperialism in the industrial age. Which motivation most closely aligns with Japan’s imperial expansion in East Asia during this period?

In the sixteenth century, the Spanish Empire expanded in the Americas after the conquests of the Aztec and Inca states. Spanish authorities established encomiendas and later repartimiento labor drafts, promoted Catholic missions, and extracted silver from mines such as Potosí. Epidemic diseases sharply reduced Indigenous populations, reshaping labor systems and settlement patterns. Which outcome most directly resulted from Spain’s reliance on silver extraction during imperial expansion?