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Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570

  • 8 subtopics
  • 19 things to know
  • Unit group 2
  • Non-British period study, one unit of twenty-four

What Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570 covers

Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570 is unit Y205 of OCR History A, one of the twenty-four options in unit group 2, the non-British period study; a student sits one of them. Its four key topics are exploration, encounters and conquest, settlement and consequences, impact of overseas empire on Europe. 280 recall questions across 8 subtopics.

Where it is assessed

Unit group 2

Non-British period study, one unit of twenty-four.

Check the OCR specification ↗

The 8 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Give two religious motives that drove the early voyages.

Key term

Name three technological changes that made long ocean voyages practicable.

Key term

Contrast the routes taken by Portuguese and Spanish expeditions.

Key term

What was the most important long-term consequence of the Tordesillas line?

Evaluation

Give three reasons for Spanish success against far larger empires.

Evaluation

Why did the flow of bullion change scale after the mid-1540s?

Who and when

Why did Spain's own industry fail to profit fully from the colonial trade?

Key term

Assess the balance sheet of empire for the individuals involved.

Evaluation

Why did Panama matter to the Spanish advance?

Key term

What were the social effects of settlement on indigenous society?

Evaluation

Why did colonial demand for enslaved Africans grow during the sixteenth century?

Key term

What drew a man such as Hernán Cortés to the Indies?

Key term

Name three Portuguese posts in Africa and explain their purpose.

Who and when

Which two bodies in Spain governed the Indies, and what did each do?

Key term

Why was the spice trade such a powerful motive for seeking a sea route to the East?

Key term

Describe what happened at Cajamarca in November 1532.

Who and when

How did Portuguese and Spanish administration in the new territories differ?

Who and when

How did the crown protect and use the treasure shipments?

Key term

Describe the origins of the Atlantic slave trade.

Take Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570 further

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Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Encomienda vs Asiento

    Encomienda: the grant of the labour and tribute of a group of native people to a Spanish settler. Asiento: the licence to supply enslaved Africans to the Spanish colonies.

  • Quinto real vs Price revolution

    Quinto real: the crown's fifth of all bullion produced in the Indies. Price revolution: the long inflation of the sixteenth century attributed in part to American silver.

  • Vasco da Gama vs Pedro Alvares Cabral

    Vasco da Gama: the captain whose voyage of 1497 to 1499 opened the sea route to India. Pedro Alvares Cabral: the captain who, bearing west on that route in 1500, claimed Brazil for Portugal.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How did Ottoman expansion push Europeans towards ocean voyaging?

    Model answer

    The fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the growth of Ottoman power across the eastern Mediterranean placed the overland spice routes in Muslim hands, so western rulers looked for a sea route to Asia that avoided them altogether.

  2. 2

    Explain how Renaissance learning contributed to the age of exploration.

    Model answer

    The recovery of classical geography, above all Ptolemy, gave navigators a mathematical model of a spherical earth and a grid of latitude and longitude, while humanist curiosity, the hunger for personal fame and the printing of voyage accounts made discovery both possible and prestigious.

  3. 3

    Why was the spice trade such a powerful motive for seeking a sea route to the East?

    Model answer

    Pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon reached Europe only after passing through Muslim and Venetian middlemen who multiplied the price, so a crown that could buy at source stood to make enormous profits.

  4. 4

    Give two religious motives that drove the early voyages.

    Model answer

    The wish to convert non-Christian peoples and win souls for the Church, and the crusading impulse to outflank Islam, which included the hope of finding the legendary Christian ruler Prester John as an ally.

  5. 5

    Name three technological changes that made long ocean voyages practicable.

    Model answer

    The caravel, with lateen sails and a shallow draught that let it work to windward and explore coasts; the magnetic compass and quadrant or astrolabe for direction and latitude; and better charts, sailing directions and shipboard cannon.

  6. 6

    Why was Portugal so well placed to lead the first phase of exploration?

    Model answer

    It faced the Atlantic, had completed its own reconquest and could not expand by land, had a stable crown and a nobility needing employment, and had already colonised Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde with the backing of Prince Henry and the wealth of the Order of Christ.

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Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570 revision questions

What does Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570 cover in OCR A-Level History A?
8 subtopics: exploration: reasons why this was an age of exploration and motives for patronage, exploration: explorers, their routes and the difficulties they faced, encounters and conquest: treaty of tordesillas and portuguese conquest, encounters and conquest: spanish conquests, gains and losses for individual explorers, settlement and consequences: portuguese trading posts, brazil and spanish settlement, settlement and consequences: colonial government and the effects on indigenous peoples, impact of overseas empire on europe: bullion, the price revolution and european trade and impact of overseas empire on europe: slave trades, balance sheet of personal and national benefits. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570 organised?
By the OCR H505 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

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