Drill 1: The Ottoman Empire at Its Height

The idea

The first sample question asks what best describes the Ottoman Empire at its height, and offers territory on three continents, the core of the old Habsburg Empire, colonies in the East Indies, an extent to the Indus valley, and the largest Shi'ite state in Islam. Test each against one fact the course owns at entry 0206: the empire that besieged Vienna in sixteen eighty-three held Anatolia and the Arab lands in Asia, Egypt and the Maghreb in Africa, and the Balkans to Hungary in Europe. Eliminate. The Habsburg core, Austria and Bohemia, was what the Ottomans failed to take at Vienna. The East Indies were Dutch and Portuguese, reached by sea the Ottomans did not sail. The Indus was the Mughals' river, and the empire that reached it from the west was Alexander's, not Istanbul's. The largest Shi'ite state was Safavid Persia, the Ottomans' Sunni rival. The answer is three continents, and entry 0206 says that extent came from the witness, since the anchor's Ottoman chapters sit before sixteen forty-eight.