GEOGRAPHY, 8th grade

EAST ASIA PRE-ASSESSMENT

Read the following statements aloud to students before discussing the

characteristics of East Asia. Have students decide which statements are true
and/or false.

1. TRUE Asia is the largest continent in the world, and is traditionally defined as
part of the much larger landmass of Eurasia (Europe and Asia combined).
2. TRUE There are more than one thousand languages spoken throughout the entire
continent of Asia.
3. FALSE The country of Russia is not technically a part of Asia, but is actually part
of Europe.
4. TRUE Mao Zedong was the founder and leader of the Peoples Republic of
China, which would create the foundation of the country today.
5. FALSE The Gulf of Aden incident started what would later become the Vietnam
War.
6. FALSE The two Japanese cities that were destroyed by the United States during
World War II were Hiroshima and Tokyo.
7. TRUE After the Korean War in the 1950s, the country split up into the communist
North Korea and the democratic South Korea.
8. TRUE Indonesia is one of the worlds most rapidly-growing countries, with a
population of over 237 million.
9. FALSE Buddhism and Hinduism both began in China.
10. TRUE In 2014, Russia successfully invaded and took over the southeastern part
of the Ukraine formally known as the Crimean Peninsula.