Lesson Y8-U02-L03

Y8-U02-L03 The Scramble for Africa Quiz: KS3 History, Unit 8

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y8-U02-L03, The Scramble for Africa: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 History (National Curriculum), Unit 8: Year 8: Empire, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Roughly what share of Africa was still independent and African-ruled in 1880?

    • About 10%
    • About 100% under European rule
    • About 90%
    • About 50%

  2. In which city did European powers meet in 1884-85 to divide Africa?

    • Rome
    • Paris
    • Berlin
    • London

  3. Who hosted the Berlin Conference?

    • Queen Victoria
    • Otto von Bismarck
    • Leopold II of Belgium
    • Cecil Rhodes

  4. Which group was NOT invited to the Berlin Conference?

    • Portugal, which claimed large parts of the Atlantic coast of southern Africa
    • Britain, which sent several delegates to the conference in Berlin in 1884
    • Any African leader
    • France, whose delegates argued hard for control of the Congo basin region

  5. What did 'effective occupation' mean under the Berlin rules?

    • A country had to actually control land to claim it
    • A country had to trade for the land at market prices
    • A country had to build a church first
    • A country had to ask the local king's permission

  6. Which weapon gave European armies a huge advantage in the Scramble?

    • The Maxim machine gun
    • The crossbow, a powerful weapon that was used in European wars for centuries
    • The catapult, which hurled heavy stones at city walls during medieval sieges
    • The longbow, a famous English weapon used at Agincourt in the fifteenth century

  7. Which medicine let Europeans survive malaria and move inland?

    • Aspirin
    • Quinine
    • Insulin
    • Penicillin

  8. Which 1896 battle saw Ethiopia defeat an Italian invasion?

    • Isandlwana
    • Adwa
    • Omdurman
    • Plassey

  9. Which African state, along with Liberia, stayed independent after 1914?

    • South Africa
    • Nigeria
    • Egypt
    • Ethiopia

  10. Which of these is NOT one of the four causes of the Scramble?

    • Rivalry and prestige, meaning the wish of each power to match or outdo its rivals
    • Religious conversion as the main aim
    • Markets, meaning the new customers who were forced to buy European manufactured goods
    • Resources, meaning the gold, rubber and other raw materials that Europe wanted from Africa

  11. Which raw materials drew European interest to South Africa?

    • Silver and tin
    • Coal and iron
    • Oil and gas
    • Gold and diamonds

  12. Which newly united country wanted an empire to match Britain and France?

    • Russia
    • Germany
    • Ireland
    • Belgium

  13. What is the name of the 1892 Punch cartoon showing Cecil Rhodes?

    • The Rhodes Colossus
    • The Maxim Giant, a cartoon of a soldier with a machine gun striding across Africa
    • The Berlin Map, a cartoon of the continent divided into coloured zones by the powers
    • The Cape Lion, a cartoon showing a British lion guarding the Cape Colony in South Africa

  14. Why did straight-line borders cause problems in Africa?

    • They followed the rivers of Africa, which made the borders natural and easy to defend
    • They gave every people its own country, so each community could govern itself freely
    • They split single peoples between colonies and forced rival peoples together
    • They ended all wars between Africans and brought lasting peace to every region of the continent

  15. Why did Europeans say they were colonising Africa?

    • To civilise it and spread Christianity
    • To build a new Africa with its own parliament
    • To stop Africans from farming
    • To free the Africans from the Pope

  16. Why was Africa not 'empty' in 1880?

    • It had powerful, organised states such as Asante, Zulu and Sokoto
    • It had no people living there, so Europeans could claim the land without asking anyone
    • It was covered by ice for most of the year, which made farming and settlement impossible
    • Europeans had already colonised it all, leaving no independent land for the powers to claim

  17. Source B, by George Washington Williams, calls the Congo regime 'robbery'. Why is this source useful to a historian?

    • It is a cartoon praising Cecil Rhodes and his dream of a railway from Cape Town to Cairo
    • It was written in 1880 by a European king who wished to justify his claims in Africa
    • It is an official British government report praising the civilising mission of the empire
    • It shows the violence and theft that the proud view of empire hid, from an eyewitness

  18. Why did the 'Rhodes Colossus' cartoon show Rhodes with one foot in Egypt and one in South Africa?

    • It mocked Rhodes for losing his feet in a fall from a horse while hunting in Africa
    • It celebrated British plans to control the whole continent from Cape to Cairo
    • It was a map of rail routes to India that the British government published in 1892
    • It showed Rhodes was a Belgian king who had inherited the Congo from his father

  19. Why did the Berlin Conference speed up the Scramble?

    • It was held after the Scramble had finished, to celebrate the division of the continent
    • It ended all European competition, so each power could calmly take its time in Africa
    • It set rules, such as effective occupation, so countries had to rush to control land
    • It banned the sale of guns in Africa, which left African armies with no weapons to resist

  20. Why do historians describe rivalry as the trigger and technology as the enabler of the Scramble?

    • Neither rivalry nor technology affected the Scramble, which was caused only by the African kingdoms
    • Rivalry was a machine that drove the powers forward, and technology was a country that ruled them
    • Technology caused the rivalry between the powers, because every new invention made them more competitive
    • Rivalry set the timing of the rush, while technology made the conquest of the interior possible

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