Societies and classical predecessors: history to 1500?

This is the last short essay that i need to practice before the final, I am so stuck on all of these- where to start?

1) Societies discussed during the second half of the course, during the “middle period” of history often incorporated many social, cultural, administrative and religious aspects of the Classical societies that came before them. (rome, han china, mauryan india, the olmecs, Zoroastrianism Persia) chose at least two of the following societies and discuss how these societies looked back to their classicial predecessors (med Europe, the Islamic world, gupta india, the mayans, post-han china)