OCR Ancient History sources and interpretation skills overview quiz quiz

Detailed knowledge and recall of the key dates, names and major events

The evaluation of the differing views of modern historians

The use and evaluation of the primary ancient sources as evidence

Clear essay structure and well-organised written expression

Detailed knowledge and understanding of the historical periods

The use and evaluation of the primary ancient sources as the evidence

Accurate timing and time management across the whole exam paper

The evaluation of the differing interpretations of modern scholars

Its utility for the specific enquiry, using content, provenance and context

Simply whether it is reliable or biased in the abstract, with no specific enquiry

How long the source is and how much detail it happens to contain

Whether the source is Greek or Roman in its origin and language

Because a propagandist source can always be trusted to tell the literal, factual truth about all the events

Because it is highly valuable for the ideology and self-image it projects, precisely because of its purpose

Because a propagandist source like this one is wholly neutral and impartial about its own ruler

Because it is a very long and detailed account that covers a great many events in full

His precise and reliable numbers for the size of the Persian forces

His strictly analytical method and rigorous scepticism about myth

He is the only full narrative of the Persian Wars, with great range

His large surviving collection of contemporary private letters

Because he wrote much later than the events themselves, with the benefit of hindsight

Because he openly admired Sparta and praised its institutions throughout

Because he relied solely on surviving inscriptions rather than testimony

Because he is contemporary, careful about evidence and analytical about causation

Because he was openly pro-Spartan and admiring

Because he never once visited Sparta in his lifetime

Because he wrote his whole account in Latin, not Greek

Because he was deeply hostile to Sparta and its system

They were written several full centuries after the events they describe had taken place

They are contemporary, written in the moment without hindsight by a central participant

They are official state documents produced by the Roman senate of the day

They are completely impartial and free of any personal or partisan opinion

As straightforward, objective fact that can simply be accepted at face value

As pro-imperial propaganda written to flatter the emperors

As shaped by a senatorial, moralising bias that must be evaluated

As wholly irrelevant to the study of the emperors

Because they have absolutely no surviving ancient evidence at all to work from when reconstructing the past

Because modern historians simply never bother to read the surviving primary ancient sources

Because the ancient world is unimportant and not really worth studying or arguing about today

Because the evidence is incomplete and biased, and they use different methods, emphases and assumptions