History and historiography: SQA Advanced Higher Classical Studies quiz quiz

Only to entertain

To preserve great deeds, teach lessons and explain events

Only to flatter rulers

Only to record the weather

Nowhere

Only at the end

In a preface

In a footnote

Selection, emphasis and tone

Only the title

Only the length

Nothing at all

Printed newspapers

Online archives

Television

Eyewitness testimony

It lacked systematic archives, citation and source criticism

It used more footnotes

It had better archives

It never used eyewitnesses

Length, style and title

Bias, access to evidence and purpose

Date, place and language

Speeches, battles and treaties

Reading and re-reading

Quoting and paraphrasing

Naive trust and blanket scepticism

Praise and blame

Because bias makes it accurate

Because it is always short

Because it has no purpose

Because it can preserve real information and be checked against other evidence

Composed speeches put into characters' mouths

Statistical tables

Photographs

Survey questionnaires

They are verbatim transcripts

They dramatise the issues and convey the historian's analysis

They are unrelated to the events

They are later forgeries

Because it is written twice

Because it has two authors

Because it illuminates meaning but also shapes and heightens the record

Because it is always inaccurate

Reading it through its purpose

Treating it as a neutral, transparent record

Weighing bias and access

Attending to the craft

Strip it away as a flaw

Ignore it entirely

Treat the speeches as transcripts

Weigh the illumination it gives against the shaping it imposes

Because it is where bias bites hardest

Because it is always false

Because enemies never appear

Because it is always reliable