Historical Thinking Quiz

What is the main goal of historical thinking?

• To ignore primary sources

• To create fictional stories about history

• To understand how we know about the past

• To memorize historical dates

Why is it important to use multiple sources in historical research?

• To avoid using primary sources

• To confuse the readers

• To get a more accurate picture of past events

• To make the research more complicated

What are primary sources?

• Documents and objects created at the time under study

• Modern interpretations of historical events

• Textbooks written by historians

• Fictional stories about the past

When analyzing contrasting accounts of an event, what should historians consider?

• Which account is longer

• The color of the paper

• The interests and stakes of the eyewitnesses

• The handwriting of the documents

What is 'sourcing' in historical thinking?

• Ignoring the author's perspective

• Only using modern sources

• Writing fictional accounts of history

• Identifying and questioning the origins of a source

What does the letter by Joanne Robinson reveal about the Montgomery bus boycott?

• It was an impulsive movement

• Plans for the boycott existed before Rosa Parks' arrest

• It was solely motivated by Parks' arrest

• It was not planned at all

Why must historians contextualize historical events and figures?

• To judge them by modern standards

• To understand their actions within their own time

• To ignore the ideologies of the day

• To make the past seem more relatable

What is the role of context in historical reasoning?

• To locate events and sources in time and space

• To ignore the ideologies of the day

• To judge historical figures by modern standards

• To make the past seem more fictional

What is the significance of Lincoln's 1858 speech in historical context?

• It shows Lincoln's support for racial equality

• It reflects the racial perspectives of his time

• It was ignored by historians

• It was a fictional account

What is required for a story to be considered history?

• It must be written by a famous historian

• It must be supported by evidence

• It should be fictional

• It should be intriguing