Practice Question
Ready to test your skills? Here's a passage followed by a practice summary question:
Passage
Although we have many sources about the Late Republic (147-30 BC) and the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD), information about the early days of the Roman Republic, from approximately 458-274 BC, is still hard to come by.One reason why sources from this period are so few and far between is simply time. Several historians recorded the events of the early Republic, but many of their chronicles have been lost or damaged in the intervening 2,500 years. Manuscripts were often accidentally destroyed, lost, or simply mis-copied by the generations of Medieval monks who handed them down through the Middle Ages.
Even records more permanent than paper have suffered the ravages of time. Architecture, for example, can tell us a great deal about a city and its people, but the Rome of the early Republic was rebuilt and beautified by the emperor Augustus, and traumatic events like the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD) and the sack of the city by the Goths in 410 AD further damaged whatever early buildings were left
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Another problem, from the point of view of modern historians, is that the sources we do have are often less concerned with historical accuracy than with moral rectitude. For example, the historian Titus Livy, who wrote a history of Rome starting with its foundation, was primarily concerned to show that the aristocracy was the pillar of Roman society. He frequently bent historical truths to present Rome's political elite in a good light, making it hard to determine what actually happened.While some sources on the Republic still do remain, much of our potential source material has been destroyed by time or neglect, and the material we do have is often factually imprecise to begin with. This makes studying the Early Republic frustrating for modern historians.
If you want to read through the passage again while you're working on the question, just click on the video marker that will take you back to the beginning of the Practice Question section.
Now for the question
Question: 1
The early Roman Republic is still a disputed period of history.
- Many contemporary record have been destroyed or only partially preserved.
- Monks in the Middle Ages were Responsible for creating many beautiful illuminated manuscript.
- Roman historian were often more concerned to give a morally "correct" account the accurately record facts about the pass.
- The historian polybius wrot in Greek,but recorded the history of Rome.
Explanation:
The Correct Answer: A, C, F
The summary chart below shows a summary sentence for the entire passage. Fill in the three sentences that best complete the summary by expressing the main points of the passage. Pause the video while you work on the question. Remember that you can go back to the passage by clicking on the video marker for the Practice Question section.
Are you ready to hear the answer? The three correct answers are (a), (c), and (f). These three sentences all express major points in the passage. Choice (b) is not correct because the passage doesn't talk about illuminated manuscripts. Choice (d) is not correct because the passage doesn't mention the historian Polybius. Choice (e) is not correct because this statement is not an important part of the argument of the passage. Note that choices (b), (d), and (e) are all factually true, but that doesn't matter. The question asks you what's in the passage, not what's factually correct.