Every card in Interpretations and significance, Year 7: more practice
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- When judging significance, historians ask how many people were affected and how deeply their lives changed. What question about time do they also ask?
How long the effects lasted
HintThink about duration: for how much time did people feel it?
WhySignificance is judged by breadth (how many people), depth (how much their lives changed) and how long the effects lasted.
- A famous battle was won in one afternoon, but little changed for ordinary people afterwards. Is it automatically highly significant?
No, because fame is not the same as significance
HintCheck depth, number of people and length of effect.
WhyA battle can be famous without changing many lives for long. Another event that is less famous might change far more.
- A royal wedding is widely remembered, but the spread of printing is judged more significant. Why?
Printing changed far more lives, more deeply and for much longer
HintCompare the number of people affected, and for how long.
WhyPrinting spread ideas, news and learning across Europe for centuries, while a wedding is mostly a single day.
- Is an event's significance fixed for ever, or can later historians change their minds about it?
It can change, as later effects appear or people's questions change
HintThink about what hindsight reveals as the years pass.
WhySomething that seemed minor at the time may later be seen as a turning point, and historians' questions change with each generation.
- The Normans changed who ruled England in 1066, but many villagers farmed much as before. Which word describes the farming: change or continuity?
Continuity
HintAsk whether life stayed the same.
WhyGreat political changes did not always change everyday work. History includes both what changed and what stayed the same.
- Why can the same period feel fast-changing to one group and unchanged to another?
Events affect different groups, such as town and country, rich and poor, in different ways
HintThink of two people in the same period whose daily lives were unalike.
WhyA new law might transform a city overnight but make little difference in a remote village.
- Historians use the word ____ for things that stay the same over a period of time.
continuity
HintThe opposite of change.
WhySpotting continuity alongside change gives a fuller picture of a period.
- A pupil writes: 'The Romans should have used electricity for their baths.' What is wrong with this sentence?
It judges the Romans by technology they did not have
HintCould anyone in ancient Rome know about electricity?
WhyJudging the past by what we know now is anachronistic. A better question is what the Romans actually used and why.
- Why should historians ask 'what did people at the time believe?' before judging a decision?
People acted on the ideas and knowledge available to them then, not ours
HintThink about what someone living in that era could understand.
WhyUnderstanding beliefs of the time helps explain decisions without simply approving or condemning them.
- A textbook says Roman soldiers in Britain ate potatoes. Why is this an error?
Potatoes reached Europe from the Americas long after Roman times
HintThink about which continent the vegetable was first grown in.
WhyPotatoes came to Europe in the 1500s after contact with the Americas, around a thousand years after the Romans left Britain.
1★ KS3-HIST-INT-0011
2★ KS3-HIST-INT-0012
3★ KS3-HIST-INT-0013
4★ KS3-HIST-INT-0014
5★ KS3-HIST-INT-0015
6★ KS3-HIST-INT-0016
7★ KS3-HIST-INT-0017
8★ KS3-HIST-INT-0018
9★ KS3-HIST-INT-0019
10★ KS3-HIST-INT-0020
Keep what you learn
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