SA · SACE BoardQ&A
Ancient HistoryQ&A by dot point
A short Q&A bank for every SA Ancient History syllabus dot point. Each question and answer is drawn directly from our worked dot-point page, so you can scan key concepts before opening the long-form answer.
Beliefs and Rituals
- Examine the nature of religious belief and ritual practice in ancient Greece and Rome, including sacrifice, oracles, festivals and state cult, and evaluate the evidence for them.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse New Kingdom Egyptian beliefs about death, judgement and the afterlife, the practices of mummification and tomb-building, and the archaeological and textual evidence for them.0Q&A pairs
- Examine religious belief and ritual practice in the ancient Near East, including the gods, temples, kingship and creation myths, and evaluate the cuneiform and archaeological evidence.0Q&A pairs
Power and Conflict
- Analyse the causes, key campaigns and consequences of Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire (336 to 323 BCE), and evaluate the reliability of the surviving sources written centuries later.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the causes, key events and consequences of the Greco-Persian Wars (499 to 479 BCE), and evaluate the reliability of Herodotus and other evidence.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the causes, key events and consequences of the Punic Wars (264 to 146 BCE), including Hannibal's invasion, and evaluate the reliability of Polybius and Livy.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the nature and transformation of political power and authority in Rome from the late Republic to the Augustan principate, and evaluate the sources for Augustus' settlement.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the institutions and operation of Athenian democracy in the fifth century BCE, including the Assembly, Council, courts and the role of leaders such as Pericles, and evaluate the evidence.0Q&A pairs
Social Structures and Everyday Life
- Analyse the structure of the Roman economy and the patterns of daily life across the social orders, and evaluate the literary and archaeological evidence for them.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the social hierarchy of New Kingdom Egypt, including the role of the pharaoh, the bureaucracy, priests, scribes, peasants and the enslaved, and evaluate the evidence for everyday life.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the structure of Athenian society in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, including the status of citizens, metics and slaves, and evaluate the ancient evidence for slavery.0Q&A pairs
- Analyse the social structure and system of government of Han dynasty China, including the emperor, the bureaucracy, Confucianism and the peasantry, and evaluate the textual and archaeological evidence.0Q&A pairs
- Examine the position of women and the organisation of family life in ancient Athens and Rome, and evaluate the source problems involved in recovering women's experience.0Q&A pairs
Sources and Historiography
- Apply the skills of source analysis and evaluation to ancient primary and secondary evidence, assessing origin, purpose, perspective, reliability and usefulness.0Q&A pairs
- Explain how archaeological evidence and material culture are excavated, dated and interpreted, and evaluate what physical remains can and cannot tell historians about ancient societies.0Q&A pairs
- Explain the nature of historiography in ancient history, analyse how ancient and modern historians have interpreted the past differently, and evaluate why those interpretations change.0Q&A pairs