Texas History Test Research & Evidence-Based Practice 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A historian synthesizing multiple sources about the Texas oil boom of the early 20th century would BEST demonstrate evidence-based practice by:
- Selecting only sources that support a predetermined conclusion
- Citing a single authoritative biography of an oil tycoon
- Integrating primary sources, peer-reviewed scholarship, and statistical data while acknowledging gaps (Correct answer)
- Presenting the most dramatic accounts to engage readers
Correct answer: Integrating primary sources, peer-reviewed scholarship, and statistical data while acknowledging gaps
Evidence-based historical practice requires integrating diverse source types, engaging with scholarly literature, and transparently acknowledging the limits of available evidence.
Question 2: Maps produced by Stephen F. Austin in the 1820s–1830s are valuable to Texas historians primarily as evidence of:
- Mexican government opposition to Anglo colonization
- Anglo-American perceptions of Texas geography and land available for settlement (Correct answer)
- The political boundaries of the Republic of Texas
- Comanche territorial claims during the colonization period
Correct answer: Anglo-American perceptions of Texas geography and land available for settlement
Austin's maps reflect how Anglo colonizers understood and represented Texas geography, including land they considered available for settlement.
Question 3: Military service records from the Texas Confederate Army, held at the Texas State Library, allow researchers to study which historical question most directly?
- The economic causes of secession as debated by Texas politicians
- The demographics and service patterns of Texans who fought for the Confederacy (Correct answer)
- Union military strategy in the Western Theater
- The Reconstruction policies imposed on Texas after 1865
Correct answer: The demographics and service patterns of Texans who fought for the Confederacy
Military service records document individual soldiers' identities, ages, units, and service histories, enabling demographic analysis of who served.
Question 4: When a student uses only a single secondary source to write a research paper on the Fence-Cutting Wars in Texas, the most significant risk is:
- The paper will be too long for the assignment
- The student may inherit one author's interpretive biases and omissions without realizing it (Correct answer)
- Secondary sources are not permitted in academic research
- The student will have too many citations
Correct answer: The student may inherit one author's interpretive biases and omissions without realizing it
Relying on a single secondary source means accepting one historian's selection and interpretation of evidence without the corrective perspective of additional sources.
Question 5: The journal kept by José Enrique de la Peña, an officer in Santa Anna's army, is controversial among Texas Revolution historians primarily because:
- It was written in Spanish and has never been translated
- Scholars debate its authenticity and whether it was written as claimed during the campaign (Correct answer)
- It contradicts all other Mexican military accounts of the period
- It was destroyed in a fire and only reconstructed from memory
Correct answer: Scholars debate its authenticity and whether it was written as claimed during the campaign
The de la Peña diary has been at the center of an authenticity debate, with some historians questioning whether it was genuinely written during the 1836 campaign or fabricated later.
Question 6: Which research practice best addresses the risk of selection bias when studying the experiences of Mexican Americans in post-Civil War Texas?
- Focusing exclusively on English-language newspapers published in major Texas cities
- Actively seeking Spanish-language newspapers, community records, and oral history collections (Correct answer)
- Using only federal government documents to ensure neutrality
- Relying on accounts written by Anglo-Texan contemporaries for an outside perspective
Correct answer: Actively seeking Spanish-language newspapers, community records, and oral history collections
Seeking Spanish-language newspapers, community documents, and oral histories actively counters selection bias by including sources produced by the community being studied.
Question 7: The principle of 'contextualizing' a historical source means a researcher should:
- Summarize the source in their own words before quoting it
- Place the source within the historical, political, and social circumstances of its creation (Correct answer)
- Arrange sources in chronological order before analyzing them
- Only use sources that were created within five years of the events they describe
Correct answer: Place the source within the historical, political, and social circumstances of its creation
Contextualization requires understanding the circumstances — political climate, author's situation, audience, purpose — under which a source was produced.
Texas History Test Research & Evidence-Based Practice 5
A historian synthesizing multiple sources about the Texas oil boom of the early 20th century would BEST demonstrate evidence-based practice by: