Primary and Secondary Sources Quiz
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- A scholarly book interpreting the city’s archived records
- A photograph taken at a public demonstration
- Minutes recorded during a city council meeting
- A letter sent by the mayor to a council member
- A present-day museum guide to industrialization
- A textbook timeline of industrial reforms
- A modern economic history of factory production
- A private diary written by a factory worker at the time
- A modern biography of the novelist
- A recent journal article about the novel’s reputation
- A review printed when the novel was first released
- A current encyclopedia entry on the novel
Primary and Secondary Sources Quiz - Description and methodology of the test
Students, writers, and researchers can use this assessment to check how confidently they distinguish and evaluate sources in relation to a research question. The primary and secondary sources quiz suits learners revising research literacy or anyone who wants a structured check on source judgment. It also works as a primary source quiz while covering secondary and tertiary classifications, contextual evaluation, and corroboration.
What This Test Measures
Questions focus on matching a source to the research question. They distinguish direct or contemporary evidence from later interpretation and stress origin, purpose, context, and limitations. Students and independent researchers can use this quiz about primary, secondary, and tertiary sources to practise classifications that change with the subject being studied.
The result brings together these dimensions:
- Classification shows whether you identify a source type from its relationship to the research question.
- Evaluation reflects attention to authorship, purpose, context, reliability, and limitations.
- Primary and Secondary Sources Knowledge (0-16) summarizes classification, selection, and corroboration: Foundations to build (0-6) calls for review of origin, purpose, and research-question fit; Developing knowledge (7-12) shows many distinctions with practice still needed for context-dependent cases; Strong knowledge (13-16) reflects reliable classification, selection, and corroboration.
Methodology and Evidence Base
Each item presents a situation and four answer choices. Respondents select the option that best classifies or evaluates the source. Many items involving records, diaries, newspapers, interviews, datasets, reviews, and campaign materials require applying classification principles to contextual examples, while others test definitions and typical features; a document may be primary for one question and secondary for another.
Taken together, the source classification questions produce one online knowledge-quiz result rather than separate trait scores, with bands indicating increasing mastery.
The evidence base is educational. Archer, Hanlon, and Levine describe primary-source literacy through contextual interpretation and evaluation in their study. The SAA-ACRL/RBMS guidelines add provenance, perspective, ethics, and corroboration; Barton notes that primary sources are not automatically truthful. These works provide conceptual context for the topics tested.
Because the online version has no stated standardization or norms, performance may reflect prior instruction, interpretation of wording, or guessing; read the score as a general knowledge summary, not a complete assessment of research ability.
- Archer, Joanne, Ann M. Hanlon, and Jennie A. Levine. (2009). Investigating Primary Source Literacy. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35(5), 410-420. 10.1016/j.acalib.2009.06.017
- SAA-ACRL/RBMS Joint Task Force on the Development of Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy. (2018). Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy. American Library Association and Society of American Archivists.
- Barton, Keith C. (2005). Primary Sources in History: Breaking through the Myths. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(10), 745-753. 10.1177/003172170508601006
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