Social Sciences and History / Unit 3 SSH 0228 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Why Rome Fell: Weighing Four Readings
The idea
The fall of Rome is conventionally dated to four seventy-six CE, and the exam asks what caused it. The anchor refuses a single answer and lists four: Rome grew corrupt and weak; Rome was infiltrated by barbarian cultures; Rome was overcome by overwhelming odds; or Rome was transformed into a more diverse set of societies rather than destroyed. The fixed facts: the Huns drove the Goths west in three seventy-six; Roman officials extorted the Goths they had admitted; the Goths rose and killed the emperor Valens in three seventy-eight; Alaric sacked Rome in four ten; by the end of the fifth century the western empire's political unity was gone.
In practice
Match each option to a reading and test it against the fixed facts. Moral decay is the corruption reading, and the anchor supplies third-century evidence. Germanic settlement is the infiltration reading, and the anchor's facts show Goths serving in Roman armies under their own commanders. Blaming the Huns is the overwhelming-odds reading. Saying Rome changed rather than fell is the transformation reading, supported by the eastern survival. A question with one "correct" cause is testing the date and the sequence, not the verdict.
Where people slip
The trap is the verdict. The course does not choose among the four, because the anchor does not. Give the date, the sequence, and the reading each option represents.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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