Letter-size paper. The PDF is ready to print; the web pages below contain the same selected tasks. Turn off browser headers and footers when printing this page.
CLSM · World History · Progress Check 2
Plague & Social Change
Read the situation. Connect the ideas. Show how you know.
Name ___________________________Class __________ Date __________
01 Recall, then make a connection.
Demographic change
Correlation
Scapegoating
A demographic change and a shift in wages occur together. What does that correlation establish? Explain why scapegoating a community does not supply a valid causal explanation.
Read the situation.
The Black Death devastated many communities across Afro-Eurasia during the fourteenth century. Modern research identifies plague bacteria as a cause; people living through the pandemic had different and often inaccurate explanations. Their accounts are evidence of their experiences and beliefs, not automatic proof that those explanations were correct.
02 Organize the information.
Read the register
A fictional town lists 200 workers in its first register and 140 in a later register. The documents do not specify why each missing name disappeared.
What is the decrease in recorded workers?
Answer: __________________ workers
Show the calculation, then explain what the result tells you in this model.
CLSM · World History · Progress Check 2
What does the evidence show?
Plague & Social Change
03 Follow the evidence.
Test the labor claim
Claim: “A labor shortage helped workers negotiate higher pay in this town.”
Select all evidence directly relevant to testing it.
Comparable wage records before and after the shortage.
Accounts of employers competing to recruit workers.
A writer’s unsupported accusation against a religious minority.
A later painting that does not identify the town or wages.
Name the useful records and explain how they answer the claim.
04 Apply the idea.
The qualified finding
The fictional records show fewer workers and higher recorded pay for a comparable task, but little household information.
Which conclusion is strongest?
The records are consistent with a labor-market change; household welfare and the exact cause still need investigation.
Every surviving worker became wealthy.
The wage ledger proves the disease had only positive effects.
Choose a conclusion and explain why it fits the situation.
05 Carry the idea forward.
Write an archive note explaining one possible social or economic consequence of population loss. Use the fictional register and wage evidence, distinguish observation from explanation, and reject unsupported group blame.