IGCSE History Paper 2

This blog is intended to help distance learners and home-schooling students in acquiring the necessary skills for answering examination questions in IGCSE History (Paper 1: 20th Century History), Paper 2 (Depth Study A: Germany, 1918-45) and Paper 4) and AS Level History (Paper 1: Modern European History 1789-1939). I do, by no means, claim that the information is originally written by me, or the end result of my own arduous study and brilliant mind! It is a compilation of applicable articles found on the internet, as well as in text books. I will, therefore, try my utmost to acknowledge these sources accordingly.

IGCSE HISTORY

MORE VALUABLE TIPS ON "HOW TO TACKLE PAPER 2"

 

http://igcsehistory2009-11.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-tips-on-how-to-tackle-paper-2.html

©       Paper 2 is essentially designed to test the candidate’s ability to interpret, extrapolate from, evaluate and use historical sources.

 

©     This is an intense paper and each question in the Question Paper targets at least one of the skills mentioned. Individual questions will focus on particular sources, but candidates are encouraged to use any of the sources if it can be used to answer the question. 

©      This paper is essentially designed to test source skills, but contextual knowledge is also required. Contextual knowledge must be used only to comment on the sources under question.

Interpreting sources:

·        Students must analyze the given sources carefully and work out what each source says – this would require one to go further than understanding just the surface meaning of the source.

·        The message of each source must be worked out.

·        Students must use the details in the source and their contextual knowledge to work out valid interpretations of the source.

·         When the interpretation is written they must explain how they have reached it by directly referring to details in the source and to contextual knowledge.

·        The examiner needs to know what led the student to that interpretation.

·         Interpretations that are informed and supported by contextual knowledge will always be better rewarded.

Extrapolating from the sources:

• Students must use the sources to reach a conclusion that goes beyond what the sources actually tell you.
• Students must work out: the purpose, the author, the audience or the impact of the sources.
• Contextual knowledge must be used in their response to support the answer.

Evaluating sources:

Students could be asked to evaluate sources for (i) usefulness (ii) reliability.

For (i) USEFULNESS:

o    It is important that students do not dismiss as useless, sources that are biased.

o    Historical sources are biased one way or the other but they still can be useful as they provide evidence of the attitudes of the person or group that produced that source.

For (ii) RELIABILITY:

o    It is important that students interpret the source and consider who has produced the source and the purpose of that source.     

o    They should then either check the claims made in the source against their knowledge, and /or use their knowledge to consider the possible purpose of the source and how far this makes the reliability of the source questionable.

o    A third way of evaluating sources consists of comparing what the sources say to what other sources in the paper say. Do they support or disagree with the sources under question? This approach usually gains fewer marks than the first two strategies.

General advice here would be:

1. give your interpretation of the source,
2. explain what you know about the person who produced the source,
3. explain why you think they might have a particular purpose in producing the source,
4. explain why this makes the source questionable.

Using sources:

Very important points on how to tackle the last question:

•  The final question on the question paper always asks the student to consider how far the sources support a statement about the events.
• Students should first check back through the sources and make a rough list of the ones that support the statement and the ones which do not support/disagree.
• Most of the sources will fall in the category of agree/disagree.
• Only a couple will not fall in this category and should be put under the column neutral.
• Most of the sources, but it is not absolutely necessary that all sources must be used.
• Students should then take the first list and then clearly explain how each source in that group supports the statement. They must make clear which source they are writing about at any particular time (by referring to the source letter).
• They should then do the same with the second group of sources.
• Earlier in the paper they would have already have made judgments about the reliability of the sources. These can be used again here as extra marks are given for any evaluation of the sources.
• Students must not refer back to the earlier answers; they must do the evaluation all over again.
• They must decide, for example, that a source cannot be used to support the statement, because it is not reliable.

Hope the points will help you to tackle Paper 2. Keep a cool head and meet the challenge head on!

"Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen."

Quote by Winston Churchill