Edexcel A-Level History Paper 1 breadth study with interpretations overview quiz quiz

A single decade examined in very great detail, with little attention to the wider period

The evaluation of contemporary primary sources only, set carefully in their historical context

Change and continuity across a long period of about a century or more

A personal coursework enquiry chosen and researched independently by the candidate

AO1

AO2

AO4

AO3

The New Economic Policy (NEP)

The Five Year Plans of rapid heavy industrialisation

Perestroika, the restructuring launched under Gorbachev

Collectivisation of agriculture into large state farms

1949

1958

1966

1978

It created the National Health Service, free at the point of use for the whole population

It gave women the vote on the same terms as men

It abolished the House of Lords and replaced it with a fully elected second chamber

It introduced the secret ballot for the first time, ending open voting at elections

The People's Budget of 1909

The Marshall Plan of aid

The Beveridge Report

The 1944 Education Act

Orthodox

Revisionist

Post-revisionist

Marxist

That the USA alone was responsible, through its aggressive use of economic and atomic power

Mutual misperception and the power vacuum left in 1945

That the USSR alone was responsible, through Stalin's expansion and breaking of agreements

That the Cold War never really happened and was largely invented by later historians

Using too many precise dates and statistics, which clutters the argument and loses the marker

Reaching a clear overall judgement at the end rather than leaving the question open and balanced

Narrating one regime or decade instead of judging change across the whole period

Comparing two different countries, which is never appropriate in this kind of breadth essay

1 hour and 30 minutes

3 hours exactly

Just 45 minutes

2 hours 15 minutes