HistoryQ&A by dot point

Unit 1 Option (e.g. Y113 Britain 1930 to 1997): the slump and the National Government, the post-war consensus and the welfare state, the politics of the 1950s and 1960s, and the Thatcher governments and the breaking of the consensus.

Unit 1 Option (e.g. Y113 Britain 1930 to 1997): Churchill and the wartime coalition, the impact of total war on society, the Labour landslide of 1945, and the achievements and difficulties of the Attlee government to 1951.

Unit 1 Option (e.g. Y106 England 1485 to 1558): the establishment of the Tudor dynasty under Henry VII, his government and finance, the pretenders and rebellions he faced, and his foreign policy and consolidation of power.

Unit 1 Option (e.g. Y106 England 1485 to 1558): Henry VIII and Wolsey, the divorce campaign and the break with Rome, the royal supremacy and the Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Unit 1 Option (e.g. Y106 England 1485 to 1558): Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, the protectorates of Somerset and Northumberland, the rebellions of 1549, the succession crisis of 1553, and Mary I's Catholic restoration, marriage and rebellion.

Unit 1 Section A: the enquiry question, evaluating four contemporary sources for their use in testing a given hypothesis, weighing content and provenance against the historical context (AO2).

Unit 1 Section B: the period study essay, building a sustained analytical argument across the period that ranks factors and reaches a substantiated judgement (AO1).

AO1 essay skills: building a thesis-led argument, sustaining analysis across paragraphs, supporting claims with precise evidence, and reaching a substantiated judgement rather than a summary.

Exam technique: managing time across the Unit 1, Unit 2 and Unit 3 papers in line with the mark tariffs, and revising an option-based course around the named key topics and the three skills.

AO1 essay skills: planning an analytical essay by decoding the command, selecting and ranking factors, organising thematically, and structuring towards a substantiated judgement.

Unit Y100 (NEA): the topic-based essay of 3000 to 4000 words on a debated issue, choosing a question, structuring an independent enquiry, and meeting all three assessment objectives.

Unit Y100 (NEA): integrating the evaluation of primary sources (AO2) and the analysis of historians' interpretations (AO3) into a coursework argument, alongside AO1, around a debated question.

Unit 2 Option (e.g. Y221 Democracy and Dictatorships in Germany 1919 to 1963): the establishment and crises of the Weimar Republic, the Stresemann recovery, and the strains that left democracy vulnerable by 1929.

Unit 2 Option (e.g. Y219 Russia 1894 to 1941): the rule of Nicholas II and the problems of Tsarism, the 1905 revolution and its aftermath, the impact of war and the road to revolution.

Unit 2 Option (e.g. Y219 Russia 1894 to 1941): Stalin's rise to power after Lenin's death, collectivisation and the Five Year Plans, and the Great Terror and the consolidation of the Stalinist state.

Unit 2 Option (e.g. Y221 Democracy and Dictatorships in Germany 1919 to 1963): the impact of the Depression, the rise of Nazi support, the failure of presidential government, and Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933.

Unit 2 Option (e.g. Y221 Democracy and Dictatorships in Germany 1919 to 1963): the consolidation of Nazi power, the machinery of the dictatorship through terror, propaganda and Gleichschaltung, and the balance of consent and coercion.

Unit 2 Option (e.g. Y219 Russia 1894 to 1941): the February Revolution and dual power, the failures of the Provisional Government, the October Revolution and the Bolshevik seizure of power, and the survival of the regime in the Civil War.

Unit 2: the two-part question, managing the shorter part (a) on the significance of one factor and the longer part (b) on a wider analytical judgement, both testing AO1 under time pressure.

AO3 interpretation skills: analysing a historian's argument, emphasis and use of evidence, and evaluating which interpretation is more convincing in the light of context, rather than assessing reliability.

AO2 source skills: grouping and cross-referencing the four enquiry sources by what they suggest about the hypothesis, building an argument rather than treating each source in turn.

AO2 source skills: evaluating primary sources for their value to a stated enquiry, using content, provenance and contextual knowledge to reach a judgement rather than labelling sources reliable or biased.

AO2 source skills: applying the nature, origin and purpose framework to judge a source's value and limitations for a stated enquiry, turning provenance into evidence.

The assessment objectives: AO1 (analysis and judgement), AO2 (primary-source evaluation) and AO3 (interpretation evaluation), how they are weighted, where each is tested, and how to target the right skill.

Source and interpretation skills: deploying contextual knowledge to test and evaluate sources (AO2) and interpretations (AO3), integrating it with the material rather than narrating around it.

Unit 3 Option (e.g. Y319 Civil Rights in the USA 1865 to 1992): the African American strand, from emancipation and Reconstruction through Jim Crow segregation to the civil rights movement, Black Power and the persistence of inequality.

Unit 3 Option (e.g. Y319 Civil Rights in the USA 1865 to 1992): the thematic study of civil rights across four strands (African American, Native American, women's, and trade union rights) over the whole period, assessing change, continuity and the drivers of progress.

Unit 3 Option (e.g. Y319 Civil Rights in the USA 1865 to 1992): the Native American, women's and trade union strands, from assimilation, suffrage and industrial conflict to self-determination, second-wave feminism and the decline of organised labour.

Unit 3 Option (e.g. Y306 Rebellion and Disorder under the Tudors 1485 to 1603): the thematic study of the causes, course and significance of Tudor rebellions, the maintenance of order, and the changing relationship between the Crown and its subjects.

Unit 3 Section A: the interpretations essay, evaluating two historians' extracts on a depth-study issue and judging which is more convincing in the light of context and own knowledge (AO3).

Unit 3 Section B: the thematic essay, building a synoptic, analytical argument across the whole period that ranks factors, traces change and continuity, and reaches a substantiated judgement (AO1).

Unit 3 Section A: the historiography of US civil rights, the top-down (federal and leaders) versus bottom-up (grassroots and local) debate, and how to deploy it when judging which interpretation is more convincing (AO3).