Examiner’s General Advice on Unit 1

In AS Unit 1 students are expected to demonstrate several skills which are also assessment objectives. All questions will aim to test more than one of these objectives, and in an examination answer will be marked accordingly. There will, on any given examination paper, be a planned balance of the various skills across questions to ensure that all are covered. However, individual questions or part questions will focus on certain of the skills, not necessarily all of them at once.  Consequently one of the ways of writing an effective answer is to learn to recognise the particular skill that is the focal point of a particular question. However, it is also important to remember that accurate knowledge and understanding are key elements in any AS answer. 

The assessment objectives are:

A01 (a): Recall, selection and deployment of appropriate historical knowledge, communicated effectively.

A01 (b): Demonstrating historical understanding involving explanation, analysis and judgement, involving key concepts such as causation, consequence, change and continuity; and an understanding of the relationships between key features of the period studied.

A02 (b): Analysing and evaluating how the past has been interpreted and represented in different ways.

Unit 1 contains three two-part questions, not source-based, on the chosen option from European, World or British history. Candidates are required to answer two of the questions.

It is important to divide your time well. The first part of each question carries 12 marks; the second part carries 24 marks. Therefore you should probably aim to spend less time on the first parts, or you will risk running out of time on the second and longer parts.

There are several skills implicit in answering the questions well.  One element is simple recall. You will need to explain, for example by giving the reasons for a particular event. This requires more than simply listing a series of reasons from memory – a high-level answer will require you to put these reasons in context and relate them to each other. The 24-mark question will require you to examine a particular historical issue. You must not only call up your knowledge of the topic, but also use that knowledge in such a way that you are able to analyse the issues and produce a reasoned argument using the knowledge you have.