Examiner’s General Advice on Unit 1

 

Students in this AS unit are expected to demonstrate three particular skills:

• There is the ability to select, use and communicate accurate knowledge and understanding of the topic.
• When giving a historical explanation, there is the ability to make a substantiated judgement, that is, a judgement that goes beyond mere assertion and is backed up by appropriate evidence.
• There is the ability to interpret, evaluate and use a range of source material, both primary and secondary, and also explain and evaluate interpretations of the topics studied. 

These skills 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. On any given examination paper, there will 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 skills, not necessarily all of them at once. One of the ways of writing an effective answer is therefore 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. Generalised statements showing, for example, a student’s awareness that one piece of evidence is less objective and more biased than another will not earn much credit. There must also be a clear indication of some background knowledge and understanding of the topic in addition to the ability to make comparisons and contrasts between the sources.

Unit 1 (options A–N) contains three 2-part questions, and candidates have to answer two of three questions (both parts).