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Paper 1 exam skills: historic environment and thematic study

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Paper 1 has two parts: a historic environment (a place studied with sources) and a thematic study (change over about 1,000 years). Knowing the question types earns easy marks.

The paper at a glance

1 hour 20 minutes, 52 marks, 30% of your GCSE.
Section A, historic environment: 16 marks.
Section B, thematic study: 36 marks, including 4 marks for SPaG (spelling, punctuation, grammar and specialist terms).

Section A: historic environment

Question 1 (4 marks): describe features. For each feature, state it, then add a specific supporting detail.
Question 2(a) (8 marks): How useful are Sources A and B for an enquiry into...? Judge each source on its content, its provenance (nature, origin, purpose) and your own knowledge.
Question 2(b) (4 marks): How could you follow up a source? Give the detail you would follow up, the question you would ask, the type of source you would use, and how it would help.

Section B: thematic study

Question 3 (4 marks): explain one way something was similar or different in two periods.
Question 4 (12 marks): Explain why... Use the two stimulus points and add a point of your own.
Question 5 or 6 (16 marks + 4 SPaG): a statement, then 'How far do you agree?' Cover the whole time span in the question, argue both sides, and finish with a clear judgement.
Worked example

Plan an answer to: 'How useful are Sources A and B for an enquiry into policing in Whitechapel?'

  1. For each source, say what its content tells you about the enquiry.
  2. Use provenance: who made it, when, and why. Does that make it more or less reliable?
  3. Use your own knowledge to check whether the content is typical or accurate.
  4. Reach a judgement about how useful each source is for this enquiry.

Answer: Content, provenance and own knowledge for each source, then a judgement.

Key idea

Paper 1: 1 hour 20 minutes, 52 marks. Section A: features (4), source utility (8), follow-up (4). Section B: similarity or difference (4), explain why (12), how far do you agree (16 + 4 SPaG).

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

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