How to get full marks on source questions in History A Level: 2. Using the content of the source (A grade)
August 11th, 2017Last updated: September 22nd, 2022
This is the second post in a series that shows you how to approach source questions in History A Level, and hopefully also how exciting analysing primary source material can be. In this blog, Andrew sets out how to raise the quality of your answer to A* level by showing understanding of the source in context, and focusing on the question.
NB: Exam boards and schools
I have organised this post article around the general skills required in most A Level specifications. In each section, I have tried to indicate which criteria these skills help to fulfil on the mark schemes of different exam boards. If you’re looking for something specific, use ctrl + F to search for specific words from your exam board’s mark scheme. Different schools and teachers explain how to analyse sources in different ways: ‘Content, Origin, Purpose’, ‘What? When? Who? Why?’, ‘Interpretation, Knowledge, Provenance’, etc. When I tutor, I always try to develop the approach that a student has been taught in school, so that we build on existing skills, rather than starting from scratch. When using this guide, try to do the same yourself, by working out how the skills below correspond to what your teacher asks you to do in lessons.1. Use knowledge or key terms when making inferences.
| This will help you achieve the following mark-scheme criteria: AQA - ‘good understanding of all three sources…and combines this with a strong awareness of the historical context’ Edexcel - ‘Interrogates the evidence of both sources with confidence and discrimination’ - ‘Deploys knowledge of the historical context to illuminate and/ or discuss the limitations of what can be gained from the content of the source material’ - ‘interpret source material in the context of the values and concerns of the society from which it is drawn’ OCR - ‘detailed and accurate knowledge of their historical context’ - ‘convincing, fully supported analysis’ |
2. Explicitly refer to the question, using the wording on the exam paper
| This will help you achieve the following mark-scheme criteria: AQA - ‘present a balanced judgment…for the particular purpose given in the question’ Edexcel - ‘Interrogates the evidence of both sources with confidence and discrimination’ - ‘Evaluation of the source material uses valid criteria’ - ‘Evaluation takes into account the weight the evidence will bear as part of coming to a judgement’ OCR - ‘The answer has a very good focus on the question throughout’ - ‘analysis of [the sources] in relation to the issue in the question’ |
Summary
If you make sure that you have followed these tips, you are on the way to showing an examiner that you read and interpret sources like an A* historian!- Use short quotations (see first post)
- Make inferences (see first post)
- Make sure your inferences are relevant to the question (see first post)
- Use knowledge or key terms when making inferences
- Explicitly refer to the question, using the wording on the exam paper
Start the discussion!