This set has ten original questions, ordered from easier to harder, covering all four lessons in assessment route and independent work. Questions 1 to 3 are about confirming your route, 4 to 6 about planning, 7 to 8 about reviewing source answers, and 9 to 10 about independent work. All scenarios and extracts are invented, and the extracts are written by us.
Answer in writing first, then open the answer. Mark each one as secure, shaky or missed, without giving yourself an official mark.
Questions
1. Name four facts that belong on a route sheet, and say who confirms each.
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Exam year (the exam centre), core option (the school teacher), depth study (the school teacher), and whether coursework applies (the exam centre). The syllabus version comes from the Cambridge page for your exam year.
2. A student has revision notes on a depth study from a cousin who sat the exam two years ago. What should the student do before using them?
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Ask their own teacher which depth study the class is entered for, and check the syllabus for their own exam year. The cousin’s school may have chosen differently, and the syllabus may have changed.
3. Your teacher says “we are doing the Germany depth study” but your friend in another school says “we are doing the Russia one”. Does either of you have the wrong notes?
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No. Schools choose their own depth study, so both can be right for their own school. Each of you should revise your own school’s selection.
4. A student has 5 weeks and 10 content blocks. Each block needs 2 visits. How many content sessions are needed in total, and how many per week?
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10 × 2 = 20 sessions in total. 20 ÷ 5 = 4 sessions per week.
5. The same student also wants one skills session and one catch-up slot each week. If they can only manage 5 slots a week in total, does the plan fit? Show your working.
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Needed per week: 4 content + 1 skills + 1 catch-up = 6 slots. They have 5, so it does not fit. They could give one visit instead of two to the 5 strongest blocks. That cuts 5 visits, so content sessions fall from 20 to 15, which is 3 per week. Then 3 + 1 + 1 = 5 slots, which fits.
6. Why is “read everything for six weeks, then practise for two” a weak plan?
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It leaves skills to the end and relies on a single read-through that fades. Interleaving a weekly skills task and revisiting earlier topics from memory works better.
7. Invented extract (written by us): “Letter from a shopkeeper to a newspaper: Our street was flooded for two days after the heavy rain. The council had promised new drains last year, but nothing was done. I lost most of my stock.” Pick one reported observation and one viewpoint from the extract.
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Reported observation: the street was flooded for two days, and the shopkeeper lost most of their stock. Viewpoint: “nothing was done” about the drains, which is the shopkeeper’s judgement and would need other evidence, such as council records, to confirm.
8. A student writes at the end of a practice source answer: “I think this is about 7 out of 8.” What is wrong with that, and what could they write instead?
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Only Cambridge examiners give official marks, so the number is a guess and hides the gaps. Instead they could use a checklist: source pointed to (yes), layers separated (partly), judgement with reason (yes), question answered (partly), and a next step such as “name what other evidence would test the claim”.
9. A tuition teacher reads a student’s draft for an assessed task and says “the second paragraph describes but does not argue”. Is this teaching feedback or completing the work? Explain.
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Teaching feedback. It identifies a problem and leaves the student to decide how to fix it. The student then writes the revision themselves.
10. A friend offers to email you their finished paragraph “just for ideas” for your assessed work. Give a safe response and one better alternative.
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Decline the paragraph, because submitting or adapting someone else’s text blurs authorship. A better alternative is to talk through the question in general terms, then write your own paragraph and ask your teacher for feedback on it. If unsure what is allowed, ask your school or exam centre.
If you got these wrong
- Questions 1 to 3: return to checking the school’s selected core option and depth study. The habit is to confirm each fact with the right person and write it down.
- Questions 4 to 6: revisit preparing a revision plan. Check your arithmetic of visits against sessions, and always include skills and catch-up time.
- Questions 7 and 8: reread reviewing source-answer practice without claiming official marks. Keep fact, viewpoint and interpretation apart, and use the checklist.
- Questions 9 and 10: go back to distinguishing teaching feedback from completing coursework.
If source skills themselves are the problem, try the evidence and source interpretation practice. For answer writing, see writing and answer development practice.
Working through a mixed set alone can hide patterns. Online one-to-one History tuition lets a teacher read your working and name the pattern.