This set practises the skills of core option A study pathways: placing events in order, separating fact from viewpoint and interpretation, using careful causal wording, reading sources and comparing two units. The questions are original and are not taken from any exam paper. Any source extract is invented for practice and is labelled as such.
Try each question on paper first, then open the answer. Your own syllabus year decides which units you must cover, so check the Cambridge page. The questions run from easier to harder.
Questions
1. Put these in order, earliest first: Kingdom of Italy proclaimed, Zollverein begins, German Empire proclaimed, revolution in Paris in February 1848.
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Zollverein begins (1834), revolution in Paris (February 1848), Kingdom of Italy proclaimed (1861), German Empire proclaimed (1871).
2. How many years passed between the Triple Alliance (1882) and the outbreak of war in 1914?
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1914 − 1882 = 32 years.
3. Label each as Fact, Source says or Interpretation: (a) “Lincoln was elected in November 1860.” (b) “A fictional pamphlet claims the northern states wanted war.” (c) “The war was mainly about economic differences.”
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(a) Fact. (b) Source says, because it is one writer’s claim. (c) Interpretation, because historians weigh economic, political and other causes differently.
4. Rewrite more carefully: “The Ems telegram caused the Franco-Prussian War.”
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A sample: “The publication of the Ems telegram in July 1870 helped to trigger the Franco-Prussian War, alongside longer-term tensions between France and Prussia.” This uses a qualified verb and mentions another factor.
5. Classify as long-term factor, trigger or consequence: (a) the naval race between Britain and Germany, (b) the assassination on 28 June 1914, (c) the legal end of slavery in the United States by December 1865.
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(a) Long-term factor. (b) Trigger. (c) Consequence of the Civil War.
6. Write a one-line glossary entry for “ultimatum” with a dated example from this module.
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A sample: “Ultimatum: a final demand that threatens action if it is refused. Example (fact): Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July 1914. Confusable term: request, which carries no threat.” Your wording may differ.
7. Invented extract (for practice, not a real document): “The newspaper says the strikers were a danger to the city, but the strikers themselves say they only wanted fair pay.” (A fictional report, 1850s.) What is one use and one limit of this extract for a historian?
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Use: it shows that people at the time held opposing views of the strike. Limit: it cannot show what actually happened, since it only reports two competing claims and does not supply independent evidence. A historian would look for other records.
8. A student writes: “The 1866 war with Austria was caused by the Franco-Prussian War.” Explain the error and correct it.
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The Franco-Prussian War was in 1870 to 1871, after the war with Austria in 1866, so a later event cannot cause an earlier one. Correction: “The 1866 victory over Austria strengthened Prussia’s position before the Franco-Prussian War.” The rule is that a cause must come before its effect.
9. Write one point comparing Italian and German unification on the dimension “the lead state”. Include a date for each.
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A sample: “In Italy, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia led the process, ending with the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, whereas in Germany, Prussia led the process, ending with the German Empire in 1871. In both cases a single existing state took the lead, but the Italian kingdom was proclaimed ten years earlier.” Check that your point has both sides and both dates.
10. “Bismarck planned German unification.” How far do you agree? Write a short paragraph.
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A model outline: Position: partly agree. For: the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 to 1871 each strengthened Prussia. Against: the Ems telegram suggests he used a chance as it arose, and the Zollverein had linked states since 1834. Judgement: “He had clear aims for Prussia but adapted to events, so ‘planned every step’ goes beyond the evidence.” The paragraph is about interpretations, not about whether Bismarck was good or bad.
11. “The alliance system was the main cause of the First World War.” Give one point for and one point against, then a judgement.
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For: alliances linked Austria-Hungary with Germany and Serbia with Russia, helping to widen a regional crisis into a continental war. Against: the alliances do not alone explain why Austria-Hungary and Germany acted as they did in July 1914, and the naval race, the Moroccan crises and Balkan tensions also built mistrust. Judgement: it was an important factor but not clearly the main one, because it explains how the war widened more than why it began.
12. Look at your answers to questions 3, 10 and 11. For each, say whether you used fact, source viewpoint or interpretation, and whether it was labelled.
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This is a reflection task. Strong answers show that you can point to at least one fact, one source claim and one interpretation, and that you used wording such as “helped to” or “suggests” for the judgement, rather than writing “proves” or “caused”.
If you got these wrong
Use the type of mistake to choose a lesson.
- Questions 1, 2 and 8, dates and order wrong: go back to locating the unit in its chronology.
- Questions 3 and 6, mixing fact, source claim and interpretation or vague terms: review building a source-backed glossary.
- Questions 4, 5 and 11, overclaiming or mixing trigger and long-term cause: revisit qualified causal language.
- Questions 9 and 10, comparison or interpretation paragraphs weak: work through the comparative outline lesson and German unification.
- Question 7, reading a source: re-read the 1848 revolutions and the American Civil War.
If the same type keeps slipping, a teacher in online one-to-one History tuition can work on that step with your own answers.