These ten questions cover the four skills in the United States depth-study pathway. Cover the answers, write your response, then open the answer. All extracts and figures are invented for practice unless a sentence states a widely documented date.
Questions
1. (Easy) Identify the focus, dates and command phrase: “How effective was Prohibition in the United States between 1920 and 1933?”
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Focus: Prohibition. Dates: 1920 to 1933. Place: the United States. Command phrase: “how effective”, which asks for a judgement with evidence on both sides.
2. (Easy) For the question in 1, which topic is outside the scope: (a) enforcement in 1925, (b) the causes of the 1929 financial crash, (c) the repeal of 1933?
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(b). Enforcement and repeal fall inside the dates and help judge effectiveness. The causes of the 1929 crash are a separate question, so they do not belong unless used briefly to explain something inside the question.
3. (Easy) Rewrite “The 1920s” as a scoped question with a focus, dates and a command phrase.
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Example: “How far did radio change evening entertainment for American households between 1922 and 1929?” Any version that includes a clear topic, dates and a command phrase is acceptable.
4. In an invented survey of 250 households in one town in 1926, 50 owned a radio. Find the percentage.
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50 ÷ 250 = 0.20, so 20%. Check: 20% of 250 is 50.
5. In the same invented town in 1930, 140 of 400 surveyed households owned a radio. Compare with question 4.
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140 ÷ 400 = 0.35, so 35%. The share rose from 20% to 35%, a rise of 15 percentage points. The raw count rose by 90, but the survey sizes differ, so percentages give the fair comparison. The data does not show why.
6. A student writes “By 1930, 35% of Americans owned radios.” Identify two problems.
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First, the population is wrong: the data covers households in one invented town, not all Americans. Second, the thing counted is household ownership, not individual people. A correct version names the town, the date and the households.
7. Label each as established fact, source viewpoint or interpretation. (a) “Prohibition began in January 1920.” (b) “A newspaper columnist of 1927 called the city calmer.” (invented) (c) “A modern historian argues that enforcement was uneven.” (invented)
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(a) Established fact: a documented dated event. (b) Source viewpoint: one writer’s judgement at the time. (c) Interpretation: a later reasoned argument that you weigh, not a record.
8. Source A (invented): a columnist in 1927 says Saturday nights on her street are quieter. Source B (invented): a police report from 1927 says arrests for drunkenness in one district rose. Explain how both could be accurate.
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They describe different things in different places: noise on one street and arrests in one district. Arrests also depend on how many officers were on duty. Neither covers the whole city, so they do not directly contradict each other.
9. Rewrite to remove the unsupported generalisation: “Everyone ignored Prohibition in the 1920s.”
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Example: “Court records in one invented city show Prohibition cases rising from 300 in 1923 to 450 in 1927, which suggests more offences or more enforcement.” The rewrite names a place and dates, gives figures and avoids a claim about everyone.
10. (Harder) Using the data in 9 and Source A from 8, write a short paragraph answering “How far did Prohibition change daily life in one American city between 1923 and 1927?” Include a limit.
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Model: “Court records of the invented city show Prohibition cases rising by 50%, from 300 in 1923 to 450 in 1927, which suggests the law was applied more actively. This does not show how many people drank, because the figures also reflect enforcement. The invented columnist reported a quieter street, but that covers one place only. The evidence therefore supports a change in how the law was applied, with limited evidence of a change in daily life.” Check the arithmetic: 450 − 300 = 150 and 150 ÷ 300 = 0.5.
If you got these wrong
- Questions 1 to 3: the question’s boundaries were unclear. Revisit defining the scope of a question.
- Questions 4 to 6: the figure, date or population was misread. Revisit using a dataset with date and population identified.
- Questions 7 and 8: views and facts were mixed, or the comparison was unattributed. Revisit comparing contemporary perspectives with attribution.
- Questions 9 and 10: the claim was wider than the evidence. Revisit developing a practice answer without unsupported generalisations.
Keep a short list of your error types. When one type repeats across several questions, fix that skill before doing more questions.
Next steps
Return to the pathway overview for the study order. For broader practice on source skills, see evidence and source interpretation.
If your answers show a pattern you cannot find alone, our online one-to-one History tuition can work from your own written responses and your actual depth study.