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The big idea: Paper 1 is a source paper: you are given four sources about one topic and answer four questions worth 24 marks in one hour.
The skill being tested is not memorising facts. It is reading a source carefully, judging how useful it is, and using sources together with your own knowledge.
Every Paper 1 sits inside a prescribed subject, which is a narrow topic your class has studied in depth. There are five to choose from, such as prescribed subject 3, "The move to global war."
You do not pick the subject in the exam.
Your teacher chose it long ago, so on the day you already know the background and just apply your skills to the four sources in front of you.
The sources come in two kinds. A primary source, such as a 1938 diary entry, and a secondary source, such as a 2005 textbook.
One source is usually a picture or cartoon rather than text. The exam calls that a visual source, and it is marked the same way as the written ones.
Spot it: four questions, one hour: The four questions are always comprehension, OPVL, compare-and-contrast, and judgement. They rise from easy to hard, so spend the most time on the last one.
The heart of Paper 1 is OPVL, a tidy way to weigh how useful a source is. You look at where it came from and why it was made, then decide what it is good for and where it falls short.
Get this one tool right and three of the four questions become much easier, because they all lean on the same thinking.
Origin
State who made the source, what it is, and when. A general's public speech in 1938 is very different from a private letter, so name these facts before you judge anything.
Purpose
Work out why it was made and for whom. Was it meant to inform, to persuade, to record privately, or to defend a decision? Purpose shapes everything the source says.
Value
Explain what a historian can usefully learn from it. A propaganda poster is poor for facts but excellent evidence of what a government wanted people to believe.
Limitation
Explain what the source cannot safely tell you. Tie it to the origin or purpose: a source made to persuade will leave out inconvenient facts, so it gives a one-sided picture.
Origin, Purpose, Value, Limitation — where, why, good, weak.
The trap: never just say "it's biased": Saying a source is biased earns nothing on its own. You must say why the origin or purpose makes it biased, and what that means for a historian using it.
The other core skill is cross-referencing, which simply means putting two sources side by side. You hunt for the points where they agree and the points where they disagree.
When two independent sources say the same thing, that is strong evidence, because they corroborate one another. When they clash, that is interesting too, and your job is to explain the difference rather than ignore it.
Sources agree (corroboration)
- Both a soldier's letter and a later history say the winter halted the advance, so the claim looks reliable.
- Agreement between sources of different types is especially convincing, because they had no reason to copy each other.
- You can then use that shared point with confidence in a judgement answer.
Sources disagree (conflict)
- A government report may praise a policy while a diary records hardship, so the two accounts pull apart.
- Explain the clash using purpose: the report defends the policy, the diary records private truth.
- Disagreement does not mean one source is worthless — each still shows a real point of view.
OPVL in action: an original source: Imagine Source A: a 1936 recruitment poster made by a fictional country's War Office, showing a smiling family beside a marching soldier, captioned "Serve and be proud."
Its value is that it reveals how the government tried to make war popular. Its limitation is that its purpose is to persuade, so it tells you nothing about how ordinary people actually felt.
| OPVL step | Question to ask | Example answer |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Who, what, when? | A 1936 government recruitment poster |
| Purpose | Why, and for whom? | To persuade young men to join the army |
| Value | What is it good for? | Shows the message the government wanted to spread |
| Limitation | What can't it show? | Cannot reveal what people privately believed |
See how examiners mark answers
Access past paper questions with model answers. Learn exactly what earns marks and what doesn't.
How this is tested (Paper 1): The four questions carry set marks: comprehension is worth a few marks, OPVL is 4, compare-and-contrast is 6, and the final judgement is 9. Match your time and detail to the marks, and remember that only the last question wants your own knowledge.
Using the sources and your own knowledge, evaluate the view that fear of a strong neighbour was the main reason the fictional state of Marovia began rearming in the 1930s. [9 marks]
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: Do not retell the sources one by one without an argument, and do not forget your own knowledge, which is required here. Every paragraph should push towards the judgement the question asks for.