Unit 18: Paper 3 (HL) — History of Europe
Topic 18.7: Absolutism and Enlightenment (1650–1800) Questions
Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB History Topic 18.7. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.
1Discuss15 marks
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Discuss the view that the Enlightenment in Britain represented continuity rather than revolutionary change.
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Unlock Question2Compare and contrast15 marks
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Compare and contrast the political impact of Enlightenment ideas in France and in England/Scotland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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Unlock Question3Evaluate15 marks
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Evaluate the significance of Montesquieu's theory of the separation of powers for eighteenth-century European political thought.
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Examine the contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment to eighteenth-century economic and political thought.
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Examine the impact of the Scientific Revolution on the origins of Enlightenment thought.
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To what extent were Enlightenment ideas responsible for political change in France before 1789?
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Evaluate the extent to which John Locke's political ideas shaped constitutional developments in England.
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Discuss the reasons why Enlightenment ideas were absorbed peacefully into the constitutional system of England and Scotland rather than provoking revolution, as they did in France.
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Analyse the methods used by philosophes to spread Enlightenment ideas in France despite royal censorship.
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To what extent did Rousseau's political ideas differ from those of Locke and Montesquieu?
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To what extent did Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great deserve the title "enlightened"?
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Discuss the view that enlightened despotism was fundamentally incompatible with the interests of the rural poor.
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Compare and contrast the impact of agricultural and economic change in two states, each chosen from a different region of Europe, in the period 1650-1800.
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Examine the role of the patronage system in shaping European culture in the period 1650-1800.
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Compare and contrast the domestic reforms of Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia.
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Examine the causes and consequences of the Pugachev Rebellion (1773-1775) for Catherine the Great's policies.
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Discuss the view that religious toleration under the enlightened despots served state interests more than Enlightenment principle.
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Unlock Question18To what extent15 marks
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To what extent was Baroque art and architecture a tool of royal political power in the period 1650-1800?
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Evaluate the impact of urbanisation on European society in the period 1650-1800.
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Analyse the impact of agricultural change on European society in the period 1650-1800.
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