How do I do well
at Unit 1 in
GCSE History?
By the end of the revision session I will be
able to…
• Identify the requirements of the exam paper
• Describe all of the different types of questions
• Explain how to answer each type of
exam question
Unit 1A – Medicine and Treatment
Friday 15th June
If doing a resit –
Unit 2B – American West
Wednesday 20th June
• Today has been offered to help you practise
your exam skills as you prepare for your GCSE
History exam in unit 1.
• We will practise each question type, helping
us understand what the examiner will be
looking for in top-level answers.
• We will check whether we’re on track at the
end of each activity.
• 1A Medicine and Treatment
In this unit, the questions test key historical
skills. In the exam paper, you will answer five
questions.
Question
1
2
3
4/5
6/7
Total
Marks
8
6
8
12
16
50
Question Type
Inference
Key Features
Utility
Causation
Judgement
Time
10
8
10
15-20
25-30
75
• The first question in unit 1 is an inference
question.
• An inference is something that is not actually
said or shown in the source but which you can
work out from the details of the source.
An example of an inference is that if you see someone going
into several shops and in each one they ask to see the
manager and hand over a letter and their CV, you could infer
that they are..?
• Unit 1 focuses on change and continuity over
time. In unit 1 you will need to make an
inference about change, based on two given
sources and your own knowledge.
The inference questions in Unit 1 is worth 8 marks.
The markscheme gives three levels:
• Level 1 (1-2 marks): General comments about change, one mark per point.
Does not refer to sources or own knowledge.
• Level 2 (3-6 marks): Answer describes changes and supports theis with
details from the source (s) or own knowledge. Maximum 4 marks if
answer is based only on sources or own knowledge.
• Level 3 (7-8 marks): Makes an inference about the nature or extent of
change in England based on the explicit use of both sources and
supported from own knowledge of the historical context.
You should be aiming to get at least 6 marks in
this question. So you need to look at the
source (s), then:
1. Make an inference
2. support your inference by using details from
the source (s)
3. Add your own knowledge of the time period
• Make sure you say what you’ve worked
out from the source details
• Explain which details of the source you
used to make the inference
• Don’t just describe the source!
•Use own knowledge as well.
• Look at answers A, B and C on pages 4 and 5
of your booklet.
• What marks would you give them? Why?
• How could you improve answer A?
Question 1
Study Sources A and B.
Source A: A home remedy which was used during the Middle Ages to cure headaches
and pains.
Take equal amounts of the following plants – radish, bishopwort, garlic and
hollowleek. Crush them and mix them up, and boil them in butter. Keep the
mixture in a brass pot until it is a dark red colour. Strain it through a cloth and
smear on the forehead or aching joints.
Source B: A packet of paracetamol painkilling tablets. Such packets were widely sold in
shops in the twentieth century.
1 What can you learn from Sources A and B about changes in the treatments people
used for minor illnesses such as headaches?
Explain your answer, using these sources and your own knowledge. (8)
Make a point and then back it up with the source...
• Herbal remedies were made at home and used to
treat minor illnesses during the Middle Ages. This
is shown in Source A where a recipe is given for a
‘home remedy’.
• This had changed by the Twentieth Century and
people bought paracetamol from a shop in tablet
form to treat headaches. This is shown in source
B where packets of standard-sized pills could be
bought because of new technology and the
pharmaceutical industry.
Examiner comment: This uses details from each source
to identify the change from home made remedies to
mass produced and branded treatments and from a
remedy based on approximate measures to one that
was standardised. It gets 4 marks because it does not
include additional knowledge.
• You need to fill in the answers, or ask
someone that knows the answer (you can
move around the room) – the first person to
complete each box correctly (full house) and
brings it to my desk wins!
• You have 10 minutes only
Who wore a mask with a
beak filled with herbs to
stop the spread of
disease?
The correct term for how
long you should live.
A name for the ‘Middle
Ages’ (400 – 1500 CE)
What was the average life
expectancy in the Middle
Ages?
What were the four liquids
(or humours) in the body,
according to the Ancient
Greeks?
Who was a doctor in Rome
who developed the Theory
of the Four Humours even
further?
This suggested if you had
too much phlegm (cold)
you should eat hot
peppers.
The drawing of blood from
a patient by a doctor.
Why were Galen’s ideas
so important?
The name for trained
doctors in the past.
Why did people whip
themselves because of the
plague?
The name for ‘bad air’
from decaying waste
which people thought
caused the plague.
Some thought an
imbalance of this caused
the plague in 1348.
Give 3 treatments people
tried at the time of the
Black Death.
Why did ideas about
treatment have little or no
effect at the time?
Plague
doctor
Life
Expectancy
Medieval
Galen
Theory of
Opposites
Medical
Bloodletting training
Physicians
continued to
be based on it
Show mercy
to God
Miasma
The Four
Humours
30 years
Blood
Phlegm
Yellow Bile
Black Bile
Bread against
buboes
Praying
Herbs
Tidying rubbish
Because
they were
wrong!
• The second question in unit 1 is a key features
question.
• The key features are the most important parts
of a time period or topic
Your key features question is always about a specific thing
such as ideas about causes of disease therefore in your
answer you should focus on this rather than treatments or
methods of preventing disease unless you make a clear link.
• You will be asked to describe the key features.
• Top marks are given for a range of key
features- this means 3 detailled points.
The key features question in Unit 1 is worth 6 marks.
The markscheme gives two levels:
• Level 1 (1-3 marks): One or two ideas not described in detail
• Level 2 (4-6 marks): Answers include a range of ideas and details or
examples for each.
•Make sure you give 3 ideas
•Focus on the question
•Back up your ideas with examples
• Look at answers A, B and C on pages 6 and 7
of your booklet.
• What marks would you give them? Why?
• How could you improve answer C?
Question 2
The boxes below show two time periods. Choose one and describe the key ideas about
the causes of disease in England in that period. (6 Marks)
Roman Britain
The Later
Middle Ages
• You need to know the contribution made by
the key individuals
• Match the individual to their discovery on
your sheet
• Causation means looking at the reasons WHY
things happen in history – the CAUSES of
events and change in history.
• You need to EXPLAIN why something
happened.
If you were asked by your teacher why you were so late for
school, you might say: We had a power cut during the night so
I woke up late. And then I couldn’t find my phone.
This would be a low level 2 answer, because it just tells the
story of what happened. To improve it, you would need to
make it clear that:
o The power cut is the reason why you woke up late – it
meant that your alarm clock didn’t go off
o You spent so much time trying to find your phone that you
missed your bus.
• In unit 1, the fourth question is about
causation
• The questions are all marked in the same way,
using levels from Level 1-3.
Level
Answer
1
Answer is very general, few details included.
2
Answer has correct detail but does not show
how the details help to answer the specific
question.
3
Answer uses detail to support an explanation.
To do well, make sure you identify each reason clearly. It helps
to use words such as ‘because’, ‘therefore’ and ‘as a result’.
These show you are explaining connections between the points
you are making.
You could group reasons together, e.g.:
o economic factors (to do with money)
o religious factors (to do with people’s beliefs)
o social factors (to do with how society works and people’s
attitudes).
Sometimes the examiner identifies the role of a factor, e.g.
o the government (what was organised on a national basis)
o technology (how equipment and machinery affected the
situation)
• Look at answers A, B and C on pages 10 and
11 of your booklet.
• What marks would you give them? Why?
• How could you improve answer A?
4) How much did the understanding of the causes of
disease change between c1350 and c1900?(12)
You may use the following in your answer and any
other information of your own.
In 1348, when the Black Death reached England,
the Church played an important role in medieval
ideas. Many people thought illness had a
supernatural cause. Other ideas at the time were
that disease was caused by miasma, or by an
imbalance of the humours.
1) Read the answer below. Underline any reasons that you can find
in it which explain why understanding of the causes of disease
changed between 1350 and 1900.
But miasma is still incorrect.
One relevant change.
Relevant change.
Examiner comments:
• This answer shows the gradual change away from
a belief in the supernatural but also explains the
significance of Pasteur's germ theory as a radical
shift in ideas, which disproved previous ideas.
Low Level 3 = 9 marks
Examiner Tip
• For higher marks the answer should cover the full
timescale in the question.
Question 4
Why were Florey and Chain able to mass produce penicillin by 1944? (12 marks)
•
•
•
•
•
The word why reminds you to focus on the reasons why they managed to do it not a
description of what they did.
The date helps you to think of details that are relevant.
The details you need to use should be about Florey and Chain and mass production of
penicillin (not an explanation of why Fleming didn’t mass produce penicillin)
A good answer is planned around the reasons.
Match up the reasons below with the relevant details. An answer based on this plan should
reach level 3.
Reason
Detail
Florey and Chain knew that penicillin was
an antibiotic
The government was willing to fund mass production
of penicillin as they knew it would save soldiers lives
Florey and Chain set up a team of
specialists
They had read the article by Fleming about the
investigation into penicillin
They asked the American government for
help
Scientists at the Pfizer chemical company in New York
found that freeze-drying the mould was the best way
to purify it.
They got help in finding the most effective
technology to mass produce penicillin
The specialists could approach problems from different
angles and share their ideas.
• Use the information in the table below to complete the table
on your sheet
Twentieth Century, Renaissance, Prehistoric, Ancient civilisations,
Nineteenth century, Middle Ages
3000BC – 500AD, Up to 3000BC, 1900 – 1999, 500 – 1400, 1700 –
1800, 1400 - 1750
Fleming, Koch, Harvey, Galen, Pasteur, Nightingale, Jenner, Vesalius,
Hippocrates, Simpson, Lister, Pare
Germs, Planets, Spirits, God, Gods, Four Humours, Bad Air, Living
Conditions, Poverty, Diet, Blocked Channels
Supernatural, Natural
Medicine Games
• http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/games/fling/
renaissance_medicine/
• http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/games/walk/
walk_peoplemedicine.html
• http://www.winkersworld.com/games/medici
ne.html
How useful is source C to a historian who is
trying to work out what people in the Middle
Ages thought caused the Black Death? (8 Marks)
Victims of the
Black Death, as
depicted in the
Toggenburg
Bible of 1411
How did you do?
Marks
1-2
Description
· Simple statements about who wrote the source, when and why
· Undeveloped, unfocused descriptions of content of source
3-6
· Answer explains whether the source is useful based on:
· The contents of the source (what we can learn from it)
OR
· The reliability of the source (whether we trust it)
7-8
· Answer explains whether the source is useful based on:
· The contents of the source (what we can learn from it)
AND
· The reliability of the source (whether we trust it)
You scored _/8 on your homework because you…
To get more marks you need to…
What makes a source useful?
The usefulness of a source varies according to what the historian is
investigating.
So when you are evaluating a source’s usefulness, you need to have a
clear idea of how the information in the source relates to the
historian’s enquiry.
For this section of your course, a historian might be interested in:
• ideas from this period about what caused illness and disease
• approaches to public health and the prevention of disease and
illness
• how changes in society influenced medicine and public health.
Look at Source A, which comes from a medieval
illuminated manuscript. This source would be more
useful for some enquiries than for others.
How useful would it be to a
historian who wanted to
find out:
1) What caused illness and
disease?
2) How Public Health was
dealt with?
3) Changes in society?
How useful would it be to a historian who wanted to
find out:
1) What caused illness and disease?
This source is very useful, it shows
Galen’s theories on bloodletting in
practice.
2) How Public Health was dealt with?
the source is not useful for this enquiry.
3) Changes in society?
the source is useful in showing
continuity - doctors still doing in 1325
what Galen had recommended in the
second century.
Usefulness is based on two things:
1) How much we can learn from the source
2) How much we trust the source
• Look at answers A, B and C on pages 8 and 9
of your booklet.
• What marks would you give them? Why?
• How could you improve answer A?
Points about usefulness based on content:
Sick people
shared a beddid not know
about
contagious
illnesses
From
source A
we can
learn…
Points about usefulness based on reliability:
Reliability
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Who made the source?
Printed in a Bible
When did they make it?
Printed in 1411- 60 years after
BD
Why did they make it?
To remind people how
powerful God is- they thought
he gave you the disease
Do we trust the source?
Yes it tells us things we have
seen elsewhere
WATCH OUT!
Many students think that the usefulness of a
source depends only on how much information
it contains, or assume that a source produced at
the time is automatically better than a source
produced later.
THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Have another go:
Step one: Explain whether the nature, origin and purpose of the source
make it useful.
The purpose of the source is to show that God is powerful…
Therefore, it may be useful because…
Step two: Explain whether the content of the source makes it useful, by
comparing to your own knowledge.
This source shows us one way they tried to prevent the plague
because it shows…
I can link this to medieval ideas about the causes of disease because…
Therefore the source is useful because…
However, it does not show us…
Overall, I think the source is quite / not very useful because…
Three types of questions:
• Orange- separate out the different segments. Questions that begin
why or what were the causes/effects are orange questions. Here
your answer should have three or four sections, each dealing with a
different cause or consequence.
• Iceberg- Only the tip of the iceberg sticks up out if the water- 9/10
of the iceberg is out of sight. Aniceberg question mentions one
reason or effect and asks if that was the most important, but your
answer needs to talk about the hidden other reasons or effects as
well as the one mentioned in the question.
• Scales- Questions which begin ‘How far’ or ‘To what extent’. Your
essay will split into three sections- points that agree, points that
disagree. The sides are rarely equally heavy and the third paragraph
should weigh up the evidence and say which side is heaviest.
• Look at the markscheme on page 13- can you
see the difference between level 3 and 4?
• Look at answers A and B on page 13.
• What marks would you give them? Why?
• How could you improve answer A?
Complete the tasks on your sheets.
How much progress was there in
medicine between 1350 and 1750?
• Use the sheet to plan an answer then have a
go at writing your answer.