Edexcel GCSE History — Paper 1 (Thematic study + Historic environment)

Total marks: 52 · Duration: 75 minutes

Instructions to candidates

• Use black ink or ball-point pen.
• Answer all the questions in Section A.
• In Section B, answer Questions 3 and 4 and then either Question 5 or Question 6.
• Answer Question 5 or 6, not both.
• Spelling, punctuation, grammar and the use of specialist terminology will be assessed in Questions 5 and 6.
• Sources A and B were written for this practice paper. They are based on the kinds of evidence you will meet in the examination, but they are not quotations from real documents or descriptions of real photographs.

Information

• The total mark for this paper is 52.
• The marks for each question are shown in brackets.
• Section A: Historic environment — The British sector of the Western Front, 1914–18: injuries, treatment and the trenches (16 marks).
• Section B: Thematic study — Medicine in Britain, c1250–present (36 marks, including 4 marks for spelling, punctuation, grammar and specialist terminology).
• Spend about 25 minutes on Section A and about 50 minutes on Section B.

Paper

Section A — The British sector of the Western Front, 1914–18: injuries, treatment and the trenches (16 marks)

Question 1

Describe two features of the trench system on the Western Front.

Feature 1:

Feature 2:

(4 marks)

Question 2

Source A: A report written for this practice paper in the style of a Royal Army Medical Corps officer at a Casualty Clearing Station, in the autumn of 1916.

"The wounded reach us by motor ambulance, many hours after being hit. In the last three days we have received over four hundred men. We sort them as they arrive: the slightly wounded are dressed and sent on, the most urgent go straight to the operating tent, and those beyond help are made comfortable. Our mobile X-ray unit has been of great value in finding shell fragments buried deep in a limb. The worst enemy is infection. The soil of these fields has been farmed for centuries, and when it is driven into a wound with a piece of shrapnel, gas gangrene can set in within a day. We cut away all damaged flesh and wash the wound, but we lose men we would have saved if they had reached us sooner."

Source B: A description, written for this practice paper, of a photograph of the kind taken near Ypres in 1917.

The photograph shows four stretcher-bearers carrying a wounded soldier along a communication trench. The trench is flooded almost to their knees and the duckboards beneath the water cannot be seen. Two of the bearers are struggling to keep the stretcher level, and one has his head bent low, below the line of the sandbags. A bandage has been tied round the wounded man's leg. Behind them the trench turns sharply, and there is a second stretcher waiting to pass.

(a) Study Sources A and B.

How useful are Sources A and B for an enquiry into the problems of treating wounded soldiers on the Western Front?

Explain your answer, using Sources A and B and your knowledge of the historical context.

(8 marks)

(b) Study Source B.

How could you follow up Source B to find out more about the problems of treating wounded soldiers on the Western Front?

In your answer, you must give the question you would ask and the type of source you could use. Complete the table below.

(4 marks)

Section B — Medicine in Britain, c1250–present (36 marks)

Question 3

Explain one way in which ideas about the causes of disease in the fourteenth century were different from ideas about the causes of disease in the late nineteenth century.

(4 marks)

Question 4

Explain why there was rapid progress in surgery in the period c1840–c1900.

You may use the following in your answer:

• anaesthetics
• Joseph Lister and carbolic acid

You must also use information of your own.

(12 marks)

Answer EITHER Question 5 OR Question 6.

Question 5

"Individuals were the main reason for progress in preventing disease in the period c1700–c1900."

How far do you agree? Explain your answer.

You may use the following in your answer:

• Edward Jenner
• the Public Health Act of 1875

You must also use information of your own.

(16 marks + 4 marks for SPaG)

Question 6

"The way people in Britain responded to the Great Plague of 1665 was very different from the way they responded to the Black Death of 1348–49."

How far do you agree? Explain your answer.

You may use the following in your answer:

• prayer and the flagellants
• the plague orders issued in London in 1665

You must also use information of your own.

(16 marks + 4 marks for SPaG)