AS-LEVEL HISTORY. Unit HIS1B Report on the Examination. Specification 2040 June Version: 1.0

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1 AS-LEVEL HISTORY Unit HIS1B Report on the Examination Specification 2040 June 2015 Version: 1.0

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3 Unit HIS1B Unit 1B: Britain, General Comments The paper was generally answered well with no obvious topics avoided by students. There was broadly even coverage of the questions, although rather predictably, the question on Wolsey was marginally less popular than the other two. There were no obvious issues with time management; however the allocation of time between questions was not always logical. An increasing number of students seemed to spend longer on the 12 mark questions than on the 24. A bigger issue was a rather cavalier attitude to the precise demands of some of the questions, and a tendency to latch onto a particular word and to simply write all that pertained to that topic rather than to the precise question. This was most commonly seen in response to question 02 and 06. Question 1 01 This was answered very well by the majority. Most students were able to identify a range of factors that were relevant to defeat on the battlefield. It appeared as if some students did however forget that a substantial part of their answer should have been directed to linking the factors together in some way. A simple summary one sentence along the lines of this was the most important factor did not suffice. Weaker answers tried to respond to a previous question on the extent to which Richard might be blamed for his own defeat, or spent a considerable amount of time illustrating the problems encountered by Richard during his reign, but failed to link this to the events at Bosworth. Most frustrating was the response that suggested that Richard lacked support due to a welter of unpopular policies, only to then comment that Richard s army far outnumbered Henry s at Bosworth. Some long term factors certainly could have been relevant, but to simply state that Richard lacked support because he was suspected of murdering the Princes, was not sufficient or indeed proven. 02 This question was plainly liked by a number of students who nevertheless unfortunately tried to turn it into a general question on the nature of royal authority and therefore did not score highly. The most unfocused responses tried to address an entirely different question by discussing the ways in which Henry established his authority by There were two substantive issues. Firstly, too many students were unaware of the dates when events happened or had not read the constriction placed in the question. Quite a number therefore wrote at great length about events that lay quite some way beyond 1487 and therefore could not be credited. The second issue was more pronounced. It is clear that the focus of the question is on the marriage to Elizabeth. In fact, the question is asking students to address the extent to which the marriage consolidated authority of the monarchy. Here the balance is that it did consolidate / it did not consolidate. There were a number of superb answers that noted how delayed the marriage was and commented that this was because Henry himself did not wish contemporaries to view his claim to the throne as resting upon the blood of his wife. 3 of 5

4 Moreover, the rebellion of 1487 was taken as further evidence that, despite the attempts at Tudor propaganda based on the marriage naming of the heir Arthur, the development of the Tudor Rose - the Battle of Stoke rather suggests that such action had not been completely successful. Contrasting to this superb level of response, was a large number of weaker answers that simply resorted to prepared arguments about authority in general. Hence there was extensive commentary about bonds and recognizances, and also about the role of Parliament or even of the recoinage. This was not only often outside of the date range set, but also was not relevant to the question focus. Students might well be reminded to spend some time really considering what they are being asked to do, rather than simply assuming that a question with the word authority in is asking about authority in general. Question 2 03 This question served as a very good discriminator between those that had good subject knowledge and those that tried to flesh out answers with rhetoric. As this question had been asked in the past, there were some very well prepared students who were fully able to identify a good range of factors. This was contrasted with those who plainly had little idea of who Empson and Dudley were yet tried to guess the reason for their execution. Students should consider that the demand here is for three discreet factors and that simply writing that Empson and Dudley were unpopular in three different ways, does not count as a good range of factors. This question saw the lowest performance of all questions on the paper. 04 The range of quality in response to this question was surprising. The topic is of course a central one when considering Henry VII and consequently quite a number of answers deployed a very impressive subject knowledge indeed. However, this was contrasted with the response that plainly struggled to identify specific pieces of information in support. Those that did identify specific detail struggled at times to link adequately to royal wealth rather than simply to an improvement in mercantile activity. Perhaps more pertinent were the students that again failed to consider exactly what the question was asking. The focus set was degree of success, yet a number of responses spent the majority of their time detailing the methods used by Henry to increase wealth, and left degree of success to a rather generic conclusion. Students should again be instructed to read the strictures of the question carefully and to spend some time thinking about the precise demands. Question 3 05 This question elicited a very wide range of quality in response. At the top end were responses that were able to use evidence of the support from patrons, or indeed were able to provide precise detail of Wosley s switch from anti-war to pro-war factions. Contrasting to this were the much weaker responses that struggled to move beyond the very generic Wolsey could offer the king what he wanted or even less precise Wolsey was very talented and therefore allowed Henry to carry on hunting. Whilst many students were plainly aware of Wolsey s humble origins, far fewer had apparently considered it unusual in the context for Wolsey to rise so rapidly or so far. The finer nuances, although not expected, of whether Wolsey deliberately engineered his own rise, or whether he was simply lucky, were lost on most. Even more disappointing was the response that revealed a very weak grasp of chronology and attributed a number of events in the mid to late 1520s to Wolsey s rise to 4 of 5

5 power. As in previous questions, the better responses were able to deploy good specific subject knowledge in support and went some way beyond the quite common assertion that as Wolsey matriculated at Oxford at an early age, he was talent spotted by the king. 06 Again, this was a question responded to well by the students that had taken a bit of time to consider the demands. The focus is not why did Wolsey fall from power, but rather the extent to which such a fall might be a consequence of his own actions. There were some exceptionally strong responses in which there was a clear argument that whilst Wolsey gave the impression he could achieve more than he was able to, it was in fact the inflated demands of the king, combined with faction at court, that brought Wolsey down. This type of response also tended to argue about long and short term factors. At the weaker end, students tended to give an imprecise list of Wolsey s failings rather than actually engaging with the question in an analytical manner. As an added note, there was a good minority of responses that wrongly argued Wolsey was executed for treason. Mark Ranges and Award of Grades Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics page of the AQA Website. Converting Marks into UMS marks Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below. UMS conversion calculator 5 of 5