Edexcel A-Level History Active Recall Guide (9HI0)
Edexcel · A-Level
Edexcel A-Level History Active Recall Guide
Every option of specification 9HI0 written as exam-style questions with the answers printed after them. 20,716 questions across 40 options and 688 subtopics, so the guide fits whichever three your school teaches.
- Edexcel
- A-Level
- Specification 9HI0
- 20,716 questions
Guide overview All 40 options Sample questions Papers and weighting Look inside Questions and answers
What the exam asks of you
Edexcel A-Level History is three written papers and a coursework assignment. Paper 1 is a breadth study with historical interpretations, one option of eight, 30 per cent. Paper 2 is a depth study, one option of sixteen, paired with the Paper 1 option under the board’s route rules, 20 per cent. Paper 3 is themes in breadth with aspects in depth, one option of sixteen, 30 per cent. The coursework is 3,000 to 4,000 words and 20 per cent.
Every paper is chosen from options, so no two cohorts study the same course. All forty options are in the guide, each with its own pages, and you work the three you sit.
| Paper | Covers | Length | Marks | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Paper 1 Breadth study with interpretations |
One option of eight, studied as four themes across a broad period plus a depth study of historical interpretations Section A and B essays on the themes, and Section C on two extracts offering different interpretations Assesses knowledge of the period and the ability to analyse and evaluate interpretations |
2 hours 15 minutes | 60 marks | 30% |
|
Paper 2 Depth study |
One option of sixteen, paired with the Paper 1 option under the board's route rules Section A is a compulsory source question on two contemporary sources Section B is a choice of essays testing understanding of the period in depth |
1 hour 30 minutes | 40 marks | 20% |
|
Paper 3 Themes in breadth with aspects in depth |
One option of sixteen, combining long-term themes with detailed study of key episodes Section A is a compulsory source question, Section B an essay on an aspect in depth Section C is a choice of essays on the themes in breadth |
2 hours 15 minutes | 60 marks | 30% |
|
9HI0/04 Coursework |
An independently researched assignment of 3,000 to 4,000 words Analyses and evaluates historians' differing interpretations of a question, problem or issue Set and marked by the centre and moderated by Pearson |
Completed during the course | 40 marks | 20% |
What is in the guide
All 40 options
Every option has its own page with its subtopics, what it covers and sample questions.
Sample questions
Taken from the guide. Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Religious motives for the crusades
Which eleventh-century movement strengthened papal authority and reshaped ideas of penance?
Show the answer
The papal reform movement, often called the Gregorian reform after Gregory VII, which asserted papal supremacy over the Church and over lay rulers. -
The Tudor monarchs
How did Henry VII's reputation differ from his son's?
Show the answer
He was respected rather than loved, remembered for financial rigour and suspicion of the nobility, where Henry VIII cultivated display and chivalric splendour. -
The failure of monarchical government, 1625–46
What event in January 1642 destroyed trust between Charles I and Parliament?
Show the answer
His failed attempt to arrest the Five Members of the Commons in person, after which he left London. -
The unreformed parliament and its critics, c1785–1820
What was a pocket borough?
Show the answer
A constituency where a single patron controlled the choice of member, usually because the electorate was tiny and dependent on him for land or employment. -
Establishing Communist Party control, 1917–24
What did the 1921 Party Congress ban to strengthen central control?
Show the answer
Factions within the Communist Party (the resolution 'On Party Unity'). -
A changing presidency
Why did Republicanism collapse after 1929?
Show the answer
Hoover's reluctance to use federal power against the Depression made the party appear indifferent to suffering, and the Democrats held the presidency for the next twenty years. -
Creation and collapse of the Weimar Republic, 1918–33
What was the German Revolution of 1918-19?
Show the answer
The naval mutiny at Kiel spread into workers' and soldiers' councils across Germany, forcing the Kaiser's abdication and the proclamation of a republic in November 1918. -
A changing political landscape
Why did the Liberal Party decline after 1918?
Show the answer
The Asquith-Lloyd George split, the extension of the franchise to working men and women, the rise of a class-based Labour vote, and the loss of its Nonconformist and Irish bases.
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about forty-five minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Look inside
Questions for a subtopic print together and the answers for that section print after them.
- The Crusades, c1095-1204462
- England, 1509-1603: Authority, Nation and Religion512
- Britain, 1625-1701: Conflict, Revolution and Settlement552
- Britain, c1785-c1870: Democracy, Protest and Reform572
- Russia, 1917-91: from Lenin to Yeltsin515
- In Search of the American Dream: the Usa, c1917-96550
- Germany and West Germany, 1918-89573
- Britain Transformed, 1918-97525
- Anglo-Saxon England and the Anglo-Norman Kingdom, c1053-1106475
- England and the Angevin Empire in the Reign of Henry Ii, 1154-89456
- Luther and the German Reformation, c1515-55410
- The Dutch Revolt, c1563-1609443
- and 28 more
- Who became England's first ruling queen in 1553 after Lady Jane Grey's brief claim?
- Whom did Mary I marry in 1554, alarming many of her subjects?
- Which queen came to the throne in 1558?
- What personal qualities made Henry VIII effective as a young king?
- How did Henry VII's reputation differ from his son's?
- Why was Edward VI's accession a problem for stable government?
- Why was a female ruler thought a difficulty in the sixteenth century?
- How did Mary I's marriage sharpen anxieties about a queen regnant?
- How did Elizabeth I turn her gender to political advantage?
- Mary I.
- Philip II of Spain (then Prince Philip).
- Elizabeth I.
- Physical presence, learning, magnificence and skill at arms, which fitted contemporary expectations of kingship and won early popularity, though he left the detail of government to ministers.
- He was respected rather than loved, remembered for financial rigour and suspicion of the nobility, where Henry VIII cultivated display and chivalric splendour.
- He was nine years old, so power passed to a regency council and then to a Protector, which invited faction and made policy hostage to whichever noble controlled the king.
- Contemporary assumptions held that women could not lead armies or command obedience, and that a queen's husband would rule through her, which raised the danger of foreign control.
- Marriage to Philip of Spain raised the prospect of England being drawn into Habsburg wars and ruled from abroad, and the marriage treaty had to limit Philip's powers explicitly.
- She refused to marry, presenting herself as wedded to the realm, and cultivated the imagery of the Virgin Queen, so that the loyalty owed to a monarch became something closer to devotion.
questions
Scroll sideways to turn through the pages.
Questions students ask first
Forty options. Which ones do I do?
Three. One breadth study on Paper 1, one depth study on Paper 2 paired with it under Pearson’s route rules, and one Paper 3 option.
Your options are named on your exam entry and on the front of your textbooks. Find those topics in the guide and ignore the other thirty-seven.
Why are all forty in one guide?
Because schools choose differently and the permitted combinations run into the hundreds. Each option is a separate topic with its own pages, so nothing is mixed together.
Is the coursework covered?
No. The 9HI0/04 assignment is your own 3,000 to 4,000 word study analysing historians’ differing interpretations of a question you choose. It is 20 per cent and it is your own work.
Where it overlaps an option in the guide, that option is there.
Does it help with the sources and interpretations?
Indirectly, and that is the point. Paper 1 Section C sets two extracts offering different interpretations, Paper 2 Section A a compulsory source question, Paper 3 Section A another. All are marked on the historical knowledge you bring to them.
Edexcel A-Level History Active Recall Guide
Every question paired with its answer, grouped by option and subtopic, ready to work in three passes.