Example CIE AS History Paper 1: Liberalism & Nationalism in Italy and Germany
Due to CIE changing their AS and A Level courses from the old specification (9697) to the shiny new 9389, there is a lack of past papers for students to use as part of their revision. While it is relatively easy to transfer essay questions to the new mark scheme, the source paper focus (AS Level Component 1) has changed from the Causes of World War One to Liberalism and Nationalism in Italy and Germany, 1848–1871.
I have created an example CIE AS Paper 1 for this topic, which you can download using the link below.
Example CIE AS Paper 1 (European topic)
The paper can be marked using the generic CIE markscheme available for the Specimen Paper 1 from the CIE website here.
Mr Allsop, due to my poor time management in paper 1 a level History, i failed to finish up my conclusion for my 25 mark essay. could you tell me how much will it affect my paper overall? and how much will they penalize for it?
thank you so much! 🙂
Difficult to say. Obviously a judgement is required, but for the highest levels this needs to be ‘sustained’ which means you should have been presenting a consistent argument throughout. Obviously missing a conclusion means you can’t reiterate your judgement and pull it together, and it could be taken as an indication of less organisation (which you’ve effectively said it was due to ‘poor time management’). The key thing is that it’s done now – you can’t change it, so move on and prepare for your next exam without spending time worrying about this one issue. Just take it as an important reminder to plan your time carefully in your next exam.
Greetings Mr Allsop,
Thanks for clearing my confusion.
Hello Mr Allsop!
I am a teacher and have used your notes and podcasts in my IGCSE class this year.It really worked well for me and the students.Now I am going to teach As and A level for the first time.My query is that can students choose only one option in all four components.As my students have decided to go for international option in first and second.The origins and development of the cold war in third and International History in the fourth components.I would really appreciate if you can guide me with this.
Thanks and regards
Thank you very much
Thanks for your message – I’m glad you found my IGCSE history resources useful. If I understand your question correctly, your students want to study the international option for Components 1, 2 and 4. This is perfectly acceptable. You don’t need to cover different options for each component.
Greetings, Mr. Allsop!
May you please tell me how the questions are marked in the AS level paper 1 exam. i.e. how many points do I need to have written in order to get the full 15 marks or the full 25 marks?
This website is a great resource to revise from, it helped me achieve an A* in IGCSE going from a B in year 9.
Thank you very much.
Hi Zeyad…the same Zeyad Hussein I used to teach?!
If so, great to know how well you did, and that you’re still going with History 🙂
I realise I got to your message too late, since you will have done the exam this morning. I hope it went well.
Hello Mr Allsop , thankyou for the work you have put into helping us all out! However it would also be helpful if perhaps you included an exemplar
Annotated example answers are available from CIE – you should speak to your teacher to get copies of these, which are in the ‘course materials’ tab on the Teacher Portal.
Hi Mr Allsop. Thanks for putting this website together. It’s also great for me as a History teacher who is currently teaching the CIE AS level for the first time ever. I would be very grateful if you could please tell me the approximate breakdown of timings for writing AS paper 1 exam questions please. I know the whole exam is 1 hour, but would like to get an idea as to how to divide that hour up between the 15 mark, and 25 mark questions.
Thanks very much.
Yvonne Mason
Hi Yvonne
Thanks for your message. I usually advise my students to take a mathematical approach – the paper lasts for an hour, in which time they have to answer questions worth 40 marks. That works out to 1.5 minutes per mark, meaning 22 minutes on the 15 mark question and 38 on the 25 mark question. However they obviously have to factor in time for reading the sources and planning, so I usually expect my students to spend no more than 20 minutes (usually around 15 in reality) writing the 15 mark question and 30-35 minutes on the 25 mark question.
Mr allsop , can you give me a crash course in answering AS history paper 1 and 2 questions and how to structure essays.
It’s not possible to provide a ‘crash course’ in what is arguably the most important skill in history – writing an essay. Essay writing takes a long time to develop, but I do have some podcasts that focus on how to structure responses in CIE AS History Paper 2. I hope to make ones for Paper 1 available later this academic year.