Source-Analysis Skills for Paper 1

Paper 1 is a source-based examination, and success depends far less on how much you know than on how skillfully you handle sources. This prescribed subject requires you to read, compare, and evaluate primary and secondary sources — photographs, speeches, cartoons, memoirs, official documents, and historians' writing — and to combine them with your own knowledge. This lesson sets out the core skills and the standard four-question structure.

The four question types

Paper 1 typically has four questions. The first asks you to show comprehension of a source, usually by identifying what a written source says or what a visual source depicts; here you should paraphrase in your own words and, for the marks available, make two or three distinct points. The second question asks you to analyze the val