The 4 Mark "Follow up" Question (Edexcel GCSE History): Revision Note

Summary of Question 2 (b)

• Question 2 (b) tests your ability to:

  • Select relevant content from a source

  • Ask a useful historical question based on that content

  • Suggest a suitable follow-up source

  • Explain how that source would help answer your question

• It always builds on one of the sources from Question 2 (a) and is based on the historic environment: London and the Second World War, 1939–45

• An example of the type of question you may encounter can be seen below:

• In previous years, this question has focused on the following topics in Warfare in British society:

Key skills required in the "Follow-up" question

• The "Follow-up" question is a very different question style to other questions in the Edexcel GCSE History exam

  • It requires students to have some of the following key historical skills:

    • Selecting relevant content from a historical source

    • Creating a relevant historical question

    • Selecting historical sources to support your chosen historical question

Using the content of a source 

• The content is the information presented in the source

• The content could come from a variety of different types of sources, such as:

  • A picture 

  • A photograph

  • An extract from a book 

  • A speech 

  • A political cartoon 

  • A letter 

• You should use the content of the source in the first section of your answer: "Detail in Source ... that I would follow up"

  • For a written source, use a quote

  • For a visual source, describe a section of the image

Asking historical questions

• The second section is about the "Question I would ask" regarding the source specified in the question

• Your question must:

  • Link to the detail you have just chosen

  • Be relevant to the enquiry in the question

  • Be one question

  • Be written with a question mark

Selecting relevant sources

• In the third section of the table, you will be asked to consider: "What type of source I could use"

• In this section, avoid selecting sources such as:

  • Wikipedia

  • The Internet

  • A historian

  • The same type of source as the source identified in the question

    • For the example question, you should not follow up Source A with another photograph

• Versatile sources to consider are:

  • Government propaganda posters and leaflets, such as "Dig for Victory"

  • Mass Observation reports on topics such as morale, air raids and rationing

  • Personal diaries and letters from London civilians during the Blitz

  • Photographs of bomb damage, shelters and daily life

  • Local council records and Civil Defence documents

  • Newspapers such as The Times or The Mirror

  • British Pathé and newsreel footage

  • Parliamentary records and wartime laws

• Make your source as specific as possible by:

  • Including dates or battles

  • Explaining what it could show

• In the final section, “How this might help answer my question”, explain:

  • What you could learn from your chosen source

  • How it would help you answer the question you asked in Section 2

How to answer the "Follow-up" question

• The "Follow-up" answer space is laid out clearly into four guided sections

• Sections 1 and 2 are connected

  • If you do not provide a detail, you will not receive a mark for your question

• Sections 3 and 4 are also connected

  • If you do not select a relevant source, you cannot receive a mark for why that source can help you to answer your historical question

Worked example of a "Follow-up" question