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Flashcards · 9245 · Topic 2

Paper 2 – Studies in Change flashcards

24 cards on Topic 2, subtopics 3.2.1 to 3.2.2. Pick a subtopic or study them all.

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3.2.1 Section A – Societies in change (choose 1 of 3): Life in Germany, 1919-1949; Life in Russia and the USSR, 1914-1953; Life in the USA, 1920-1968

How should you revise a Section A society-in-change option?
Build a timeline of three or four genuine turning points and, for each, prepare what changed, why it changed at that moment, and how it connects to the turning points before and after.
How should you answer the Paper 2 extended question on a named factor?
Explain the named factor’s contribution with an example, weigh it against at least one other cause from your studied content, then judge how far the named factor explains the change.
Life in Germany 1919–49: what was hyperinflation (1923) and how did it affect Germans?
Prices rose so fast that money became worthless. Savers and people on fixed incomes were ruined, while debtors could pay off loans cheaply.
Life in Germany 1919–49: how did the Nazis try to control young people?
Through the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls (membership was made compulsory by the late 1930s) and a school curriculum rewritten around Nazi ideas of race and loyalty.
Life in Germany 1919–49: how was Germany divided after 1945?
Into four occupation zones (US, British, French and Soviet), with Berlin also divided. In 1949 the West became the Federal Republic (May) and the East the German Democratic Republic (October).
Life in Russia 1914–53: how did the First World War affect ordinary Russians?
Huge casualties, food and fuel shortages in the cities, and rising prices, which fuelled the protests that brought down the Tsar in 1917.
Life in Russia 1914–53: how did collectivisation change peasant life?
From 1929 private farms were merged into collective farms; kulaks were deported, and the famine of 1932–33 killed millions.
Life in Russia 1914–53: what was the Stakhanovite movement?
A 1930s campaign that rewarded workers who exceeded production targets, named after the miner Alexei Stakhanov, who in 1935 was reported to have dug far more than his quota.
Life in the USA 1920–68: who did not share in the 1920s boom?
Farmers facing falling prices, workers in older industries such as coal and textiles, and many Black Americans and recent immigrants.
Life in the USA 1920–68: how did the New Deal change the role of the federal government?
From 1933 it took responsibility for relief and recovery, created agencies such as the CCC and TVA, and introduced the Social Security Act (1935).
Life in the USA 1920–68: what did the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) achieve?
After Rosa Parks’s arrest, a year-long boycott led to the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on buses was unconstitutional.
Life in the USA 1920–68: what was the March on Washington (August 1963)?
A mass civil rights demonstration at which Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech. It built support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

3.2.2 Section B – Thematic studies (choose 1 of 2): Technology and change, c800-present day; Medicine and change, c800-present day

How should you revise a thematic study that runs from c800 to the present?
Prepare a small set of well-evidenced examples spread across eras (early, middle and modern) rather than trying to cover every century evenly. This supports questions about the pace of change.
Why is change not the same as progress in a thematic study?
Change can be uneven: rapid breakthroughs can be followed by long periods of slow progress, or setbacks that reverse earlier gains. Naming a setback shows a stronger grasp of change.
Medicine and change: what was Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine?
A medical encyclopedia completed around 1025, which became a standard textbook in the Islamic world and in European universities for centuries.
Medicine and change: what did Vesalius (1543) and Harvey (1628) show?
Vesalius’s The Fabric of the Human Body corrected Galen’s anatomy through dissection. Harvey showed that the heart pumps blood round the body in a circulation.
Medicine and change: what did Jenner do in 1796?
He used cowpox to give immunity to smallpox, the first vaccination.
Medicine and change: how did surgery improve in the 19th century?
Anaesthetics (chloroform, used by Simpson from 1847) reduced pain, and Lister’s antiseptic carbolic acid (1867) reduced infection.
Medicine and change: what were the key steps in developing penicillin?
Fleming noticed its effect on bacteria in 1928; Florey and Chain turned it into a usable drug around 1940; it was mass-produced during the Second World War.
Medicine and change: what was discovered about DNA in 1953?
Crick and Watson, using X-ray work by Rosalind Franklin, identified its double-helix structure, the basis of modern genetics.
Technology and change: why was the printing press (c1450) a turning point?
Gutenberg’s movable-type press made books cheaper and faster to produce, so ideas spread far more quickly.
Technology and change: why was the steam engine important?
James Watt’s improved engine (patented 1769) powered factories, mines and later railways and ships, driving the Industrial Revolution.
Technology and change: when did the railway age begin in Britain?
The Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in 1825 and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first intercity line with steam locomotives, in 1830.
Technology and change: who invented the World Wide Web, and when?
Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, proposed it in 1989.

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