A Level World History: The History of the USA, 1820-1941 — Practice Questions (Cambridge 9489)

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions. Section A does not replicate Paper 1’s structure or mark tariffs; Section B uses Paper 2’s two-part question format and tariffs — Cambridge holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or Cambridge’s own resources.

Related: American Option study guide and revision notes.

Section A – short questions (recall and source use)

1. State two interlocking causes of the Civil War identified in this option. [2]

2. Identify one central unresolved question that Reconstruction had to address. [1]

3. A source from 1932 describes widespread bank failures and rising unemployment. Using this source and your own knowledge, explain one structural weakness of the 1920s economy that this source’s evidence supports. [4]

Section B – Paper 2 style (outline study, two-part questions)

Each question below is set out as a Paper 2 question is: 30 marks, with part (a) worth 10 and part (b) worth 20. On the real paper you answer both parts of two questions, from the section for your option, which is set on the two topics not assessed on Paper 1 in your series; the three questions here cover all three topics so that every series is practised.

4. (a) Explain why the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 increased tension between the North and the South. [10]

(b) “Economic factors were the most important cause of the American Civil War.” How far do you agree? [20]

5. (a) Explain why the Progressive Movement developed. [10]

(b) How far was the Progressive Movement successful in resolving the problems created by the Gilded Age? [20]

6. (a) Explain why Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election of 1932. [10]

(b) “The New Deal should be judged as a single, unified policy rather than as a set of distinct measures.” How far do you agree? [20]

Worked answers

1. Any two of: expansion of slavery into new territories, economic divergence between the industrialising North and the agrarian, slavery-dependent South, disputes over federal versus state power. [2]

2. What freedom and citizenship would actually mean for formerly enslaved people in the post-war South. [1]

3. A strong answer uses the source’s specific evidence (bank failures, rising unemployment) as a starting point to explain a structural weakness such as the era’s under-regulated banking system, which had insufficient safeguards against the kind of cascading failures the source describes once speculative excess and agricultural weakness began to unwind, connecting the source’s specific detail to the broader structural argument rather than treating the source as a stand-alone illustration. [4] (Marks for accurate use of the source’s evidence, and a correctly explained structural cause linked to it.)

4. (a) A strong answer explains several linked reasons rather than describing the Act. By applying popular sovereignty to Kansas and Nebraska, the Act repealed the Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36°30′, so land Northerners had regarded as closed to slavery was reopened to it, which many in the North saw as proof of a Southern “slave power” controlling federal policy. It shattered the party system: Northern and Southern Whigs split over it and the anti-Nebraska reaction produced the Republican Party, a purely sectional party pledged to stop slavery’s expansion. And popular sovereignty invited both sides to race settlers into Kansas, producing the violence of “Bleeding Kansas” (the sack of Lawrence and John Brown’s killings at Pottawatomie in 1856), which carried the conflict into Congress with the Brooks–Sumner incident. The best answers show how these connect – the repeal caused the political realignment, and the realignment made compromise harder. [10] (Marks for identifying relevant factors and explaining, with specific detail, how each increased sectional tension, and for connecting them.)

(b) A strong answer does not treat economic factors as a self-contained cause competing separately against slavery and states’ rights – it argues that economic divergence between North and South was itself substantially entangled with the expansion of slavery (since the South’s agrarian economy was structurally dependent on slave labour, and disputes over extending slavery into new territories were as much about the future economic character of those territories as about the moral status of slavery itself). A strong response therefore reaches a supported judgement about which factor provides the most convincing overall explanation using specific evidence (a named crisis, law, or political event), rather than presenting a simple ranked list of independent causes with no interaction between them, or asserting a factor’s importance without evidence. [20] (Marks distributed across AO1 knowledge, AO2 analysis of interlocking causation, and a reasoned, evidenced judgement.)

5. (a) A strong answer explains a range of causes and links them. The concentration of wealth in trusts and monopolies, and the frequency of banking “panics” (1893, 1907), convinced many middle-class Americans that unregulated capitalism needed controls. Rapid, uncontrolled urbanisation created overcrowded housing and dangerous working conditions, while the “Boss” system tied city government to corruption. The muckrakers turned these problems into national issues – Ida Tarbell on Standard Oil, Lincoln Steffens on city corruption, Upton Sinclair on the meatpacking industry in The Jungle (1906). Women’s groups and the temperance movement supplied organisation and a demand for social reform and a wider political role. The strongest answers explain how exposure by the muckrakers turned existing grievances into political pressure for reform. [10] (Marks for identifying relevant factors and explaining, with specific detail, how each led to the movement’s growth, and for connecting them.)

(b) A strong answer first establishes the specific Gilded Age problems (inequality, corruption, poor urban and working conditions) and then evaluates named Progressive Era reforms against each one directly – for example, assessing whether specific labour or consumer-protection legislation genuinely reduced the inequality or poor working conditions previously identified, rather than simply listing reforms as though their existence alone proves resolution. The strongest answers reach a genuinely qualified judgement (e.g. some problems were substantially addressed by specific measures while others persisted or were only partially resolved), avoiding both an uncritical “yes, fully resolved” and a dismissive “no, nothing changed” extreme, since the evidence for most Progressive reforms supports a mixed, evidence-based verdict rather than either absolute position. [20] (Marks for specific problem-to-reform matching, evidenced evaluation, and a genuinely qualified conclusion.)

6. (a) A strong answer explains why voters turned against Hoover as well as why Roosevelt appealed to them. The Depression had deepened every year since the Great Crash, with mass unemployment, bank failures and farm foreclosures, and Hoover was blamed for it. His response, although more active than often assumed (the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, support for agriculture and home loans), resisted direct federal relief payments to individuals, and the army’s eviction of the Bonus Marchers from Washington in July 1932 made him appear indifferent to suffering. Roosevelt offered confidence and action instead: he promised “a new deal for the American people”, pointed to his relief programme as Governor of New York, and drew support from urban workers, struggling farmers and the Democratic South. The best answers weigh these, for instance arguing that the Depression made Hoover’s defeat very likely while Roosevelt’s campaign determined the scale of the victory. [10] (Marks for identifying relevant factors and explaining, with specific detail, how each led to the result, and for connecting them.)

(b) A strong answer disagrees with the premise directly, arguing the New Deal should be evaluated as a set of distinct measures aimed at relief, recovery and reform respectively, each judged on its own terms and against its own specific aim – relief measures judged on how quickly and widely they reduced immediate hardship, recovery measures judged against economic indicators over time, and reform measures judged on their longer-term structural impact. The strongest answers evaluate at least one specific measure from each category with named evidence, demonstrating that treating “the New Deal” as a single unified policy actively obscures meaningful differences in what different measures were designed to achieve and how successfully each did so, rather than clarifying the historical picture. [20] (Marks for correctly distinguishing the three aims, evidenced evaluation of specific measures within each, and a clear, well-supported rejection or qualification of the premise.)

A note on Section B mark allocation

Paper 2 is 1 hour 45 minutes for 60 marks: two questions of 30 marks each, part (a) 10 marks and part (b) 20. The paper tests AO1 Historical knowledge and AO2 Historical explanation, analysis and judgement equally (50% each). That is 1.75 minutes a mark, so about 52 minutes a question – roughly 17 minutes for part (a) and 35 for part (b). Part (a), “Explain why”, wants causes identified, explained and linked, not a narrative. Part (b) wants the view in the question explained, alternative perspectives explained, and a comparative judgement between them. A part (b) answer that narrates events accurately for 35 minutes but never states and defends a clear position against the specific claim in the question will not access the top mark band, regardless of factual accuracy – this is why each part (b) worked answer above builds to a supported judgement on the specific claim in the question. Answer 6(b) states its position at the outset (it rejects the premise) and defends it throughout; answers 4(b) and 5(b) describe how a strong answer reaches its judgement by weighing named evidence (interlocking causes in answer 4(b), problem-by-problem reform matching in answer 5(b)), with the verdict following from that weighing. Either route works, provided the argument is directed at the question from the start rather than narrating events and adding an unsupported opinion in a final sentence.

Why this set separates Paper 1 and Paper 2 styles

Section A practises precise recall and source use in smaller steps; it is not in Paper 1’s format, which is one two-part question on four sources (part (a) 15 marks, part (b) 25). Section B follows Paper 2’s two-part outline-study format, testing the sustained, evidence-based judgement the revision notes identify as the skill that most reliably separates strong from weak answers across this whole option. Practising both formats separately, rather than only the essay style, reflects how the two papers draw on the same three topics in genuinely different question formats, with one topic set for Paper 1 and the other two for Paper 2 in any one series.

Official syllabus

Cambridge International AS & A Level History 9489 syllabus for examination in 2027, 2028 and 2029, section 4-6 (“Subject content — American Option: The History of the USA, 1820-1941; Section 4 now covers “The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1820-77” as a single merged topic) – cambridgeinternational.org – the same source cited by the American Option study guide and revision notes. Verified 2026-09-11.