Edexcel IGCSE History: Paper 2 Investigation and Breadth Studies — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Paper 2 Investigation and Breadth Studies study guide | Paper 2 revision notes

Paper 2 offers 13 option combinations across two independent choices (5 Historical Investigations, 8 Breadth Studies), so questions tied to one specific option would only serve a fraction of candidates. The questions below instead build the two transferable skills the paper actually tests — evaluating an unfamiliar source, and analysing change over time — using illustrative material. Apply the same method to whichever Investigation and Breadth Study your centre has taught.

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Section A

1. State three things you should evaluate when assessing how useful a source is for a specific historical enquiry. [3]

2. Explain the difference between assessing a source’s reliability and assessing its usefulness. [3]

Section B — the Historical Investigation (illustrative sources)

An enquiry asks: “How useful are Sources A and B for investigating why ordinary people supported a political movement in the early twentieth century?”

Source A: A speech by the movement’s leader, delivered to a mass rally, describing the movement’s aims in emotive terms.

Source B: A private letter from a government official to a colleague, describing the movement’s rallies as “disturbingly well-attended” and expressing concern about its growing appeal.

3. Assess how useful Source A is for the stated enquiry. [6]

4. Assess how useful Source B is for the stated enquiry, and compare its usefulness with Source A’s. [7]

Section C — the Breadth Study (illustrative extract)

A Breadth Study traces developments in a field of your choice (for example, medicine, warfare, or civil rights) across a period of roughly a century.

5. Explain what is meant by a “turning point” in a Breadth Study, and why identifying one is different from simply listing an important event. [4]

6. “The pace of change in [your studied Breadth Study] was consistently rapid throughout the period.” Explain how you would use a timeline to test whether this statement is accurate. [5]

Answers

1. Any three: the source’s origin — who produced it, when, and in what circumstances [1]; its purpose — why it was produced and for whom [1]; its content — what it says, and whether this is corroborated by other evidence or contextual knowledge [1]; its limitations — what it does not or cannot tell you about the enquiry [1].

2. Reliability asks whether a source gives an accurate, unbiased account of events [1]. Usefulness asks what a historian can actually learn from the source for a specific, stated enquiry [1]. The two are not the same: a highly unreliable source can still be very useful — for example, a piece of propaganda is not an accurate account of events, but it is excellent evidence of what a movement wanted its supporters to believe [1].

3. Source A’s origin — a speech by the movement’s own leader — means its purpose is persuasion, so its content should not be taken as an accurate description of the movement’s actual aims [2]. However, for an enquiry specifically about why ordinary people supported the movement, the speech is genuinely useful precisely because of this purpose: its emotive language and stated appeals show what the leadership believed would attract support, which is directly relevant to the enquiry [2]. A weaker answer would only describe the speech’s content and assert it is “useful because it explains the movement’s aims,” without connecting the source’s persuasive purpose to what the enquiry actually asks [2].

4. Source B’s origin — a private letter between officials, not intended for publication — makes it more independent of the movement’s own agenda than Source A, and its content is a contemporary, non-partisan observation that support was significant enough to concern the authorities [3]. This makes it useful for corroborating that the movement’s appeal was real and growing, from an external perspective [1]. Compared with Source A, Source B is arguably more useful for confirming the scale of support, while Source A is more useful for understanding the reasons the movement itself offered for that support — a strong answer would judge that the two sources are useful in different, complementary ways for the same enquiry, rather than declaring one straightforwardly “more useful” than the other [3].

5. A turning point is a moment after which the pace or direction of change shifted noticeably — not simply an event that happened, but one that can be shown to have altered what followed it [2]. Listing an important event states that something happened; identifying a turning point requires explaining how the period before and after it differed as a result, which is what the assessment objectives for this component specifically reward [2].

6. Build a timeline marking every significant development across the period, then examine the spacing between them — clusters of change followed by long gaps would show the pace was uneven, not consistent [2]. Identify any specific stretches where little changed (periods of continuity) and check whether they appear anywhere across the timeline; if they do, the statement that change was “consistently rapid throughout” is not accurate and should be qualified [2]. A strong answer would conclude with a judgement that names where the pace genuinely was rapid and where it was not, rather than either agreeing or disagreeing with the statement wholesale [1].

A note on Section B

Questions 3 and 4 model the two-source usefulness question found on the actual Historical Investigation paper, but use illustrative sources rather than material from any single one of the five real Investigation options, so the method applies regardless of which topic your centre studies. The key skill being tested is not describing what a source says, but connecting its origin and purpose explicitly to the specific enquiry named in the question — a source can be simultaneously unreliable and highly useful, provided the reason it is useful is clearly explained rather than merely asserted.

Where marks are usually lost

• Judging a source unreliable and concluding, without further argument, that it must therefore be unhelpful for the enquiry.
• Describing what a source says without connecting its origin and purpose explicitly to the specific enquiry named in the question.
• Naming an event in a Breadth Study answer without explaining how it changed the pace or direction of subsequent developments.
• Treating a Breadth Study as a list of events rather than an argument about change, continuity and pace over the whole period.
• Revising the Historical Investigation as if it required memorising a fixed narrative, rather than practising source evaluation using genuinely unfamiliar material.
• Using shared or generic revision material without first confirming it matches your centre’s chosen Investigation and Breadth Study, given the thirteen total option combinations Paper 2 offers.

Approaching Paper 2 questions

For any source-usefulness question, always name the source’s origin and purpose explicitly before assessing its content, since this is what turns a description into an evaluation the mark scheme rewards. When two sources are given, look for what makes them useful in different, complementary ways rather than assuming the question wants a single “more useful” verdict — official Investigation questions frequently reward exactly this kind of balanced comparison. For Breadth Study questions, always build or reference a timeline before answering a “how far” or “how much” question, and use it to identify genuine turning points and periods of continuity rather than simply narrating events in order — the pace and shape of change across the whole period is what these questions are actually testing.