AQA GCSE History (8145): Paper 1 Section A, the Four Period Studies — Study Guide

Section A of AQA GCSE History Paper 1 is the period study: about fifty years of one country’s domestic history, built around two big, linked developments. Your school chooses one of four options – America 1840-1895, Germany 1890-1945, Russia 1894-1945 or America 1920-1973 – and you answer six compulsory questions on it, worth 40 marks, covering interpretations, description, change and an extended essay. Every series tests all three parts of the option’s content.

Where this fits in 8145

Paper 1, Understanding the modern world, lasts 2 hours and is worth 84 marks (50% of the GCSE). Section A (period study, 40 marks) and Section B (wider world depth study, 40 marks plus 4 for spelling, punctuation and grammar) are equally weighted. This guide goes deeper than the site’s Paper 1 options overview, which names the options but does not teach their content. Companion pages: Period studies revision notes, Period studies practice questions and the Section B depth studies guide.

Syllabus coverage

AQA GCSE HISTORY (8145) – 3.2.1 SECTION A: PERIOD STUDIES

Option	Two developments	Parts
AA America, 1840-1895: Expansion and consolidation	Expansion west; consolidation as a nation	1 Expansion: opportunities and challenges; 2 Conflict across America; 3 Consolidation: forging the nation
AB Germany, 1890-1945: Democracy and dictatorship	Development and collapse of democracy; rise and fall of Nazism	1 Germany and the growth of democracy; 2 Germany and the Depression; 3 The experiences of Germans under the Nazis
AC Russia, 1894-1945: Tsardom and communism	Fall of Tsardom; rise and consolidation of communism	1 The end of Tsardom; 2 Lenin’s new society; 3 Stalin’s USSR
AD America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and inequality	The “American Dream” and the reality of poverty and discrimination	1 American people and the “Boom”; 2 Bust – the Depression and New Deal; 3 Post-war America

How is Section A examined?

Question	Type	Marks	What it tests
1	How does Interpretation B differ from Interpretation A?	4	AO4: compare two written interpretations (50-100 words each)
2	Why might the authors have different interpretations?	4	AO4: explain differences using the authors’ provenance
3	Which interpretation is more convincing?	8	AO4: evaluate both using your knowledge
4	Describe two…	4	AO1: two key features
5	In what ways were… affected by…? Explain your answer	8	AO1 + AO2: change
6	Which was the more important reason… (two bullet points)	12	AO1 + AO2: a judged essay

The interpretations need no knowledge of historiography – you judge them against what you know about the events.

AA America, 1840-1895: Expansion and consolidation

Part one – expansion. Americans once saw the Plains as the “Great American Desert”, but the belief in Manifest Destiny – a phrase from 1845 – held that the USA was meant to spread across the continent. Settlers went west for land, gold and religious freedom: the Mormons, led by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s murder in 1844, trekked to the Great Salt Lake (1846-47); pioneer farmers took the Oregon and California trails; miners rushed to California after gold was found in 1848. The Plains Indians lived by hunting buffalo, moved with the herds and held land in common, which clashed with settler ideas of ownership. Government policy moved from a Permanent Indian Frontier to restricting tribes as the trails grew.

Part two – conflict. The Fort Laramie Treaty (1851) tried to concentrate tribes in defined areas but failed as settlers and miners crossed them. In the Indian Wars (1862-67), the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) killed Cheyenne and Arapaho people, many of them women and children, and Red Cloud’s Sioux destroyed Captain Fetterman’s force in 1866 (Fetterman’s Trap). Meanwhile North and South divided over slavery in the new western territories: the Missouri Compromise broke down, John Brown raided Harpers Ferry (1859), and Lincoln’s election led to secession and civil war against Jefferson Davis’s Confederacy. In Utah, the Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857) of emigrants by Mormon militia worsened relations with the federal government.

Part three – consolidation. After the war the 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery and a Civil Rights Act (1866) defined citizenship, but Reconstruction (to 1877) was resisted in the South and “carpetbaggers” were resented. The Homestead Act (1862) and the transcontinental railroad (1869) drew homesteaders onto the Plains, where they solved problems of water, fencing and fuel with wind pumps, barbed wire and new crops. Native Americans were pushed onto small reservations; after the Sioux victory at Little Big Horn (1876) the army hunted down the tribes, the Dawes Act (1887) broke up reservation land, and Wounded Knee (1890) ended armed resistance. The 1890 census declared the frontier closed.

AB Germany, 1890-1945: Democracy and dictatorship

Part one – democracy. Kaiser Wilhelm II ruled a new empire with a Reichstag but little parliamentary control; Prussian militarism dominated. Rapid industrialisation fed the growth of the socialist SPD, which became the largest party in the Reichstag in 1912, while social reforms tried to win workers away from it. The Navy Laws (from 1898) were popular with nationalists and industry. War brought war weariness, shortages and defeat; the monarchy ended in November 1918. Weimar faced the Spartacists, the Kapp Putsch and the Munich Putsch, plus reparations, the Ruhr occupation and hyperinflation (1923). Under Stresemann (1924-29) the new currency, the Dawes and Young Plans and agreements such as Locarno brought recovery; Weimar culture flourished.

Part two – the Depression. Unemployment after 1929 boosted the Nazis and communists; the SA and Hitler’s appeal won votes. Election results, the intrigues of Papen and Hindenburg and Hitler’s appointment (January 1933) ended democracy; the Reichstag Fire, the Enabling Act, the banning of parties and unions, Röhm and the Night of the Long Knives (1934) and Hitler becoming Führer created a dictatorship.

Part three – experiences. Employment rose through public works and rearmament; the regime pursued self-sufficiency. War brought bombing, rationing, labour shortages and refugees. Women, young people, education and the churches were targeted by social policy; Aryan racial ideas led to persecution and the Final Solution. Control rested on Goebbels’s propaganda and censorship, and on Himmler, the SS and Gestapo; opposition included the White Rose, Swing Youth, Edelweiss Pirates and the July 1944 bomb plot.

AC Russia, 1894-1945: Tsardom and communism

Part one – the end of Tsardom. Industrialisation created harsh conditions in cities; peasants lived in poverty. Nicholas II’s autocracy faced growing revolutionary opposition; the 1905 Revolution led to the October Manifesto and Dumas, but political stalemate followed. Stolypin combined land reform and industrial growth with repression. In the First World War defeats, shortages and the unpopularity of the Romanovs – especially Rasputin’s influence – led to the Tsar’s abdication (1917).

Part two – Lenin’s new society. The Provisional Government failed to solve military, economic and social problems; Lenin and Trotsky built Bolshevik organisation and seized power in October/November 1917. Lenin’s dictatorship ended the war, created the Cheka and the Red Army, and won the Civil War. War Communism led to the Kronstadt Rising (1921) and the NEP.

Part three – Stalin’s USSR. Stalin won the power struggle after Lenin’s death and ruled through party control, the Terror and Purges, secret police, labour camps, censorship and the cult of personality. Collectivisation and the Five-Year Plans transformed the economy at a terrible cost to the kulaks and others. In the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) Stalin’s leadership and the Soviet people’s sacrifices brought victory, but with vast destruction.

AD America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and inequality

Part one – boom. Mass production (Ford), advertising, hire purchase and Republican laissez-faire policies created a consumer society and a stock market boom, though wealth was unequal. Cinema and jazz flourished; some women became flappers. Society was divided by Prohibition and organised crime, racial tension, immigration restriction, the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Scare and the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

Part two – bust. The Depression hit workers, farmers and businessmen; Hoover became unpopular, and Roosevelt won in 1932. The New Deal helped many groups but met opposition from the Supreme Court, Republicans and radicals. The Second World War – Lend-Lease (1941), exports and war production – ended the Depression and changed the experiences of African Americans and women.

Part three – post-war America. Prosperity, consumerism and the “American Dream” coexisted with McCarthyism; rock and roll and television shaped popular culture. Civil rights campaigns challenged segregation: Martin Luther King led peaceful protest, while Malcolm X and Black Power took a different approach; the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 followed. Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Great Society policies addressed poverty, education and health. Feminist movements, the National Organization for Women (1966), the fight for equal pay, Roe v Wade (1973) and the struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment, opposed by campaigners such as Phyllis Schlafly, close the period.

Worked example: a question 6 essay plan

Which of the following was the more important reason why Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933: the Depression; the role of Papen and Hindenburg? Explain your answer with reference to both reasons. [12]

1. The Depression: unemployment of about six million made voters desperate; Nazi seats rose from 12 (1928) to 230 (July 1932).
2. Papen and Hindenburg: the Nazis lost seats in November 1932, yet Papen persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler, believing he could be controlled.
3. Judgement: the Depression made Hitler a contender; the backstairs deal put him in office. Explain why one mattered more – for example, without the deal he might never have gained power as his vote was falling.

Common mistakes

• In question 1, summarising each interpretation separately instead of comparing.
• In question 2, giving reasons not linked to the authors’ situations.
• In question 5, describing events rather than explaining change.
• In question 6, writing about only one bullet point.

Frequently asked questions

Does Section A use sources? It uses written interpretations – later views of the past – not contemporary sources. Sources are used in Section B.

Do all three parts get tested? Yes. AQA states that all three parts of the specified content are tested in each series.

How long should I spend on Section A? About an hour of the two-hour paper. Question 6 (12 marks) deserves the most time, roughly 20 minutes.

Official specification

AQA GCSE History (8145) specification, version 1.3, section 3.2.1 (Period studies) and 4.4.1 (assessment structure) – aqa.org.uk.