QCE Modern History 2022 Paper 1

Walkthrough of the 2022 QCE modern history exam: what it assessed, strategy tips, and the common errors flagged in the official marker report.

Marks: 80
Time: 90 min
Authority: QCAA
Updated: 2026-05-29

Open the official PDF ->Official marking notes

What this paper assessed

The QCAA Modern History external assessment (worth 25% of the subject) is a combination response to historical sources for Unit 4 ("The evolution of democracy" or a comparable prescribed topic, depending on the cohort's study). Students respond to a set of provided primary and secondary sources, demonstrating the four QCAA historical skills:

Comprehending - understanding the content and context of sources;
Devising - identifying issues, framing historical questions;
Analysing - examining sources for perspective, motive, audience, reliability and usefulness;
Evaluating - synthesising evidence into a sustained, justified argument that corroborates sources with one another and with own knowledge.

The paper rewards explicit use of source detail (short, embedded quotations), attribution, and a sustained line of reasoning rather than narrative retelling.

Structure and timing

80 marks in 90 minutes (a little over 1 min/mark), plus perusal time:

The paper combines short source-analysis items with an extended response drawing on the source set.
Allocate time by marks: spend roughly proportionally, so a short 4-6 mark analysis item gets ~6-8 minutes and the extended response (often 20+ marks) gets ~30-40 minutes.
Use perusal time to read all sources and note origin, perspective and how each could support or challenge an argument. Reserve the last ~5 minutes to check that your extended response answers the question's command word.

Worked practice questions (exam-style)

Worked example

Question 1 (6 marks): Analyse a source for perspective and reliability

A government-issued pamphlet from the period promotes a political reform as being "in the interests of all citizens." Analyse the perspective and reliability of this source for a historian investigating support for the reform.

Worked response. Identify the nature, origin and purpose: an official government pamphlet, produced to build public support and legitimise the reform (1 mark). Analyse the perspective: it presents the reform in wholly positive, inclusive terms ("all citizens"), reflecting the government's vested interest in promoting its own policy (2 marks). Assess reliability: as a persuasive, state-produced document it is reliable evidence of the government's intentions and the case it wished to make, but unreliable as evidence of actual public attitudes or the reform's real effects, because it omits opposition and is designed to persuade (2 marks). Conclude with a judgement tied to the historian's purpose: useful for studying official messaging, limited for measuring genuine support (1 mark).

Worked example

Question 2 (8 marks): Corroborate two sources

Source A (a contemporary newspaper editorial) and Source B (a later historian's account) both discuss the same event but reach different conclusions. Explain how a historian could use these two sources together, with reference to corroboration and motive.

Worked response plan. Establish the provenance and motive of each: Source A is a contemporary, possibly partisan editorial written to influence opinion at the time; Source B is a retrospective secondary analysis with hindsight and access to wider evidence (2 marks). Explain where they agree (corroborating the basic facts of the event) and where they diverge (interpretation, blame or significance), and account for the divergence in terms of purpose, audience and access to evidence (3 marks). Show how a historian uses them together: the contemporary source provides immediate perspective and emotional context, while the historian's account provides analytical distance - neither alone is sufficient, but cross-referencing them produces a more reliable, balanced reconstruction (2 marks). Conclude that corroboration strengthens claims supported by both, while points of difference flag where caution and further evidence are needed (1 mark).

Worked example

Question 3 (20 marks): Extended response

Using the source set and your own knowledge, evaluate the extent to which the period studied saw a genuine expansion of democratic participation.

Worked response plan. Begin with a clear thesis that takes an evaluative position - e.g. that participation expanded substantially in formal terms (suffrage, institutions) but unevenly in practice, with significant groups still excluded. Structure three or four analytical paragraphs, each:

making a claim that advances the thesis;
embedding short quotations from the relevant source(s), with attribution;
analysing each source for perspective and reliability rather than just citing it;
corroborating with own knowledge (specific events, dates, figures) and with other sources in the set.
For example, one paragraph might use a reform document to argue expansion, then a critical source to qualify it, showing analytical balance. Engage with at least one differing historical interpretation. Conclude by directly answering "the extent to which": a reasoned judgement (e.g. "genuine but partial expansion") justified by the weight of evidence. The high-band features are sustained argument, source analysis (not description), and corroboration across the set.

Common errors students made

The 2022 QCAA marker report flagged students describing sources without analysing them, drifting into narrative storytelling in the extended response, using vague time markers like "back then", and ignoring the specific verb in the prompt (assess, evaluate, to what extent). Add these recurring traps:

Source description over analysis - paraphrasing content without judging perspective, motive, audience or reliability.
No corroboration - using sources in isolation instead of cross-referencing them and combining with own knowledge.
Quoting without attribution - failing to identify which source the evidence comes from.
Thesis-free response - assembling information rather than building and sustaining a justified argument that answers the command word.

How to use this paper

Sit the full paper under timed conditions (90 minutes plus perusal). Mark against the official QCAA instrument-specific marking guide (ISMG) and marker report (linked in the frontmatter above), which set the criteria descriptors. Re-mark your extended response row by row against the ISMG, then redraft one paragraph to convert source description into analysis-plus-corroboration. Maintain a source bank logging origin, motive, audience and reliability for each practised source, and rehearse turning the command word into an explicit thesis sentence before you write.

Use this paper well

Sit the paper under exam conditions (90 minutes, 80 marks).
Mark yourself against the official QCAA marking notes.
Compare against the Modern History hub to find the syllabus dot points this paper tested.

What this paper assessed

Structure and timing

Worked practice questions (exam-style)

Common errors students made

How to use this paper

Use this paper well

Keep going