Source skills (both papers)
AQA GCSE History revision on Source skills (both papers). Aligned to the AQA GCSE History 8145 specification. This bank has 80 practice questions on this topic.
Sample questions (3 of 80)
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Question 1
What does 'provenance' mean when analysing a historical source?
- A) What the source physically looks like
- B) Where, when, and by whom the source was made
- C) The accuracy of the source
- D) How well-preserved the source is
Show answer
Answer: Where, when, and by whom the source was made
Provenance is the gold-standard concept for source questions. The exam expects you to use provenance (author + date + purpose + audience) to judge usefulness — NOT just describe what the source says. Example: a 1940 Nazi poster is useful for studying propaganda techniques, less useful for actual battle casualties.
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Question 2
A primary source is one that was created...
- A) By a famous person
- B) About the most important events
- C) At the time the events took place
- D) After the events being studied
Show answer
Answer: At the time the events took place
Primary sources: diaries, photographs, newspapers, letters, government documents from the time. Secondary sources: textbooks, documentaries, historians' books that analyse primary sources. Primary doesn't automatically mean MORE reliable — a propaganda poster is primary but heavily biased.
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Question 3
Which would be the MOST RELIABLE source for understanding daily life in trenches?
- A) A 2010 Hollywood film about WWI
- B) A soldier's diary written in 1916
- C) A Nazi propaganda poster
- D) A textbook from 2025
Show answer
Answer: A soldier's diary written in 1916
Caveats: even a diary can have bias (one man's experience, censorship, post-war revision). 'Reliable' depends on the question — that diary is great for personal experience, less useful for overall casualty figures (where official records win). Always evaluate purpose + audience.
Want to test yourself on the remaining cards for this topic?
77 more questions on Source skills (both papers) — plus mistakes tracking and spaced repetition across the whole History spec.
More AQA History topics
- Paper 1A — Period: America 1840–1895, Expansion and consolidation
- Paper 1A — Period: Germany 1890–1945, Democracy and dictatorship
- Paper 1A — Period: Russia 1894–1945, Tsardom and communism
- Paper 1A — Period: USA 1920–1973, Opportunity and inequality
- Paper 1B — Wider world: Conflict and tension 1945–72 (Cold War)
- Paper 1B — Wider world: Conflict and tension, 1894–1918 (WWI)
- Paper 2A — Thematic: Britain — Health and the people, c1000–present
- Paper 2A — Thematic: Britain — Migration, empires and the people, c790–present
- Paper 2A — Thematic: Britain — Power and the people, c1170–present
- Paper 2B — British depth: Elizabethan England, 1568–1603
- Paper 2B — British depth: Norman England, 1066–c1100