How to revise for GCSE History exams: AQA explains what to do

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Exam and revision advice to help you get your target grades in GCSE History

When you're revising for your GCSE exams, you want to make the most of your study time.

So, we invited the experts at the AQA exam board to share their tips and advice on preparing for GCSE History exams.

The article that follows has been written by an AQA curriculum expert, based on their years of experience in the assessment of their subject.  

You can find more articles in this series, covering a range of subjects at both GCSE and A-level, over on our revision section.

Also on The Student Room, you can find student discussion of 2024 GCSE exams.


1) Give enough time to each question

A good rule of thumb is this: for every 4 marks on the question paper, spend around 5 minutes writing and aim to write around one paragraph.

This means you should try to spend around 10 minutes on 8-mark questions, around 15 minutes on 12-mark questions, and around 20 minutes on 16-mark questions.

Remember there are separate booklets for section A and section B in each exam, so try to spend equal time on each section - about an hour.

2) Answer the question!

Read the question really carefully. The best answers will often use the key words from the question, and will always link their explanations and judgements directly to the ‘tail’ or focus of the question.

For example, if a question asks you to write an account of how an event became an international crisis, then you need to go beyond just telling a story of the event by showing how the event became an international crisis.

3) Try to approach sources and interpretations positively

Try to avoid simply describing the source, or listing the things the source doesn’t show (this goes for the interpretations questions too!).

For example, for the ‘how useful’ questions, students tend to perform better when they focus on ways that sources are useful for the issue in the question by using their knowledge to explain the content of the source (what it says or shows) and the purpose of the source.

Remember to use contextual knowledge to link to the source rather than just adding a chunk of other things you know to the answer. This shows that you are using knowledge to analyse the source.

4) Organise your revision carefully

In 2024, AQA GCSE History students have two exam dates. Students will sit their Paper 1 exam – covering the period study and wider world depth study - on 15 May, and the Paper 2 exam – covering the thematic study and British depth study - on 4 June. Each exam is 2 hours long.

There is a lot of time between Paper 1 in May and Paper 2 in June, so remember this when organising your revision.

5) Use the specification when revising

You can use the specification to form a revision checklist. We’ll never set a question on something that isn’t in the specification, but we may set questions on any person, event or issue listed in the specification - so these should be the focus of your revision. 



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