Introduction to IGCSE Course

1. IGCSE History
What’s it all about?

2. If you could be anyone in History who
would you be and why?

3. Topics to be studied
• Development of dictatorship: Germany 1918
– 1945
– The establishment of the Weimar Republic and its early
problems
– The recovery of Germany
– The rise of Hitler and the Nazis
– Life in Nazi Germany
– Germany during the second world war

4. Topics to be studied cont.
• A divided union: Civil rights in the USA
1945 – 1974
– McCarthyism and the Red Scare
– Civil rights in the 1950s
– The impact of Martin Luther King and of Black
Power
– Protest movements: students, women, anti-
Vietnam
– Nixon and Watergate

5. Topics to be studied
• Conflict, crisis and change: China, 1911 –
1989
– China 1911-1934
– The triumph of Mao and the CCP, 1934-1949
– Change under Mao, 1949-1963
– The impact of the Cultural Revolution
– China after Mao, 1969-1989

6. Topics to be studied
• Russia in Revolution 1914 – 1924
– The impact of the First World War
– The February Revolution
– The Bolshevik seizure of power
– Civil War
– War Communism
– New Economic Party (NEP)

7. When?
Year 10 – Germany & China
Year 11 – Russia & USA

8. What skills will I develop
and use?
• Chronology
– Timelines
• Causation, Consequences and Change
• Source analysis & interpretation
– Explain and make judgments
• Knowledge & understanding
– Comprehension, interpretation and cross-
reference
– Glossary
• Organisation & communication

9. What about the exam?
• Two papers – each 1 ½ hours long
• Three sections in total
A. Depth Studies
B. Historical Investigation
C. Breath study in Change
• Paper 1 – Depth studies
• Paper 2 – Historical investigation /
Breath study in Change

10. A. Depth Studies (Paper 1)
Development of dictatorship: Germany 1918
– 1945 &
A divided union: Civil rights in the USA 1945
– 1974
• You will be answering Q’s on BOTH topics
– each topic worth 25 marks – tested on
• Chronological sequencing
• Description of consequence
• Explanation of causation
• Using source and own knowledge to
give an explanation

11. B. Historical Investigation
(Paper 2)
Russia in Revolution 1914 – 1924
• Focus on analysis of sources
• Advised to spend 45mins.
• Tested on:
– Source inference
– Source cross-referencing
– Using sources and own knowledge to
evaluate a representation

12. C. Breath study in Change
(Paper 2)
• Conflict, crisis and change: China, 1911 –
1989
• Focuses on change over time.
• Advised to spend 45mins.
• Tested on:
– Source comprehension
– Description of key features
– Change over time

13. LET’S GET STARTED!!!