Last updated on Nov 23, 2025

OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project) Model Answers

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OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project) exam questions explained with model answers across subjects and topics

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Medieval Britain 1250 - 1500

The characteristic features of medieval Britain

Living conditions

Responses to the Black Death

Approaches to public health in late-medieval towns and monasteries

Early Modern Britain 1500 - 1750

Cultural, social and economic change including the growth of towns

Changing living conditions: housing, food, clean water and waste

Responses to outbreaks of plague

The impact of local and national government on public health

Industrial Britain 1750 - 1900

Industrialisation, the growth of major cities and political change

Urban living conditions in the early nineteenth century

Responses to cholera epidemics

Public health reform in the nineteenth century

Britain since 1900

Economic, political, social and cultural change

Living conditions and lifestyles: housing, food, air quality and inactivity

Responses to Spanish Influenza and AIDS

Growing government involvement in public health

Medieval Britain c.1250–c.1500

The characteristic features of medieval Britain: an overview

Crimes and criminals in medieval Britain

Enforcing law and order including policing and different types of court

Punishing offenders

Early Modern Britain c.1500–c.1750

Major religious, political and social changes: an overview

The changing nature of crime including vagrancy, moral crime and witchcraft

Enforcing law and order

Changes in punishment including the introduction of the ‘Bloody Code’

Industrial Britain, c.1750–c.1900

The enlightenment, urbanisation and political change: an overview

Crimes and criminals in industrial Britain

The introduction and development of the police force

Changes in punishment

Britain since c.1900

Major technological, social and political changes: an overview

Changes in the crime rate and in types of crime

Changes in law enforcement including the use of new technology

Changes in punishment

Industrial and Imperial Britain c.1750–c.1900

Industrialisation and the growth of empire

Large-scale migration from Ireland and the growth of Irish communities

Lascars and the growth of Indian, Chinese and African communities

The diversity of European migrants

England on the eve of the conquest

The nature, structure and diversity of late Anglo-Saxon society

Religion in late Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Saxon culture: buildings, art and literature

Invasion and victory

Norman society, culture and warfare pre-1066

The succession crisis of 1066

The battles of Fulford, Stamford Bridge and Hastings

Resistance and response

First uprisings against Norman rule

Northern resistance and William’s ‘Harrying of the North’

The rebellion of Hereward in the east and the end of English resistance

Castles

Pre-conquest fortifications and the first Norman castles in England

The distribution and design of Norman castles in England to 1087

The purpose of Norman castles in England

Conquest and control

Domesday Book, its creation and purpose

The social structure of Norman England

Changes and continuities: language, laws and Church

Elizabeth and government

Elizabeth and her court

Elizabeth and her parliaments including opposition from Puritans

Elizabeth and her people including local government and propaganda

Catholics

The enforcement of Elizabeth’s religious settlement after 1580

Catholic links abroad, plots against Elizabeth, and the Elizabethan spy network

Mary Queen of Scots, the Armada and war with Spain

Daily lives

The contrasting lives of rich, middling and poor Elizabethans

Family life: husbands and wives, parents and children, wider kinship

Poverty: its causes, Elizabethan explanations and responses

Popular culture

Theatres and their opponents

The Puritan attack on popular pastimes

The persecution of witches

The wider world

Imperial ambition: the motives and achievements of Elizabethan adventurers

Roanoke: England’s attempt at an American colony

Trade with the east, including first contacts with India

Wealth

Britain’s power and wealth at the beginning of the twentieth century

Class distinctions: the lives of the upper, middle and working classes

Rowntree’s investigation into the nature of poverty

Politics

Strengths and weaknesses of the established parties and the rise of the Labour Party

The Liberal reforms, the People’s Budget, the clash with the Lords and the Parliament Act of 1911

The challenge from militant labour

Women

Women’s lives at the beginning of the twentieth century

The campaigns for the vote: suffragists, suffragettes, support and opposition

The relationship between Government responses and changes to the campaigns, 1910–1914

Empire

Differing attitudes towards the British Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century

India: differing British attitudes toward the Raj, 1900–1914

Ireland: differing attitudes to the Home Rule crisis, 1912–1914

War

Government policy and propaganda in response to the changing demands of war

Men’s responses to the demands of the war

Women’s responses to the demands of the war

Homelands

The Vikings in Scandinavia: landscape, society and everyday life

Viking ships, seafaring and trade c.750

Viking beliefs and rituals

Volga Vikings

The changing nature of Viking (Rus) trade and settlement in Russia from c.750

The nature of Viking trade and interaction with the Arab world

Viking relations with Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire

Raiders and Invaders

The nature and causes of Viking raids in Britain, Ireland, the Scottish Islands and France, 793–850

The nature of Viking warfare: warships, warriors and tactics

The ‘great heathen army’ in England and the establishment of Danelaw, 865–879

Settlers

The nature and extent of Viking settlement in the British Isles and France

Viking life in Jorvik

The nature and extent of Viking settlement across the Atlantic

Kings

Harald Bluetooth, Jelling and the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity

Svein Forkbeard and his invasions of England

Cnut’s Anglo-Scandinavian Empire, 1016–1035

The First Mughal Emperors, 1526–1556

Babur and his invasion of northern India: the beginning of the Mughal Empire, 1526–1530

The nature of the prize: northern India and its people c.1530

Humayun, his struggle to retain control, and the condition of the Mughal Empire by 1556

Akbar, 1556–1605

Akbar and the extension of the Mughal Empire during his reign, 1556–1605

Akbar’s court and his imperial administration

Akbar’s search for knowledge and his religious policies

Jahangir, 1605–1627

Jahangir, the influence of his wife Nur Jahan, and the impact of their rule

The Mughal economy and European traders

Jahangir’s patronage of painting and the development of the Mughal miniature

Shah Jahan, 1627–1658

Shah Jahan, the luxury of his court and the nature of his rule

Shah Jahan’s patronage of building including the Taj Mahal and his new capital in Delhi

Shah Jahan’s wars to extend the empire and the war of succession between Dara and Aurangzeb

Aurangzeb 1658–1707

Aurangzeb and the impact of his religious piety

Aurangzeb’s campaigns against the Marathas in the Deccan from 1681

The condition of the Mughal Empire at Aurangzeb’s death in 1707

America’s expansion 1789–1838

How and why the USA expanded, from 1789 to 1838

The expansion of southern cotton plantations and of slavery, 1793–1838

The removal of indigenous people from the east, 1830–1838

The West 1839–1860

The culture of the Native Americans of the Plains including a case study of the Lakota Sioux

The journeys of the early migrants to California and Oregon; the Mormon settlement of Utah

The Californian Gold Rush (1848–1849) and The Pikes Peak Gold Rush (1858–1859)

Civil War and Reconstruction 1861–1877

Divisions over slavery and the causes of the Civil War

The African American experience of the Civil War, 1861–1865

Reconstruction and continuing limitations to African American liberty

Settlement and conflict on the Plains 1861–1877

The causes and nature of white American exploitation of the Plains

Homesteaders: living and farming on the Plains

The Indian Wars

American cultures 1877–1900

Changes to the Native Americans of the Plains’ way of life

The impact of economic, social and political change on the lives of African Americans

The growth of big business, cities and mass migration

Origins c.1070–1095

The Islamic world, including its diversity and its relations with Christians

Pressures on the Byzantine Empire

Latin Christendom and the power of the papacy

Responses November 1095 to December 1096

Urban II and the preaching of the First Crusade

Joining the First Crusade: who went and why

The People’s Crusade and the challenges it faced

Into Asia Minor December 1096 to October 1097

Alexios I and his negotiations with the crusade leaders

The siege of Nicaea and the Battle of Dorylaeum: the nature of Christian and Muslim warfare

The journey across Asia Minor: physical challenges and disunity among the leadership

Antioch October 1097 to June 1098

The siege by the crusaders

The capture of Antioch: rivalries, strategies and atrocities

The events of June and the defeat of Kerbogha

Jerusalem July 1098 to July 1100

Disputes, delays and the journey to Jerusalem

The capture of Jerusalem: preparations, tactics and the sack of the city

The establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Muslim response

Moctezuma’s Empire

The extent and nature of Moctezuma’s Aztec empire in 1519

The wealth of empire: agriculture, crafts and trade

Centre of empire: the splendour of Tenochtitlan

Controlling the Empire

Territorial expansion and the nature of warfare

Land, tribute and the role of elites

Aztec religion including beliefs, temples and sacrifice

Encounters

Motives for Spanish expansion into the Caribbean and central America

Cortés: his expedition to Mexico and first encounter with the Aztecs, February 1519 to April 1519

Dissatisfaction among Aztec subjects and Spanish alliances

Conquest, 1519–1521

The Spanish in Tenochtitlan and the relationship between Cortés and Moctezuma

Hostilities: the capture and death of Moctezuma, and the Spanish flight from the city on 1 July 1520

The siege of Tenochtitlan and reasons for the Spanish victory

The birth of New Spain

The nature and impact of Spanish rule

The role and conduct of the Church

Transformation of landscape and people: grazing animals, ecological devastation and mestizos

Dictatorship

Hitler and the Nazi Party in January 1933

Establishing the dictatorship, January 1933 to July 1933

Achieving total power, July 1933 to August 1934

Control and Opposition, 1933–1939

The machinery of terror including the SS, the law courts, concentration camps and the Gestapo

The range and effectiveness of Nazi propaganda

Opposition to Nazi rule including the Left, church leaders and youth groups

Changing Lives, 1933–1939

Work and home: the impact of Nazi policies on men and women

The lives of young people in Nazi Germany including education and youth movements

Nazi racial policy: the growing persecution of Jews

Germany in War

The move to a war economy and its impact on the German people, 1939–1942

Growing opposition from the German people including from elements within the army

The impact of total war on the German people, 1943–1945

Occupation

The contrasting nature of Nazi rule in eastern and western Europe

The Holocaust, including the Einsatzgruppen, ghettos and the death camps

Responses to Nazi rule: collaboration, accommodation and resistance

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