Key Skills And Concepts

Question 1

Causation

Answer 1

Investigating what caused a specific development (e.g. World War One) to happen

Question 2

Change and Continuity

Answer 2

Understanding how a major event (e.g. the Covid-19 pandemic) changes some things (e.g. shopping) but not others (e.g. we continue to live in our homes).

Question 3

Use of Evidence

Answer 3

Gathering clues about the past from items which were created during earlier periods. This evidence might be written (e.g. a diary) or a physical object (e.g. a castle).

Question 4

Significance

Answer 4

Understanding how to tell if a person, event, invention or other development in history is important.

Question 5

Interpretation

Answer 5

Understanding that it is possible for different people to have different ideas about the past, even when they use the same evidence.

Question 6

Chronology

Answer 6

The study of time and dates. Putting events in the order in which they happened.

Question 7

Anachronism

Answer 7

If something or someone appears in a time period to which it does not belong, we say that it is an anachronism.

Question 8

Bias /

biased

Answer 8

If somebody writes an account of an event in a way that makes one side look unjustifiably good or bad then we would call this account “biased”. A person who writes in this way could be described as having a “bias”.

Question 9

Infer

Answer 9

“To infer” is to deduce something – to work something out from evidence.

Question 10

Inference

Answer 10

An inference is a deduction which has been made. Historians examine primary evidence and make inferences which they then use to write their books.

Question 11

Evidence

Answer 11

Clues about the past from items which were created during earlier periods. This evidence might be written (e.g. a diary) or a physical object (e.g. a castle).

Question 12

Secondary Evidence

Answer 12

Evidence produced after the event being studied. For example, a book written by a historian about the Second World War.