Aqa History Nea Assessment Objectives Breakdown

Assessment Objective One

The NEA is not primarily a research task, nor is it about finding the most obscure or difficult to access source material.

The focus of the NEA is the quality of the argued response and it is this that AO1 addresses.

Do not give lengthy narrative or descri ptive pieces that, for example gave little more than potted biographical detail of key individuals.

Do not divide up the response with separate headings or even chapters,

It is within this analysis that the evaluation of the sources and of the interpretations should be integrated.

Attempts to provide a summary of a source or of an historical interpretation could work but only if such a summary was brief and was clearly linked to a judgement about the overall value of a source or how convincing an interpretation was.

Do not state that the historical interpretation is an accepted truth. It will fail to maintain a good level of analysis. By the time you write the NEA, you should have an awareness of how to write an essay and of the differences between narrative and descri ption, and analysis and commentary.

Assessment Objective Two.

You need to evaluate the sources and to do more than simply quote them.

Make sure you focus on the value of a source rather than, making rather generic statements about the reliability or accuracy without then explaining how this might affect the value.

Sources can be inaccurate but still be of value and that value cannot exist in the abstract but must be valuable in effectively doing something.

The commentary about the tone of a source is very useful if there is some explicit attempt to explain how an emotive tone, for example, affects the value of the source.

Scatter your sources throughout your essay and refer to them when you need to. This seems to be the most effective approach. In this model, sources are referred to when appropriate to the answer being argued.

Assessment Objective Three

Ensure that the interpretations selected do differ and you should make an effort to account for these differences.

The greater the difference the better as it leads to a greater historiographical debate.

Try and get to know your subject VERY well, as it will help you to show some awareness of the approaches that have been taken by other historians to the key questions of the period. It will help if you can form a judgement where you able to express which view you find the most convincing.

Identify a couple of paragraphs that plainly express the view of a historian, and then set about integrating their evaluation of this view into your overall judgement about the set question.

Part of this evaluation should include commentary about time/context or limitations.

Remember the focus of the AO remains an evaluation of the historical interpretation using clear and precise subject knowledge to support or refute the views of others.