Section A

• 36 marks (paper is out of 60 in total)• 61 minutes• 5 questions – all source based• 5 sources A – E• Can be on any topic from the

American WestYOU MUST ANSWER THIS SECTION!

(a) What do Sources A and B suggest about life on

the Plains? (4 marks)

Source B A letter written by Paul Hansen, who had settled in Minnesota on the GreatPlains. It was published in a Norwegian newspaper. in August 1869

All who have seen this land say it offers so many advantages for European farmers thatimmigrants are likely to flood here within the next year. The soil is fertile. Railroads are to runthrough the middle of the valley. In the summer the heat may be great but the atmosphere isalways fresh. In the winter time the snow is usually two or three feet deep and lies in a solidmass over the whole prairie.

Source A An early settler’s homeThis painting was done in 1867 by Fanny Palmer. Fanny Palmer travelled widely on thePlains. Her paintings were popular in the East and were reproduced in magazines.

Mark scheme – 4 marks• Fail to address the

question – 0 marks• Level 1: Select simple

details from the sources – 1 mark

• Level 2: Makes a simple inference about both sources – 2-3 marks

• Level 3: Make a complex inference from both sources – 4 marks

• Top Tips• 9 minutes• 2 paragraphs – NO

MORE• Say what you see• Say what this tells you,

(what does it suggest)• Use your own

knowledge to add detail that helps put it into context

• YOU MUST REFER TO BOTH SOURCES and combine them

Model AnswerIn Source A, the picture shows the Plains as a beneficial

place to live. It shows that life there would be successful; good amount of crops, plenty of animals to eat, resources free for you to use. This suggests to me that life would be great on the Great Plains and you would possess everything that you need. I can actually say from my own knowledge that life in the Plains wasn’t that simple and it was extremely hard work to maintain, the soil wasn’t that fertile and due to severe weather, farming was a struggle. In addition to this, the Plains were vast and open, trees weren’t commonly found until the Timbre Culture 1874.

In source B, it tells the reader that the Great Plains is a good place to live with fertile soil and therefore farming would be successful and not difficult. It also mentions that there will be a railroad, suggesting that it will be straightforward to get supplies and communication to the Plains therefore making it a convenient place to live.

(b) What different impression of life on the Plains is suggested by Sources C and D?

Explain your answer using Sources A, B, C and D. (6 marks)

Source D In 1878 Dr. Cass G. Barns and his wife arrived in Nebraska. He describedhis house, as follows.

‘We had a good house by June but the joints between the sods needed new fine clay occasionally to keep the rainwater from trickling through. When it rained the roof leaked dirty water onto our bed and I would wake up with water running through my hair. It was not completely the fault of the sod house that contagious diseases were common. The open dug well, the outdoor toilet (or no toilet at all) shared the blame with a lack of ventilation and overcrowding. The earth floor was not possible to scrub or disinfect.’

Source C A settler’s home, 1885

Mark Scheme 6 marks• Fails to answer the

question – 0 marks• Level 1: Selects detail

from Source C and/or D – 1-2 marks

• Level 2: Simple comparison based on what all 4 sources say OR make an inference from the sources 3 – 4 marks

• Level 3: Makes inferences about the sources and compares them – 5 – 6 marks

• Top Tips• 11 minutes• 2 chunky paragraphs –

3 if you really must• Say what Source C

and D • Say what this tells you

and compare it to what A and B tell you

• Summarise the key differences between the sources by referring to them in their pairs

Model Answer• Source C and D tell us a very different story about the Plains and from my own knowledge

I know this explanation to be more realistic. Source C is a home of the settlers which they have built from only the resources that they have around them, like mud, dung and straw. This is because they are Homesteaders and have been given 160 acres of land if they built a home and live there for 5 years. The picture shows how hard it was to find resources because they have had to make do with the real basics. In Source D, it again shows that life on the Plains was really hard. It talks about rain leaking through the roof and that diseases were common. It also suggests that living conditions are unhygienic as the ere was no proper toilets or sewers and because the floors were made of mud they couldn’t be properly clean. This suggests that life was really quite unpleasant and hard.

• This is in contrast to Sources A and B which romanticise life on the Plains. These sources suggest and ideal lifestyle with plenty of resources and a pleasant standard of living. Life seems fairly straightforward and easy and if you try to make a life on the Plains you will be successful because of the fertile soil. Source A clearly shows wooden houses and lots of trees, whereas in Source C it is completely the opposite with no trees and really having to just make do. In many ways Sources A and B suggest a romantic and ideal way of life on the Plains, whereas in Source C and D it is more like the reality. There is a sense of a community on Sources A and B, where as in Sources C and D people are struggling to survive on their own.

(c) Why do you think Sources A and B give a different impression to Sources C and D? Explain your answer using

Sources A, B, C and D and your own knowledge. (8 marks)

Source A and B and Source C and D give different impressions of life on the Plains for many reasons. Firstly, the time when they were written or produced is important. Sources A and B were both published when the people were being encouraged to move West. These could both be seen as examples as propaganda. Source A was written at a time when the US Government was really pushing for people to move West. The picture shows the west as looking an ideal place to live, and it was created for an audience in the East. It makes the West look like a good place to be. Source B is very similar as it was published at a similar time and also in a magazine that potentially would be read by people who may find the West appealing. In contrast, Sources C and D were written much later in 1885 and 1878. By this time, many people had already responded to the Homestead Act in 1862, the Timbre Culture Act and the Desert Land Act in the 1870s. This means that the Government was not producing as much propaganda to persuade people to go West. Also, a lot of the best land had already been taken by the 1870s as so many people had already gone West and also because of the railroad, communication between east and west was better so it was harder to gloss over the bad points as people could independently send their ideas back east.Another reason why the sources are different is linked to the above and this is the purpose. The government and railroad companies specifically tried to persuade people to go west and Sources A and B are examples of propaganda. By the 1870s and 1880s the government relaxed a little and eased off the push to drive people west. Also, by this time, problems with the Indians were really public and people no longer believed the images and stories they heard as there was also proof that said the opposite. Also, the sources have different authors. Fanny Palmer didn’t actually spend much time living in the West, she travelled there, but didn’t settle so didn’t face the daily grind in a way that perhaps the author of Source D did as he lived there all the time and had first hand experience of the work.

Mark Scheme (8 marks)• Fails to answer the

question – 0 marks• Level 1: Answer says how

the sources are different – 1 – 2 marks

• Level 2: Simple reasons why the sources have different views – 3 – 4 marks

• Level 3: Developed reasons why the sources have different views 5 – 6 marks

• Level 4: As level 3 but links the reasons between sources – 7 – 8 marks

• Top Tips• 13 minutes• 3 chunky paragraphs- How did the author get their

knowledge? - Who is the Author and how

are they personally involved?

- What Date was it written and what was happening in the bigger picture at the time?

- Where in the American West is the source writing about?

- Who is the Audience? Has this affected what the author might say?

(d) How useful is Source E for understanding the problems faced by white people who farmed on the

Plains?Explain your answer using Source E and your knowledge.

(8 marks)• Source E A view of

the Homesteader’s life, 1887

• This cartoon, entitled ‘A farmer’s life is not a happy one’ or ‘The woes of Western Agriculture’ was published in The Puck Magazine. This magazine began in 1876 and was very successful in the 1880s, selling 80000 copies a week. The magazine tackled social and political issues.

Mark Scheme (8 marks)• Fails to address the question –

0 marks• Level 1: Simple, basic

statement about if the source is useful or not – 1 – 2 marks

• Level 2: Explains if the source is useful/not useful based on EITHER provenance OR content – 3 – 4 marks

• Level 3: Explains the value of the source because of its content and provenance – 5 – 6 marks

• Level 4: As level 3 but uses own knowledge give reasons for why the sources is useful or not useful – 7 – 8 marks

• Top Tips• 13 minutes• 3 chunky paragraphs• The source will always

be useful in some ways but not useful in others

• What does the source tell you?

• What doesn’t it tell you? (from your own knowledge)

• What does the provenance tell you? Can you trust it? Is it accurate?

Model Answer• Source E is useful for showing problems as it shows the conflict between the

Indians and the Homesteaders. The Indians were originally the only people on the Plains and when the Homesteaders moved in, frequent fights broke out. Indians were known to rob and kill people in their homes, but I know from my own knowledge that they felt threatened and often saw the homesteaders as enemies and it is their nature to fight against enemies. Therefore the source isn’t very useful for portraying this.

• Similarly, the picture shows claim jumping, an act performed by settlers to gain more land for themselves. They shot the owners and staked the land as their own. The Great Plains at this time had a lack of law and order so many crimes were committed. Source E is useful for showing this. Also in Source E, you can see the problems of farming on the Plains with the giant insects. This is exaggerated in the Source, but it is useful for helping us to see that it was a big problem.

• In terms of the provenance, Source E isn’t very useful because it is from a magazine that has a purpose of turning situations into comedy. It tackles social and political issues in the magazine, but at the same time, it needs to sell issues so it would want to be entertaining. The source almost makes a mockery of the problems on the Plains so it can’t be taken just at face value – you need to understand the background and not assume things in it are totally true. For example, yes there were bugs on the Plains that caused problems for the farmers, but the source has exaggerated it so that they are massive, which is inaccurate and therefore not useful unless you have knowledge to put it into context.

Why were white people able to settle and farm

successfully on the Great Plains?

Mark Scheme (10 marks)• Fails to address the

question – 0 marks• Level 1: General, simple

statements – 1 - 2 marks• Level 2: Talks briefly about

3 factors OR about 1 factor in depth – 3 – 5 marks

• Level 3: Recognises and explains 3 factors in specific detail – 6 – 8 marks

• Level 4: As level 3 but with a conclusion saying which factor was more important and why compared to other factors OR shows links between the factors – 9 – 10 marks

• Top Tips• 15 minutes• 4 killer points in

chunky paragraphs and a conclusion

Factor Other Factors

Conclusion

How does Section B work?• This is the specialist knowledge section

of the paper and can be on any topic in the American West

• You will have a choice between two questions – question 2 or question 3 (these will be on different topics)

• Each question has 3 parts, eg. 2a, 2b and 2c – you much answer all parts of ONE question

• a = 4 marks, b = 8 marks, c = 12 marks

• Time per question = number of marks + 5mins

What do I need to do for 4 mark questions

• Level 1: Basic knowledge – the facts about the topic but not explained 1-2

• Level 2: Detailed knowledge about the topic that is explained. Answers will show knowledge of some distinctive features of the topic 3-4

4 marks = 9 mins2 killer points2 chunky paragraphs

What do I need to do for an 8 mark question?

• Level 1: Basic facts from the source only OR describes Indian lifestyle – no explanation 1-2 marks

• Level 2: Gives one example from the source or and/or mentions other aspects related to the topic with some details 3-5 marks

• Level 3: Explains more than one reason. At this level answers will explain more than one or two reasons as well as the ones in the source. It is well organised with an appropriate form and style of writing. Some specialist vocabulary is used 6 – 8 marks

•8 marks = 13 minutes•2 killer points other than the one in the source•2 chunky paragraphs

What do you need to do for 12 mark questions?

• 12 marks = 17 minutes• 4 chunky paragraphs• 3 key reasons• Conclusion explaining most

important factor or showing links between factors

Level 1: Answer that provides general statements, describe single factors or basic facts about why the Indians didn’t like whites 1-2 marks

Level 2: Answer that describes several factors to do with the topic briefly. Doesn’t explain how important the factors areORAnswer that identifies and explains one factor, in depth, to do with the topic. Doesn’t explain how important the factor is 3-6 marks

Level 3: Answer that recognises and explain several factors to do with the topic in specific detail. Answers at this level may begin to evaluate the importance of factor(s) 7-10 marks

Level 4: Answer that is the same as level 3 but also clearly evaluates the relative importance of individual factors and has a clear conclusion saying the most important reason. Answer may also show links between factors 11-12 marks