Practice Questions

How useful is Source A in studying John Arderne?

How to answer:

• Step 1: Comment on 2 or 3 aspects of the source using knowledge to analyse content (what is true and therefore useful – link to context)
• Step 2: Comment on provenance to decide how useful the source is
• How reliable is the source?
• Step 3: Overall, how useful do you think the source is for a historian studying this time period?

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. It comes directly from John Arderne’s surgical writings from around 1380.
2. It shows that Arderne was a highly skilled surgeon who developed detailed surgical techniques.
3. The manuscript includes illustrations of operations, instruments and remedies, revealing how medieval surgery was taught and recorded.
4. It demonstrates that Arderne combined classical medical knowledge from authorities such as Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna with his own practical experience.
5. However, it mainly shows the experience of a successful surgeon and may not represent the work of ordinary medieval practitioners.

How useful is Source B to a historian studying medical knowledge in the Renaissance period?

How to answer:

• Step 1: Comment on 2 or 3 aspects of the source using knowledge to analyse content (what is true and therefore useful – link to context)
• Step 2: Comment on provenance to decide how useful the source is
• How reliable is the source?
• Step 3: Overall, how useful do you think the source is for a historian studying this time period?

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. The source shows the detailed study of human anatomy that developed during the Renaissance.
2. The accurate illustration of the skull demonstrates the increasing importance of observation and dissection.
3. It provides direct evidence of Vesalius’s work and the advances made beyond Galen’s teachings.
4. It reflects the role of artistic skill and printing in spreading medical knowledge.
5. The source only shows anatomy and does not reveal how widely Vesalius’s ideas were accepted.
6. It does not show that many doctors continued to follow Galen for years after 1543.

How useful is Source C in studying public health during the industrial period?

How to answer:

• Step 1: Comment on 2 or 3 aspects of the source using knowledge to analyse content (what is true and therefore useful – link to context)
• Step 2: Comment on provenance to decide how useful the source is
• How reliable is the source?
• Step 3: Overall, how useful do you think the source is for a historian studying this time period?

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. 1831-32 cholera epidemic was the first major outbreak of cholera in Britain.
2. During the Industrial Revolution, towns became overcrowded with poor housing and sanitation.
3. Most people believed in the miasma theory, that disease was spread by bad air and bad smells (“Free and continued admission of fresh air to all parts of the house”).
4. Local authorities created Boards of Health to try to control the spread of cholera.
5. Public health posters were used to educate the public about preventing disease.
6. The source shows growing concern about government and local authority intervention in public health.
7. Does not show later developments such as John Snow, Edwin Chadwick’s 1842 Report, 1848 Public Health Act.
8. Only reflects one town (Gateshead).

How useful is Source D to an historian studying the work of the National Health Service?

How to answer:

• Step 1: Comment on 2 or 3 aspects of the source using knowledge to analyse content (what is true and therefore useful – link to context)
• Step 2: Comment on provenance to decide how useful the source is
• How reliable is the source?
• Step 3: Overall, how useful do you think the source is for a historian studying this time period?

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. Shows the NHS was involved in public health campaigns, not just treating illness.
2. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, governments increasingly focused on preventing illness rather than simply treating it.
3. Concerns about second-hand smoke contributed to the smoking ban in enclosed public places in England in 2007.
4. Shows the NHS using advertising and posters to influence behaviour and improve public health.
5. Reveals NHS priorities, including disease prevention and health promotion.
6. Only shows one NHS campaign and one aspect of NHS work.
7. Does not show the NHS’s main role of providing healthcare, hospitals, doctors and treatments.

Explain one way in which the treatment of infectious diseases in the medieval period (c1250-c1500) was different from the treatment of infectious diseases in the modern period (c1900-present).

How to answer:

• Step 1: Make a point about the answer – check whether it is a similarity or difference
• Step 2: Use your own knowledge to back up our point. Keep within the given period of time.
• Step 3: Explain each point well linking back to the words of the question.

You will not be given sources for this style of question, but why not take a look at our sources to help spark some knowledge? Sources you might find useful:

• Orders conceived… concerning the infection of the Plague 1665
• A Dissertation on the method of inoculating the small-pox
• John Snow, On the Mode and Communication of Cholera

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. Medieval people who suffered from infectious diseases, e.g. the plague or leprosy, were often kept away from society, for example in lazar houses or pest houses.
2. In the modern period, people suffering from infectious diseases, e.g. Covid, are mainly recommended to isolate themselves at home.
3. In the medieval period, there was no effective treatment for infectious diseases.
4. Modern medicine has developed treatments for many infectious diseases, e.g. smallpox and cholera.

Explain one way in which attempts to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in the period c1500–c1700 were similar to attempts to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in the period c1700–c1900.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Comment on 2 or 3 aspects of the source using knowledge to analyse content (what is true and therefore useful – link to context)
• Step 2: Comment on provenance to decide how useful the source is
• How reliable is the source?
• Step 3: Overall, how useful do you think the source is for a historian studying this time period?

You will not be given sources for this style of question, but why not take a look at our sources to help spark some knowledge? Sources you might find useful:

• Daniel Defoe, the History of the Great Plague in London, in the Year 1665
• Edward Jenner, An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccine
• Report on the Subject of Vaccine Inoculation

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. Both cases tried to purify the air.
2. In 1665, the Lord Mayor of London ordered rubbish to be removed and, in the eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, barrels of tar were burned.
3. In both cases, the authorities passed laws to try to prevent the spread of the disease.
4. In 1665, the Lord Mayor of London ordered theatres to be closed to prevent people gathering. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the government passed laws to enforce the use of Jenner’s vaccination.

Explain one way in which the role of the physician in the medieval period was similar to the role of the doctor in the NHS in the modern period.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Comment on 2 or 3 aspects of the source using knowledge to analyse content (what is true and therefore useful – link to context)
• Step 2: Comment on provenance to decide how useful the source is
• How reliable is the source?
• Step 3: Overall, how useful do you think the source is for a historian studying this time period?

You will not be given sources for this style of question, but why not take a look at our sources to help spark some knowledge? Sources you might find useful:

• Bleeding bowl
• The Hippocratic Corpus
• Surgical staplers

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. Both roles are to diagnose a patient’s illness.
2. Both use similar way to diagnose a patient – medieval would examine urine and modern would look at urine also.
3. Both would use literature to help in their training, with Hippocrates as a medieval example.
4. Both would prescribe a treatment for the illness.
5. The medieval physician would prescribe bleeding by a surgeon and/or a medicine to be made up by the apothecary.
6. Modern doctors would prescribe a medicine to be dispensed by the pharmacist or send the patient to hospital.

Use Source A, Source B and Source C to identify one similarity and one difference in medical knowledge over time.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Study the 3 sources and pick out features that are the same or similar.
• Step 2: Pick out the points that contrast.
• Step 3: Make sure you refer to both similarity and difference in your answer.

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

Similarities

• B and C show technology being used to increase medical knowledge.
• A and B show that individuals were involved in medical research.

Differences

• A does not show the use of technology to advance medical knowledge while B and C do.
• A is not supported by everyone while B and C have support from more people.

Use Source A, Source B and Source C to identify one similarity and one difference in preventing illness and disease over time.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Study the 3 sources and pick out features that are the same or similar.
• Step 2: Pick out the points that contrast.
• Step 3: Make sure you refer to both similarity and difference in your answer.

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

Similarities

• All aimed to improve people’s health.
• B and C are both preventative measures giving people specific knowledge,
• B and C are linked to public health more than A.

Differences

• A and B are ways to prevent illness, whereas C is focused on educating individuals.
• A and B are based on medieval ideas of Hippocrates’ Four Humours and the theory of miasma, but C is based on scientific research.

Use Source A, Source B and Source C to identify one similarity and one difference in treating and curing illness and disease over time.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Study the 3 sources and pick out features that are the same or similar.
• Step 2: Pick out the points that contrast.
• Step 3: Make sure you refer to both similarity and difference in your answer.

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

Similarities

• They are all used by medical professionals in their period to prevent and cure patients’ ailments.
• B and C were innovative ideas which went against the long standing beliefs of A .

Differences

• A would usually be done by an untrained barber surgeon letting blood, whereas B explains the new way to cure illness via medication.
• C uses technology to treat illness.
• A was believed to cure an illness without any scientific knowledge, when B had evidence to prove why it would help cure an illness.

1. Give one example of the way in which medieval people reacted to the Black Death.

2. Name one way in which people in towns obtained their water during the period 1500–1750.

3. Name one of the ‘big killer’ diseases in the period 1750–1900.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Read the question carefully.
• Step 2: Always check the dates.
• Step 3: Give accurate answers.

You will not be given sources for this style of question, but why not take a look at our sources to help spark some knowledge? Sources you might find useful:

• Cholera propaganda poster
• Cholera scrapbook volume 1
• Child vaccination poster

Did you include the relevant key knowledge in your answer?

1. Believed it was due to sinful acts; Flagellation; Get rid of bad smells due to theory of miasma.
2. Paying for it to be piped to your house; Collecting water from a conduit; Buying water from a water seller.
3. Tuberculosis; Influenza; Diphtheria; Typhoid; Typhus

1. Name one way in which the authorities in medieval Britain (1250–1500) tried to prevent the spread of disease in towns.

2. Give one example of a problem with living conditions caused by the rapid growth of towns in the period 1750–1900.

3. Give one example of a government action since 1900 that was introduced to improve air quality.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Read the question carefully.
• Step 2: Always check the dates.
• Step 3: Give accurate answers.

You will not be given sources for this style of question, but why not take a look at our sources to help spark some knowledge? Sources you might find useful:

• The Whole Works of Dr Thomas Sydenham
• Edwin Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary Condition
• Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer

1. Name one aspect of people’s lives in the period 1500–1750 that led to poor public health.

2. Cholera was a killer disease. Identify one other killer disease that was common in the period 1800–1900.

3. Give one example of a government action that was aimed at improving the health of children since 1900.

How to answer:

• Step 1: Read the question carefully.
• Step 2: Always check the dates.
• Step 3: Give accurate answers.

You will not be given sources for this style of question, but why not take a look at our sources to help spark some knowledge? Sources you might find useful:

• Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing
• Gin Lane
• Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer