What costs marks in History.
History is not marked on how much your child remembers. It is marked on two skills: interrogating a source, and building an argument in an essay. A learner who knows the whole of the Cold War can still lose a source question by describing what the source says instead of assessing how useful or reliable it is.
The extended writing question is worth a large block of marks and is examined against a rubric. Learners who write chronologically usually score in the middle. Learners who argue a line and support it with evidence score at the top.
The question says ‘comment on the usefulness of Source B’ and I just said what it’s about.
That is the most common trap in the paper. Usefulness has two parts. Who produced the source, and when?
A government newspaper, 1976.
So it is useful as evidence of official attitudes at the time, and limited as an account of what protesters believed. Write both halves.
What Grace covers in History.
CAPS-aligned, Grades 10–12. Tell Grace the grade and it works to that curriculum level.
Grade 10
The world around 1600, European expansion and conquest, transformations in southern Africa after 1750, colonial expansion after 1750, the French Revolution, and slavery and emancipation.
Grade 11
Communism and capitalism in the twentieth century, ideas of race in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, nationalisms including African and Afrikaner nationalism, and apartheid South Africa from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Grade 12
The Cold War, independent Africa, civil society protests from the 1950s to the 1970s, civil resistance in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, the coming of democracy and coming to terms with the past, and the end of the Cold War and a new world order.
Skills the papers test
Source analysis and reliability, comparing and contrasting sources, paragraph and essay structure, use of evidence, and the rubric behind the extended writing mark.
History homework help, at the hour it is needed.
History homework is a source pack and a question, and the honest problem at home is that most parents can help with the reading and not with the marking.
Grace reads the photographed source with your child, works out what the question is actually asking, and shows what a full-mark answer includes that a half-mark answer does not.
- Photograph a source pack and work through it question by question
- Teaches source reliability and usefulness as separate ideas
- Plans extended writing to the rubric, without writing it
- Past-paper style practice with worked marking
10–12
Full FET History
2
Source-based and essay skills
24/7
Available the night before
Related subjects and pages.
Everything on this site is one platform and one subscription — these are simply the other doors into it.
Questions about History tutoring.
Will it write the essay?
No. It plans, questions and gives feedback on what your child has written. That is the part that improves the next essay too.
Does it cover source-based questions?
Yes, and this is where most marks are recovered. Photograph the source pack and work through it with Grace.
Is the content up to date with the current CAPS topics?
Grace works to the CAPS content for each grade. If your school teaches a topic in a different term order, just say which topic you are on.
What about Grade 9 History?
Grade 9 History sits within Social Sciences. Grace covers it — tell it the grade and topic.