Paper 2 Section A: concept questions

How to analyse a historical concept (cause and consequence, continuity and change, perspectives, significance) with one example from your thematic study, with planning frames and model answers.

IB History
Exam skills
SL and HL

12 min readLast reviewed 16 Oct 2026

Section A of Paper 2 asks you to analyse one of the four historical concepts that run through the course: cause and consequence, continuity and change, perspectives and significance. Two concept questions appear on each paper and you answer one, using a single example from your thematic study. It is a short task, but an unusual one: the subject of the answer is the concept, and the example is the evidence.

What a concept question looks like

The IB’s published samples for Section A are “Analyse how historical events can have multiple causes” and “Analyse how historical events can be seen from different perspectives”, each followed by “Use one example from your thematic study to support your response.” Teachers working from the guide report that the question is worth [6] marks. The statements are generic: they do not mention any thematic study, so the same question is answered by students who studied conflict, innovation, authoritarian rule or popular movements.

The command term analyse means breaking something into its parts to show how it works. Here the “something” is the concept statement. “Historical events can have multiple causes” breaks down into the kinds of cause (long-term, short-term, trigger), how causes combine, and how their weight can be judged. The example then shows each part at work.

Every concept has several facets that can each become a paragraph. The table sets out the main ones. Most questions name one facet (multiple causes, unintended consequences, different perspectives); a strong answer analyses that facet from two or three angles.

Concept	Facets to analyse	Useful vocabulary
Cause and consequence	Long-term conditions, short-term causes and triggers; necessary and sufficient causes; how causes interact; intended and unintended consequences; short- and long-term consequences; how historians weigh causes	long-term cause, short-term cause, trigger, necessary cause, sufficient cause, multi-causality, contingency
Continuity and change	What changed and what stayed the same; for whom; how fast (sudden or gradual); in which area of life (political, economic, social, cultural); turning points; change in law versus change in practice	continuity, turning point, transformation, reform, revolution
Perspectives	Perspectives of different groups at the time; how position, interest and knowledge shape a view; perspectives of sources; historians’ interpretations and why they change; silenced or marginalised voices	perspective, interpretation, historiography, revisionism, hindsight
Significance	Significance at the time and later; for different groups; criteria (scale, depth, duration, consequences, symbolism); how significance is constructed by memory and by historians	historical significance, turning point, agency

Five boxes in a column joined by arrows: name the example and state a claim about the concept; facet 1 of the concept with specific evidence from the example; facet 2 with specific evidence; facet 3, how the parts connect or how far views differ; one sentence on what the example shows about the… — A planning frame for a Section A answer. The paragraphs are organised by facets of the concept, and the example supplies the evidence for each; the answer begins and ends with the concept, not with the story of the example.

The planning frame sets out the shape of a top-band answer. The opening names the example and makes a claim about the concept; each body paragraph takes one facet and proves it with evidence from the example; the last sentence returns to the concept. With 6 marks available, two or three developed paragraphs are enough.

Choosing your example

A good Section A example is one you know in detail and that shows the concept clearly. The same example can serve several concepts, but some examples suit some concepts better. The outbreak of a war is ideal for multiple causes; a reform programme or a revolution suits continuity and change; a contested event, such as a famine or a massacre, suits perspectives.

Thematic study	Example	Strong for
Conflict	The outbreak of the Algerian War (1954)	Multiple causes: colonial structures, the events of 1945, the closing of political routes, the example of Indochina
Conflict	The US Civil War and its effects on enslaved people	Continuity and change: emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment set against the Black Codes and sharecropping
Authoritarian rule	Stalin’s collectivisation of agriculture (1929–1933)	Perspectives: the party, peasants, Ukrainians, Western observers, historians; unintended consequences
Popular movements	The African American civil rights movement (1954–1968)	Significance: of the Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington or the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for different groups and over time
Innovation and transformation	Printing with movable type in Europe from the 1450s	Significance and consequences: slow change at first, then the spread of Reformation pamphlets after 1517

Worked example: multiple causes

Analyse how historical events can have multiple causes. Use one example from your thematic study to support your response. [6] (in the style of the IB)

Show the plan, model answer and comments

Plan. Example: the outbreak of the Algerian War on 1 November 1954. Claim: the war broke out because long-term colonial conditions, the closing of peaceful routes to reform and a short-term opportunity combined; no single cause was sufficient. Facets: (1) long-term conditions; (2) short-term causes that turned grievance into armed revolt; (3) how they interacted, and why their weight is debated.

Model answer. The outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence on 1 November 1954 shows that historical events have causes of different kinds, working over different timescales, which only together produce the event.

Some causes are long-term conditions that make an event possible. Since the French conquest began in 1830, Algeria had been ruled for the benefit of about a million European settlers, while the Muslim majority of around eight to nine million had fewer political rights, most of the poorest land and little access to education. These conditions created deep grievance, but they had existed for more than a century without causing a national war, so they were necessary rather than sufficient causes.

Other causes are short-term, and they explain why grievance became armed revolt in 1954. At Sétif and Guelma in May 1945, nationalist demonstrations were followed by settler killings and a French repression that killed thousands of Algerians. The Statute of 1947 gave the Muslim majority only as many seats as the settlers, and the 1948 assembly elections were openly rigged. These events persuaded a younger generation of nationalists that peaceful politics could not succeed. The fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 then showed that France could be defeated, and the founders of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) chose to act that autumn.

The causes were connected, and historians weight them differently. The colonial system created the grievances; the repression of 1945 and the rigged elections closed the legal routes that might have channelled them; Indochina supplied an example and a moment. Some historians stress the structures of French rule and see the war as the outcome of colonialism itself, while others stress the choices of a small group of militants who split from the older nationalist leadership. The example shows that explaining an event means showing how conditions, short-term causes and decisions combined, and judging how much each contributed.

Comments. Each paragraph is about one facet of causation (conditions; short-term causes; interaction and debate), and its first sentence states the facet. The example supplies specific evidence (1830, May 1945, 1947, 1948, May 1954, 1 November 1954). The answer opens and closes with the concept. At about 380 words it fits the time available.

Worked example: different perspectives

Analyse how historical events can be seen from different perspectives. Use one example from your thematic study to support your response. [6] (in the style of the IB)

Show the plan, model answer and comments

Plan. Example: Stalin’s collectivisation of Soviet agriculture (1929–1933) and the famine of 1932–1933. Claim: people see the same event differently because of their position, interests and knowledge, and historians differ because they ask different questions of the evidence. Facets: (1) perspectives at the time; (2) why they differed; (3) historians’ perspectives and what the disagreement is about.

Model answer. Stalin’s collectivisation of agriculture shows that an event can be seen in very different ways depending on the position of the observer, and that historians’ perspectives differ as well as those of contemporaries.

At the time, perspectives depended on where people stood. To the Communist Party leadership, forcing peasants into collective farms from late 1929 was a necessary step to feed the growing cities and pay for industrialisation, and peasants who resisted were “kulaks”, class enemies. To millions of peasants, who made up about four-fifths of the population, it meant the loss of land and livestock, deportation for about 1.8 million people labelled kulaks in 1930–1931, and from 1932 famine. In Ukraine, where the famine is known as the Holodomor, it came to be seen as an attack on the nation.

These perspectives differed because of position, interest and knowledge. Party officials saw production targets and treated falling harvests as sabotage; peasants saw their own villages emptied; Western visitors shown model farms often saw success. Each view reflected what that group could see and had reason to say.

Historians also disagree, and their disagreement is about interpretation rather than facts. Robert Conquest (1986) and Anne Applebaum (2017) argue that Stalin used the famine to break Ukrainian peasant resistance and national feeling, while R. W. Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft (2004) accept that his policies caused it and that he refused relief, but find no evidence of an intention to destroy Ukrainians as a nation. The question that divides them is intent. Collectivisation therefore shows that perspectives on an event are shaped by the position of those who lived it and by the questions historians bring to the evidence.

Comments. The answer moves from contemporaries’ perspectives, to the reasons for difference, to historians’ perspectives, so it analyses the concept rather than narrating collectivisation. The figures (four-fifths, 1.8 million, 1932) and the named historians with dates make it specific. It treats a painful subject in measured language and attributes the contested view to the historians who hold it.

Plans for the other concepts

The same approach works for continuity and change and for significance. The two plans that follow show the claim and the facets; the evidence would be developed as in the model answers.

Analyse how historical events can lead to both change and continuity. Use one example from your thematic study to support your response. [6] (in the style of the IB)

Show the plan, model answer and comments

Example: the US Civil War (1861–1865) and the lives of enslaved African Americans.

Claim: the war brought a fundamental legal change but much continuity in economic and social life, so whether it is seen as change or continuity depends on which area of life is examined, and for whom.

Facet 1, legal and political change: the Emancipation Proclamation (1 January 1863); about 179,000 Black soldiers in the Union army; the Thirteenth Amendment (ratified December 1865) abolishing slavery throughout the United States.

Facet 2, economic and social continuity: the Black Codes of 1865–1866 restricted the movement and work of freed people; most remained landless labourers or sharecroppers on the same plantations; white violence, including the Ku Klux Klan, limited the use of new rights.

Facet 3, the pace and nature of change: change in law was sudden; change in practice was slow and partly reversed after Reconstruction ended in 1877; freedom to marry, move, learn to read and be paid was real change within continuing inequality.

Closing sentence: the example shows that change and continuity coexist, and that a judgement about which was greater depends on whether law or everyday life is being measured.

Analyse how the significance of a historical event can be judged in different ways. Use one example from your thematic study to support your response. [6] (in the style of the IB)

Show the plan, model answer and comments

Example: the Montgomery bus boycott (December 1955–December 1956).

Claim: the significance of an event depends on the criteria used (its immediate result, its long-term consequences, its symbolism) and on whose perspective is taken.

Facet 1, significance at the time: a year-long boycott by Black residents ended with the Supreme Court ruling that bus segregation in Alabama was unconstitutional; its direct result was local and limited.

Facet 2, significance for later events: it brought Martin Luther King Jr. to national leadership, led to the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957) and showed that organised non-violent mass action could work.

Facet 3, significance as constructed by memory: the popular story centred on Rosa Parks as a tired seamstress hides the organising of the Women’s Political Council and the NAACP; historians who stress local organisers judge the boycott’s significance differently from those who stress national leaders.

Closing sentence: significance is a judgement made with criteria, and the boycott looks minor or decisive depending on which criteria, and whose perspective, are chosen.

Common mistakes

Narrating the example. The commonest weakness: a clear story of the event with the concept named once at the start. Begin each paragraph with a statement about the concept.
Using two or three examples. The question asks for one. Extra examples earn no extra credit and take time from the essay.
Vague evidence. “Many people suffered” or “the government changed things” cannot support analysis. Use dates, names, laws, numbers.
Answering the wrong concept. Read the statement closely: “multiple causes” is not “consequences”, and “different perspectives” is not “why it happened”.
Writing too much. Section A is worth only 6 of the paper’s 25 marks. A long answer here usually means a rushed essay later.

Self-check

To do:
I can state the wording of a Section A question and what “analyse” requires.
To do:
I can break each of the four concepts into facets and use the vocabulary of each precisely.
To do:
I have chosen an example from my thematic study for each concept and know three facets it illustrates.
To do:
I can plan an answer that opens with a claim about the concept, gives one facet per paragraph and closes on the concept.
To do:
I can support each facet with specific evidence from a single example.
To do:
I can keep a Section A answer to about 350–450 words.

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What a concept question looks like

Breaking each concept into facets

Concept	Facets to analyse	Useful vocabulary
Cause and consequence	Long-term conditions, short-term causes and triggers; necessary and sufficient causes; how causes interact; intended and unintended consequences; short- and long-term consequences; how historians weigh causes	long-term cause, short-term cause, trigger, necessary cause, sufficient cause, multi-causality, contingency
Continuity and change	What changed and what stayed the same; for whom; how fast (sudden or gradual); in which area of life (political, economic, social, cultural); turning points; change in law versus change in practice	continuity, turning point, transformation, reform, revolution
Perspectives	Perspectives of different groups at the time; how position, interest and knowledge shape a view; perspectives of sources; historians’ interpretations and why they change; silenced or marginalised voices	perspective, interpretation, historiography, revisionism, hindsight
Significance	Significance at the time and later; for different groups; criteria (scale, depth, duration, consequences, symbolism); how significance is constructed by memory and by historians	historical significance, turning point, agency

A planning frame for a Section A answer. The paragraphs are organised by facets of the concept, and the example supplies the evidence for each; the answer begins and ends with the concept, not with the story of the example.

Choosing your example

Thematic study	Example	Strong for
Conflict	The outbreak of the Algerian War (1954)	Multiple causes: colonial structures, the events of 1945, the closing of political routes, the example of Indochina
Conflict	The US Civil War and its effects on enslaved people	Continuity and change: emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment set against the Black Codes and sharecropping
Authoritarian rule	Stalin’s collectivisation of agriculture (1929–1933)	Perspectives: the party, peasants, Ukrainians, Western observers, historians; unintended consequences
Popular movements	The African American civil rights movement (1954–1968)	Significance: of the Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington or the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for different groups and over time
Innovation and transformation	Printing with movable type in Europe from the 1450s	Significance and consequences: slow change at first, then the spread of Reformation pamphlets after 1517

Common mistakes

Narrating the example. The commonest weakness: a clear story of the event with the concept named once at the start. Begin each paragraph with a statement about the concept.

Using two or three examples. The question asks for one. Extra examples earn no extra credit and take time from the essay.

Vague evidence. “Many people suffered” or “the government changed things” cannot support analysis. Use dates, names, laws, numbers.

Answering the wrong concept. Read the statement closely: “multiple causes” is not “consequences”, and “different perspectives” is not “why it happened”.

Writing too much. Section A is worth only 6 of the paper’s 25 marks. A long answer here usually means a rushed essay later.

Self-check

I can state the wording of a Section A question and what “analyse” requires.

I can break each of the four concepts into facets and use the vocabulary of each precisely.

I have chosen an example from my thematic study for each concept and know three facets it illustrates.

I can plan an answer that opens with a claim about the concept, gives one facet per paragraph and closes on the concept.

I can support each facet with specific evidence from a single example.

I can keep a Section A answer to about 350–450 words.