Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed
The USA, 1918–41 — exam questions
15 original Incandio exam-style questions on the USA, 1918–41, 150 marks, about 225 minutes of writing. Each one carries the command word, the tariff and the specification statement it assesses, exactly as a paper presents them. This is an original Incandio practice question, written to reflect the structure and demands of the qualification. It is not an official Pearson Edexcel past-paper question.
This is the practice set for The USA, 1918–41 — the option that teaches it. Read the option first if the idea is new; come here when you want to find out whether you can turn it into marks. Completely free, no account needed to read.
What these questions ask of you
2 command words run through this set, and on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History each one means something precise. Answering the wrong command is the commonest way a candidate who understands the option still loses the mark.
- Describe (6 marks)
- TWO features, each with supporting detail. Recall only; explanation earns nothing here Misread as: explaining why the feature mattered, which is a different objective on a different question
- How (8–16 marks)
- a judgement on the EXTENT, built from both sides — agreement and disagreement, or three aspects and a criterion Misread as: agreement only on the source question (capped at 4), or the two printed bullets and nothing else on the sixteen-marker (held at 10)
Assessed on Paper 1 (4HI1/01) and Paper 2 (4HI1/02), against AO1, AO3, AO4.
Where these sit in the specification
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History (4HI1) — statements 4HI1 A3.1 AO1 · 4HI1 A3.3 AO1 · 4HI1 A3.2 AO1 · 4HI1 A3.4 AO1 · 4HI1 A3.5 AO1 · 4HI1 A3.1 AO3 · 4HI1 A3.3 AO3 · 4HI1 A3.2 AO3 · 4HI1 A3.4 AO3 · 4HI1 A3.5 AO3 · 4HI1 A3.1 AO4 · 4HI1 A3.3 AO4 · 4HI1 A3.4 AO4 · 4HI1 A3.5 AO4 · 4HI1 A3.2 AO4. Incandio is aligned to this specification; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's wording.
The 15 questions
Answer them on paper, then open the option's exam practice to have them marked. The mark scheme, the accepted and rejected answers and the annotated model answer are in Incandio and are not printed here — an answer beside its question is not practice.
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of the American economic boom of the 1920s.
(Total for Question 1 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
(Total for Question 2 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
(Total for Question 3 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of the New Deal.
(Total for Question 4 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of opposition to the New Deal.
(Total for Question 5 = 6 marks)
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(8)How
How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about prosperity in the United States in the 1920s? Explain your answer.
Source A: We have a radio now and the payments are eleven dollars a month, which sounds a great deal set down like that but everybody on the street has one and nobody thinks anything of it. Frank says the plant will take on more men in the spring. I have never in my life been able to buy a thing before I had the money for it, and I cannot decide whether it is clever or whether it is a trick. From a letter written by a woman in Cleveland, Ohio, to her sister, in 1927. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Corn is nineteen cents and it cost us more than that to raise it. Two farms on this road have gone to the bank this year and the Petersons have gone to Chicago, which is where they all go. They tell us in the magazines that the country has never been so rich. It may be true somewhere. It is not true within forty miles of here, and it has not been true since the year after the war. From a letter written by a farmer in Nebraska to a state senator, in 1927. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 6 = 8 marks)
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(8)How
How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about President Hoover's response to the Depression? Explain your answer.
Source A: The Corporation has this month approved advances to eleven banks and two railroads, and the Secretary is satisfied that in each case a failure has been averted. It is the President's view, stated again this week, that assistance to individuals must remain the responsibility of the states and of private charity, and that any departure from that principle would be more damaging in the long run than the distress it relieved. From a memorandum circulated within a United States government department, written in 1932. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: The city relief fund was exhausted in March and the county's in June. We are feeding four hundred families out of a church hall on donations that fall every week, and we are turning away more than we take. I have written twice to Washington and been told twice that the matter is for the state. The state has no money. I do not know what is meant to happen to these people. From a letter written by a clergyman in Toledo, Ohio, to a newspaper, in 1932. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 7 = 8 marks)
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(8)How
How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about attitudes to immigration in the United States in the 1920s? Explain your answer.
Source A: The committee has been at pains to explain that the measure is arithmetical and that no reflection is intended upon any people. I would only observe that if the object were arithmetic, the census of 1920 lay ready to hand and would have cut the numbers as surely. The gentlemen have gone back thirty years to find a country that suits them, and they have found it. From a speech by a congressman opposing the immigration bill, made in 1924. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Our members in the building trades and the mines have seen wages held down for twenty years by the willingness of new arrivals to work for less, and they are entitled to ask for a limit. We say nothing against the men themselves, many of whom are now our own members. We say that a labour market cannot absorb a million people a year and pay a living wage. From a statement by an American trade union federation, published in 1923. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 8 = 8 marks)
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(8)How
How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the effects of the New Deal? Explain your answer.
Source A: The camp took my boy in June and he has sent home twenty-five dollars a month since, which is what has kept this house. He has put on weight and learned to read a map. I know what they say about make-work and I would ask them what my son was doing in April, which was standing on a corner. From a letter written by a woman in Kentucky to her congressman, in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Eleven million are still without work in this the third year of recovery, and the Administration proposes to spend its way to a fourth. What has been bought is a payroll, not an economy. No manufacturer of my acquaintance has ordered a new machine since 1931, and none will while the government competes for his labour and cannot say what next year's rules will be. From an article in a business journal, published in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 9 = 8 marks)
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(8)How
How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about the seriousness of opposition to Roosevelt in 1935? Explain your answer.
Source A: We are asked to accept that a board in Washington may fix the price of a chicken in Brooklyn, and that this is commerce among the several states. If the clause means that, it means anything, and the Congress has no limits at all. The distress is real and it does not amend the instrument under which we govern. From a legal commentary on the Schechter case, published in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: The Senator does not oppose the President for doing too much but for doing too little, and that is what makes him dangerous. Four million families have signed his cards. If he stands next year and takes even a part of them, this administration is finished, and everybody in this building knows it. From a private letter between two Democratic Party officials, written in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 10 = 8 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that the American boom of the 1920s was built on credit that could not last. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.
Extract C: The decade sold its own future and called the proceeds prosperity. Sixty per cent of the cars and eighty per cent of the radios were bought with money nobody yet had, and the shares were bought with ten cents in the dollar. Every purchase made in 1927 was a sale removed from 1930, and every share bought on margin was a forced sale waiting for a bad week. What ended in October was not a boom interrupted but an arrangement completing itself. From a study of the American economy between the wars, written by a British historian in 2006. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: We have a radio now and the payments are eleven dollars a month, which sounds a great deal set down like that but everybody on the street has one and nobody thinks anything of it. Frank says the plant will take on more men in the spring. From a letter written by a woman in Cleveland, Ohio, to her sister, in 1927. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Corn is nineteen cents and it cost us more than that to raise it. They tell us in the magazines that the country has never been so rich. It may be true somewhere. It is not true within forty miles of here, and it has not been true since the year after the war. From a letter written by a farmer in Nebraska to a state senator, in 1927. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 11 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that Hoover's reputation as a president who did nothing is undeserved. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.
Extract C: He built more public works than every president before him together, cut taxes, and created a corporation that lent hundreds of millions to banks and railroads. He is remembered by a word attached to a shanty town. The charge against him is not idleness, which the record refutes, but direction: every dollar went to an institution on the theory that recovery would reach a man through his employer, and to the man himself he would send nothing at all, on principle, for three and a half years. From a study of the Hoover presidency, written by an American historian in 2008. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: The Corporation has this month approved advances to eleven banks and two railroads, and the Secretary is satisfied that in each case a failure has been averted. It is the President's view, stated again this week, that assistance to individuals must remain the responsibility of the states and of private charity. From a memorandum circulated within a United States government department, written in 1932. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: The city relief fund was exhausted in March and the county's in June. I have written twice to Washington and been told twice that the matter is for the state. The state has no money. I do not know what is meant to happen to these people. From a letter written by a clergyman in Toledo, Ohio, to a newspaper, in 1932. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 12 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that the New Deal failed because it did not end unemployment. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.
Extract C: The test of an economic programme is whether people have work, and by that test the verdict is not close. Unemployment stood at about fifteen per cent in 1939, six years and a great deal of money after the Hundred Days, and it fell to nothing only when the yards began building warships. Everything else claimed for the New Deal — confidence, security, institutions — is an argument for changing the subject. From an economic history of the United States, written by a British historian in 2014. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: The camp took my boy in June and he has sent home twenty-five dollars a month since, which is what has kept this house. I know what they say about make-work and I would ask them what my son was doing in April, which was standing on a corner. From a letter written by a woman in Kentucky to her congressman, in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Eleven million are still without work in this the third year of recovery, and the Administration proposes to spend its way to a fourth. What has been bought is a payroll, not an economy. From an article in a business journal, published in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 13 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that the New Deal's radical critics shaped its most important legislation. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.
Extract C: None of them held office, none of their programmes was enacted under their own names, and their party took under two per cent of the vote. They nevertheless obtained a federal pension, a sharp rise in the top rate of tax and a labour law, all in a single year, from a president who was attacking them at the time. It is the most successful failure in American politics, and the reason the Union Party polled so badly in 1936 is that by then there was very little left to promise. From a study of American politics in the 1930s, written by an American historian in 2017. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: We are asked to accept that a board in Washington may fix the price of a chicken in Brooklyn, and that this is commerce among the several states. The distress is real and it does not amend the instrument under which we govern. From a legal commentary on the Schechter case, published in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: The Senator does not oppose the President for doing too much but for doing too little, and that is what makes him dangerous. Four million families have signed his cards. If he stands next year and takes even a part of them, this administration is finished, and everybody in this building knows it. From a private letter between two Democratic Party officials, written in 1935. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 14 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that the social tensions of the 1920s were caused by racial and religious prejudice rather than by economic pressure. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer.
Extract C: It is customary to explain the quotas by the labour market and the Klan by rural distress, and the explanation fails on its own evidence. The Act of 1924 could have cut the numbers from any census and chose the one that changed who came. The Klan's greatest state was Indiana, which was prospering. What the decade was defending was not a wage but an idea of who was properly American, and it was defended most fiercely where there was most to lose and least reason to be afraid. From a study of American society in the 1920s, written by an American historian in 2010. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: The gentlemen have gone back thirty years to find a country that suits them, and they have found it. If the object were arithmetic, the census of 1920 lay ready to hand and would have cut the numbers as surely. From a speech by a congressman opposing the immigration bill, made in 1924. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Our members in the building trades and the mines have seen wages held down for twenty years by the willingness of new arrivals to work for less. We say that a labour market cannot absorb a million people a year and pay a living wage. From a statement by an American trade union federation, published in 1923. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 15 = 16 marks)
Have them marked, then defend the answer
Practice tells you the mark; teaching it back tells you whether you understand it. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it.
- Mark these questions — 15 questions, marked on Incandio against the authored scheme, with the mistake you actually made named.
- Teach it — explain the USA, 1918–41 to Ember, an AI pupil who does not have it yet and asks the awkward question.
- Defend it — three rounds against the mind with the strongest claim on it, marked against descriptors you can read first.
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Back to the option
- The USA, 1918–41 — Option A3: the Roaring Twenties; increased social tensions in the 1920s; the USA in Depression, 1929–33; Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1933–41; the Opposition to the New Deal.
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