Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed
The Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75 — exam questions
15 original Incandio exam-style questions on the Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75, 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 Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75 — 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 A4.2 AO1 · 4HI1 A4.1 AO1 · 4HI1 A4.5 AO1 · 4HI1 A4.4 AO1 · 4HI1 A4.3 AO1 · 4HI1 A4.2 AO3 · 4HI1 A4.1 AO3 · 4HI1 A4.5 AO3 · 4HI1 A4.4 AO3 · 4HI1 A4.3 AO3 · 4HI1 A4.2 AO4 · 4HI1 A4.1 AO4 · 4HI1 A4.5 AO4 · 4HI1 A4.4 AO4 · 4HI1 A4.3 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 government of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam.
(Total for Question 1 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of the Vietminh's war against France, 1946–54.
(Total for Question 2 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of opposition to the Vietnam War inside the United States.
(Total for Question 3 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of Nixon's policy of Vietnamisation.
(Total for Question 4 = 6 marks)
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(6)Describe
Describe TWO features of American military strategy in Vietnam between 1965 and 1968.
(Total for Question 5 = 6 marks)
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(8)How
How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about support for the government of South Vietnam in the countryside? Explain your answer.
Source A: The district reports eleven hamlets completed this quarter against a target of nine, and the province is ahead of schedule. I am obliged to add that of the eleven, four have been built on ground the families did not choose and two are within an hour of the fields they no longer work. The figures I forward are correct. I would not care to be asked what they measure. From a report by a South Vietnamese province official to his superiors in Saigon, 1963. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: My father was given three fields in the year of the great flood and the paper was signed by men from the forest. In the year the new government came, the owner returned with a soldier and the paper was worth nothing. My father did not join anyone. My brother joined, and my father did not stop him, and that is all I am able to tell you about who we supported. From an interview with a villager in the Mekong delta, recorded by a foreign journalist in 1965. 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 the French position in Indochina by 1954? Explain your answer.
Source A: The valley was chosen because it could be held from the air and because it would oblige them to come to us in the open. We were told the hills were beyond the reach of anything they could move. On the fourth day the strip was unusable and the aircraft were dropping to men who were no longer there to receive it. I have been asked since whether we were brave. That was never the question. From the recollections of a French officer who served at Dien Bien Phu, written for a regimental journal in 1964. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: The Assembly is asked again for credits for a war that has now lasted longer than the last one and whose purpose no minister will state in a single sentence. Eight years, and the sum voted this year exceeds the whole of the housing programme. Deputies will speak of prestige. Their constituents speak of the lists of names in the local paper, and increasingly of the Americans who now pay for most of it. From an article in a French newspaper, published in Paris in March 1954. 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 the effects of the war on Vietnamese civilians? Explain your answer.
Source A: The spraying is recorded as forty-one sorties this month against cover along the tracks. The province chief asks me to note that the same ground carries the second rice crop for nine hamlets and that he has no authority to compensate them. I have forwarded his letter. I record that no reply is required of me and that none has come. From an American adviser's report from a Vietnamese province, 1967. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: They came in the afternoon and told the whole hamlet to be at the road by morning with what we could carry. My grandmother would not go because the graves are behind the house and she said a family that leaves its graves is nobody. The new place had a fence and a well and no fields. In the second year the men went back at night to plant, and after that some of them did not come back at all. From an interview with a Vietnamese woman about her childhood, recorded in 1994. 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 position of South Vietnam after the Paris Accords? Explain your answer.
Source A: We are asked to sign a peace in which one army goes home and the other stays exactly where it stands. I am told privately that if they come again the aircraft will come too. I have the letter. I do not have a treaty, and I have watched what a legislature six thousand miles away can do to a letter. From notes made by a South Vietnamese official during the Paris negotiations, January 1973. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: The division has fuel for training or fuel for operations and cannot have both. Two of our three artillery battalions are rationed to a quarter of the rate we were taught to fire at, and the helicopters that were the whole of our method are grounded four days in five. We were built to fight one way. Nobody has told us what the other way is. From a South Vietnamese officer's letter to a friend, written in late 1974. 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 Tet Offensive? Explain your answer.
Source A: By the end of the second week the enemy had been driven from every city he entered but one, at a cost to himself that his units in this corps cannot replace within a year. The command's assessment is that the offensive was a considerable defeat for him. I record also that the request for reinforcement forwarded this month is the largest of the war. From an American military assessment written in Vietnam in February 1968. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: For three years we have been shown a chart with a line on it and told that the line means the end is near. Last night the country watched men with rifles inside the grounds of its own embassy, six thousand miles from home, in a city we were assured was secure. Whatever the generals prove about casualties this week, nobody in this studio is going to be able to read that chart aloud again. From a broadcast by an American network correspondent, February 1968. 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 insurgency in South Vietnam was created by Diem's own policies. 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 republic was not undone from Hanoi. It was undone in the villages, by a government that took back the fields its enemies had given away, that moved families off ancestral ground and called the result security, and that answered a Buddhist country with a Catholic family and a secret police. No supply route through Laos can explain why a peasant preferred the men in the forest. Diem recruited for them, field by field, for nine years. From a history of South Vietnam, written by an Australian historian in 2009. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: The district reports eleven hamlets completed this quarter against a target of nine. Of the eleven, four have been built on ground the families did not choose. The figures I forward are correct. I would not care to be asked what they measure. From a report by a South Vietnamese province official to his superiors in Saigon, 1963. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: My father was given three fields in the year of the great flood and the paper was signed by men from the forest. In the year the new government came, the owner returned with a soldier and the paper was worth nothing. My father did not join anyone. My brother joined. From an interview with a villager in the Mekong delta, recorded by a foreign journalist in 1965. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 11 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that the war in Indochina began as a colonial conflict and was reclassified as a Cold War one. 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: Nothing about the movement changed between 1945 and 1950. What changed was the map on which Washington read it. In September 1945 a Vietnamese republic was declared in the words of Thomas Jefferson and American officials wondered aloud whether a European empire ought to be restored at all. Five years later, after Beijing and Seoul, the same movement had become an instrument of Moscow and the same officials were paying for the restoration. The reclassification was not a discovery. It was an act of filing. From a study of the origins of the Vietnam wars, written by an American historian in 2011. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: The valley was chosen because it could be held from the air. We were told the hills were beyond the reach of anything they could move. On the fourth day the strip was unusable. From the recollections of a French officer who served at Dien Bien Phu, written for a regimental journal in 1964. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Eight years, and the sum voted this year exceeds the whole of the housing programme. Deputies will speak of prestige. Their constituents speak of the lists of names in the local paper, and increasingly of the Americans who now pay for most of it. From an article in a French newspaper, published in Paris in March 1954. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 12 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
Extract C suggests that American methods in Vietnam destroyed the support they were intended to win. 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: Two campaigns were run in the same country by the same government, and each was the other's enemy. One offered wells, clinics and security. The other sprayed the fields those wells watered, burned the hamlets that clinic served, and counted the dead of both sides as a measure of progress. Hearts and minds was not defeated by the enemy. It was defeated by the artillery of its own side, and no amount of concrete could outbuild a defoliant. From a history of counter-insurgency, written by an American author in 2016. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: The spraying is recorded as forty-one sorties this month against cover along the tracks. The province chief asks me to note that the same ground carries the second rice crop for nine hamlets and that he has no authority to compensate them. From an American adviser's report from a Vietnamese province, 1967. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: They came in the afternoon and told the whole hamlet to be at the road by morning with what we could carry. The new place had a fence and a well and no fields. In the second year the men went back at night to plant, and after that some of them did not come back at all. From an interview with a Vietnamese woman about her childhood, recorded in 1994. 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 Paris Accords made the fall of South Vietnam inevitable. 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: An agreement that withdraws one army and leaves the other in position has not ended a war; it has scheduled one. In January 1973 something like a hundred thousand northern soldiers were confirmed in place inside a country whose ally was going home, and the paper called this a ceasefire. Le Duc Tho understood the document better than the prize committee did and declined the honour. Everything between that signature and the last helicopter was administration. From a study of the end of the Vietnam War, written by a Canadian historian in 2014. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: We are asked to sign a peace in which one army goes home and the other stays exactly where it stands. I am told privately that if they come again the aircraft will come too. I have the letter. I do not have a treaty. From notes made by a South Vietnamese official during the Paris negotiations, January 1973. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: Two of our three artillery battalions are rationed to a quarter of the rate we were taught to fire at, and the helicopters that were the whole of our method are grounded four days in five. We were built to fight one way. Nobody has told us what the other way is. From a South Vietnamese officer's letter to a friend, written in late 1974. 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 war was lost because of television coverage. 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: An army that had won every battle it chose to fight was defeated in the living rooms of the people who had sent it. In February 1968 the cameras took an offensive that had been destroyed in three weeks and presented it as a catastrophe, and a nation that had been willing in January was unwilling by April. This was the first war in which the enemy's decisive weapon was the opponent's own broadcasting schedule, and it will not be the last. From a study of war and the media, written by a British author in 1998. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source A: By the end of the second week the enemy had been driven from every city he entered but one, at a cost to himself that his units in this corps cannot replace within a year. I record also that the request for reinforcement forwarded this month is the largest of the war. From an American military assessment written in Vietnam in February 1968. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
Source B: For three years we have been shown a chart with a line on it and told that the line means the end is near. Last night the country watched men with rifles inside the grounds of its own embassy, in a city we were assured was secure. From a broadcast by an American network correspondent, February 1968. 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 Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75 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 Vietnam Conflict, 1945–75 — Option A4: the struggle against France for independence, 1945–54; US policy and intervention, 1954–64; confrontation in the Vietnam War, escalation 1964–68; nixon and Ford's policies – Vietnamisation, peace and Communist victory, 1969–75; the impact of conflict on civilians in Vietnam and attitudes in the USA.
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