Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed
Development of a nation: unification of Italy, 1848–70 — exam questions
15 original Incandio exam-style questions on development of a nation: unification of Italy, 1848–70, 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 Development of a nation: unification of Italy, 1848–70 — 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
3 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.
- What (6 marks)
- analysis of what the author SELECTED and how they treated it, rather than what happened Misread as: evaluating whether the author is right, which earns nothing on this question
- Explain (6–8 marks)
- TWO of whatever is asked for — effects, causes or ways — each analysed and shown to lead somewhere Misread as: one of them explained superbly, which is capped at 4 with no access to Level 3
- 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, AO2, AO4.
Where these sit in the specification
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History (4HI1) — statements 4HI1 2.1 AO4 · 4HI1 2.5 AO4 · 4HI1 2.2 AO4 · 4HI1 2.4 AO4 · 4HI1 2.3 AO4 · 4HI1 2.3 AO1 · 4HI1 2.3 AO2 · 4HI1 2.1 AO1 · 4HI1 2.1 AO2 · 4HI1 2.5 AO1 · 4HI1 2.5 AO2 · 4HI1 2.2 AO1 · 4HI1 2.2 AO2 · 4HI1 2.4 AO1 · 4HI1 2.4 AO2. 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)What
What impression does the author give about the revolutions of 1848 in Italy? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: It is convenient to call them the Italian revolutions, and it is misleading. Milan wanted the Austrians out, Venice wanted a republic, Naples wanted a chamber of deputies, and Turin wanted Lombardy. Only one thing was shared, and it was not a programme but a mistake: for two years a great many people had persuaded themselves that a reforming pope would consent to lead them. When he declined, in April, each city was left holding an object none of the others wanted. From a history of the Risorgimento, written by a British historian in 2009. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 1 = 6 marks)
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(6)What
What impression does the author give about the extent of Italian unity by 1870? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: The map was finished and very little else was. About two men in a hundred could vote; a small minority of the population could hold a conversation in the language the parliament legislated in; and the Pope had instructed the rest not to take part in the politics of a country he refused to admit existed. Against this must be set what had gone: seven customs frontiers, an Austrian army of occupation, a French garrison and a papal criminal court, all removed inside twenty-three years. Which of those two paragraphs is the answer depends entirely on what the question is asking. From a study of the Italian kingdom after unification, written by a British historian in 2018. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 2 = 6 marks)
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(6)What
What impression does the author give about Cavour's reforms in Piedmont? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: The rice fields of Vercelli did not need a railway, and by 1859 they had one. Nor did a kingdom of five million require more track than the rest of the peninsula put together, or a public debt three times what it had inherited, or a standing account with two foreign capitals. Historians who describe this decade as modernisation are describing what happened. They are not describing what it was for. A minister who borrows on that scale has already decided who he is going to fight; the question is only when. From a study of Piedmontese policy before 1859, written by an Italian historian in 2012. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 3 = 6 marks)
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(6)What
What impression does the author give about Garibaldi's expedition of 1860? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: A thousand men with obsolete muskets and no guns took a kingdom of nine million in four months, and the temptation is to explain this by the character of the man who led them. It is worth resisting. At Calatafimi the Bourbon commander withdrew when he might have counter-attacked; at Palermo the garrison negotiated; on the mainland an army of ninety thousand dissolved without a general engagement. Garibaldi's genius, if the word is wanted, was for arriving where a state had already stopped believing in itself. From a study of the fall of the Bourbon kingdom, written by an American historian in 2005. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 4 = 6 marks)
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(6)What
What impression does the author give about the Pact of Plombières? You must use Extract C to explain your answer.
Extract C: Two men met at a spa in July and settled the future of a peninsula neither of them was from. The plan they made would have left four Italian states where there had been seven, with a pope at the head of the arrangement and two French-speaking provinces transferred to France as the fee. What survives of the conversation is a letter written the same week by one of the participants to his own king, explaining why what he had agreed to was better than it sounded. Everything we know about the aims of the Risorgimento's greatest statesman rests on a document composed to obtain approval. From an account of Italian unification, written by a British historian in 2016. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 5 = 6 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of Piedmont's participation in the Crimean War.
(Total for Question 6 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the failure of the Roman Republic in 1849 on the Italian national movement.
(Total for Question 7 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of 'Piedmontisation' on southern Italy after 1861.
(Total for Question 8 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the retention of the Statuto in Piedmont after 1849.
(Total for Question 9 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the Piedmontese invasion of the Papal States in September 1860.
(Total for Question 10 = 8 marks)
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(16)How
'The revolutions of 1848 in Italy failed because the Italians could not agree.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • The refusal of Pius IX in April 1848 • Austrian military strength
(Total for Question 11 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Cavour wanted an enlarged Piedmont rather than a united Italy.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • The Pact of Plombières • The cession of Nice and Savoy
(Total for Question 12 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Piedmont led the Italian national movement because of Cavour.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • Cavour's economic reforms • The survival of the Statuto
(Total for Question 13 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Italy was united by foreign wars rather than by Italian efforts.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • The Austro-Prussian War of 1866 • The Franco-Prussian War of 1870
(Total for Question 14 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Garibaldi did more than Cavour to unify Italy.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • The expedition of the Thousand • The alliance with France
(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 development of a nation: unification of Italy, 1848–70 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
- Development of a nation: unification of Italy, 1848–70 — Option 2: the 1848 Revolutions in the Italian states; Developments in Piedmont, 1849–54; the defeat of Austria, 1854–59; Garibaldi and the Papal States; venice and Rome and the extent of unification by 1870.
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