Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed
Colonial rule and the nationalist challenge in India, 1919–47 — exam questions
14 original Incandio exam-style questions on colonial rule and the nationalist challenge in India, 1919–47, 134 marks, about 201 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 Colonial rule and the nationalist challenge in India, 1919–47 — 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 4.1 AO4 · 4HI1 4.2 AO4 · 4HI1 4.5 AO4 · 4HI1 4.4 AO4 · 4HI1 4.3 AO4 · 4HI1 4.1 AO1 · 4HI1 4.1 AO2 · 4HI1 4.5 AO1 · 4HI1 4.5 AO2 · 4HI1 4.2 AO1 · 4HI1 4.2 AO2 · 4HI1 4.3 AO1 · 4HI1 4.3 AO2 · 4HI1 4.4 AO1 · 4HI1 4.4 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 14 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 British response to the Amritsar Massacre? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: The inquiry took evidence for months and its conclusion was that the officer had exceeded what the situation required. He was relieved of his command and allowed to retire. Then the House of Lords divided in his favour, and a newspaper fund raised more money for him in a fortnight than a British soldier earned in a lifetime. Indians who had been asked to trust British justice were invited to read both results in the same week. From a history of British rule in India, written by an Indian historian in 2007. 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 Gandhi's methods in the years 1920–22? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: He asked people to give up what they already had: the courts they had studied for, the titles that had cost a generation of good behaviour, the cloth that was cheaper than anything a village loom could make. The demand was intelligible to a weaver in a way that a constitutional argument was not, and by 1921 the movement had a membership no earlier Congress had imagined. It was also a demand he could withdraw. When a crowd killed policemen at Chauri Chaura he called the whole campaign off, and the men who had left their practices discovered that the discipline he required of them was not a tactic they could vote on. From a study of the Indian national movement, written by an Indian historian in 2004. 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 Mountbatten's role in the partition of India? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: He arrived in March and named a date in June that was fourteen months earlier than the one he had been given. Everything afterwards followed from the date. The boundary commission had five weeks for a frontier that ran through two provinces; the awards were not published until after the flags had been raised, so that on the morning of independence millions of people did not know which country they were in. He believed speed was the only thing that would prevent a civil war, and he may have been right about that. From a history of the end of the British Empire, written by a British historian in 2011. 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 the Quit India campaign (1942)? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: The resolution was passed in the evening and the arrests began before breakfast. Every member of the Congress working committee was in custody within hours, which meant that the campaign the resolution had authorised was conducted by people who had never been told what it was. What followed — the cut telegraph wires, the burnt police posts, the crowds at the district courts — was not the movement Gandhi had described, and the government was able to answer it as a rebellion rather than as a protest. From a study of the end of British rule in India, written by a British historian in 2001. 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 Salt March (1930)? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.
Extract A: Of all the taxes he could have chosen he chose the one on salt, which everybody buys and nobody can do without, and which could be broken by an old man bending down at the sea. The Viceroy's staff advised that arresting him would look absurd and that not arresting him would look worse. Two hundred and forty-one miles of walking produced no concession at all, and the photographs were in New York within the week. From a history of the end of British rule in India, written by an Indian historian in 2007. Incandio-authored for practice, not a real document.
(Total for Question 5 = 6 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the Amritsar Massacre (1919) on India.
(Total for Question 6 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of Direct Action Day (August 1946) on the movement towards partition.
(Total for Question 7 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the non-cooperation movement (1920–22) on the Indian nationalist movement.
(Total for Question 8 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the Simon Commission (1927–28) on Indian politics.
(Total for Question 9 = 8 marks)
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(8)Explain
Explain two effects of the Second World War on the position of the Muslim League in India.
(Total for Question 10 = 8 marks)
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(16)How
'The Government of India Act (1935) was a significant step towards Indian independence.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • provincial autonomy • the elections of 1937
(Total for Question 11 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Gandhi's methods were the main reason Congress became a mass movement in the years 1919–27.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • satyagraha and non-cooperation • the Khilafat alliance
(Total for Question 12 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Amritsar was the main reason for the growth of Indian nationalism in the years 1919–22.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • the Rowlatt Acts (1919) • the Government of India Act (1919)
(Total for Question 13 = 16 marks)
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(16)How
'Partition in 1947 was the fault of the British.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. • the role of Mountbatten • the Cabinet Mission (1946)
(Total for Question 14 = 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 — 14 questions, marked on Incandio against the authored scheme, with the mistake you actually made named.
- Teach it — explain colonial rule and the nationalist challenge in India, 1919–47 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
- Colonial rule and the nationalist challenge in India, 1919–47 — Option 4: the Rowlatt Acts, Amritsar and the Government of India Act, 1919; Gandhi and Congress, 1919–27; key developments, 1927–39; the impact of the Second World War on India; communal violence, independence and partition, 1945–47.
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