IB Diploma Programme History SL (first assessment 2020; current guide). Paper 1 and the prescribed subjects are shared by SL and HL, and this topic equips PAPER 1 — the source paper — and the PRESCRIBED SUBJECT menu it examines. Schools choose ONE prescribed subject from five (military leaders; conquest and its impact; the move to global war; rights and protest; conflict and intervention), studied through TWO case studies 案例研究 from different regions. This handout teaches the source-craft Paper 1 marks, then kits each prescribed subject with its scope, its two classic case studies and the questions it asks — so any school's choice is covered. The worked examples use “the move to global war”, the most widely taught choice.

Must-know for Paper 1 and the prescribed subjects:

Paper 1 gives five primary sources 一手史料 plus a background sheet, and 60 minutes for FOUR questions. QUESTION 1 (a–b) is comprehension: read source A and answer by WHAT THE SOURCE SAYS, quoting its wording as evidence — no outside knowledge, no evaluation. Quote the source's wording as evidence 证据. QUESTION 2 asks the value and limitations of a source's CONTENT for a stated enquiry: value lies in what it reliably shows (a memo written at the time records the writer's real intentions), limitations in what it cannot show (one observer's view, a court painter's flattery). QUESTION 3 asks purpose: the intended effect on an audience — to persuade, warn, legitimise, reassure — inferred from the source's form and moment, and the classic error is confusing purpose (an intended effect) with content. QUESTION 4 (the longest) asks an essay in miniature using the sources AND your own knowledge, with a firm two-sided structure.

The toolkit for all of it is OPVL — origin, purpose, value, limitation — with the rule that VALUE and LIMITATION are always RELATIVE TO A QUESTION: a propaganda poster 宣传海报 is worthless as evidence of living standards and excellent as evidence of what a regime wanted its people to believe. Origins (who, when, where) and purpose are the handles; the mistake to avoid is "this source is biased, therefore useless" — bias itself is historical evidence.

MILITARY LEADERS: one leader's rise, campaigns and impact, read through two case studies from different regions (the classic pairing is a modern and an early-modern conqueror — e.g. Charlemagne with a twentieth-century commander). The questions: what made leadership possible, and what did victory change?

CONQUEST AND ITS IMPACT: the conquerors, the conquered and the aftermath, with two conquests compared, with themes of administration, culture, resistance and demography (classic: the Spanish in the Americas, 1492–1600, against the Mongol expansion, 1200–1300).

THE MOVE TO GLOBAL WAR (the worked example below): the expansionist steps by two states that broke collective security — GERMAN EXPANSION 1933–38 (rearmament, Rhineland 1936, Anschluss and Munich 1938) and JAPANESE EXPANSION 1931–41 (Manchuria 1931, China from 1937, the push south to Pearl Harbor). The enquiry: why did collective security 集体安全 fail?

RIGHTS AND PROTEST: the struggle for civil rights in TWO twentieth-century states (classic: the US civil-rights movement and apartheid South Africa) — the legal architecture of oppression, the movement's strategies, the turning points.

CONFLICT AND INTERVENTION: intervention in ONE conflict after 1990 (classic: Rwanda 1994) studied against a second case (e.g. Kosovo 1999) — the causes, the outside response, and the doctrine debates (humanitarian intervention versus sovereignty).

Worked example (the move to global war). A Paper-4 style question — "Evaluate the claim that collective security failed because of the aggressors' audacity rather than the democracies' weakness" — is answered with the sources' treaties and memoranda against your knowledge: the League's Manchuria verdict (1933) that Japan simply walked past; the Hoare–Laval humiliation; the Rhineland's bloodless walk-in; and Munich's surrender of the Sudetenland. Two-sided means weighing whether the pattern shows aggressors escalating faster than institutions could respond, or institutions unwilling to respond at all.

• Q1 technique: quote the source, no outside knowledge (craft).
• Q2: value and limitation of content relative to the enquiry, with a named feature as the handle (craft).
• Q3: purpose as intended effect, inferred from form and moment (craft).
• Q4: a mini-essay — thesis, three sources, outside knowledge, a counter-case, a judgement (craft).
• OPVL with the bias-is-evidence rule; "useless because biased" is the banned move (craft).
• The five prescribed subjects with one classic case-study pairing each; the move-to-global-war timeline 1931–41 worked through (menu).

Boundary notes: Paper 1 is 60 minutes and marks Q1 [8], Q2 [8], Q3 [8] and Q4 [16]: timing discipline is one mark a minute. All case-study facts cited are the standard historical record.