A level History - How to answer source questions on apartheid South Africa

LINK FOR PAST PAPERS: (Remember you need paper 2F) https://qualifications.pearson.com/en...

KEY TIPS FOR SOURCE QUESTIONS:
Read the question first. Underline key terms on the topic to be investigated.
Give yourself 10-15 mins to read, mark up and annotate the sources (at least 5 mins per source)
Try to identify around 3 'themes' to form the basis of three main paragraphs
Tackle both sources together where possible - use quotes from both on the same theme to show where they support each other or where they disagree.
Remember to include a paragraph on the provenance (where, when, by whom and why it was written - how does this make it useful? In what ways might it limit the accuracy of the source? Where possible, use actual claims made in the source to demonstrate this.)
Remember the bulk of the marks come from drawing INFERENCES from the sources (what do the sources SUGGEST about the topic under investigation?) and then EVALUATING the claims made using your own contextual knowledge. As long as you are doing lots of this, feel free to ignore all the rest of this advice! (but do make sure you comment on the provenance of the sources at some point)
A good structure for your main paragraphs could be as follows:
a) Give a short quote from one source
b) Explain what you can INFER from this about the topic under investigation
c) Give a quote from the other source which either supports or challenges this claim/ inference.
d) Use your own knowledge to evaluate this claim/ claims - how accurate is it/ are they?
A good structure for the whole answer is:
a) intro paragraph on the provenance of the source
b) 3 extended paragraphs on three themes from the content of the sources
c) summary of how the sources can be used to investigate this topic.
(This is the structure I have followed in the example answer at the end of this video).
A common mistake is to either write ONLY about the sources WITHOUT using your own knowledge to assess them OR writing an essay about the topic WITHOUT much reference to the sources. Remember the key is to ASSESS the sources USING your own knowledge.
Remember too that the question is ABOUT the sources - how can they be used to shed light on a particular topic? In the example tackled in this video, for example, the question is NOT 'how important was De Klerk in dismantling apartheid in 1990?' That is not the question you need to answer. The question you need to answer is: HOW CAN THESE SOURCES BE USED TO INVESTIGATE how important De Klerk was in dismantling apartheid in 1990? What do the sources suggest about this topic, and are these suggestions accurate?