Gaokao History study guide
Gaokao History · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Gaokao History study guide has 6 sections and about 2,478 words.
01Ancient Chinese History (先秦至明清): Institutions, Land Tax and Thought
Pre-1840 China: institutional evolution from Western Zhou enfeoffment to the Qing Grand Council, the land-tax sequence, and thought from the Hundred Schools to Qing evidential learning. The exam wants causal chains - why a system changed and who lost - not isolated dates.
424 words, about 2 min02Modern Chinese History (1840–1949): Treaty System, Rescue Programmes and the CCP Road
1840–1949: the treaty system, successive rescue programmes, and how the CCP found a rural strategy. The exam ranks programmes by depth - 器物 → 制度 → 思想 - and asks why each earlier attempt failed.
426 words, about 2 min03Contemporary Chinese History (1949–present): State-Building, Exploration and Reform
1949 to the present: how the new state built institutions, where socialist construction between 1956 and 1978 went wrong, and how reform after 1978 changed ownership and allocation. The exam asks you to separate 过渡时期, 探索时期 and 改革开放新时期, and to explain each shift by the contradiction it answered.
402 words, about 2 min04Ancient and Medieval World History: Law, Citizenship and the Medieval Order
The ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and medieval Europe and Asia up to about 1500. The exam compares civilisations: what environment produced, how law and citizenship were defined, and how the medieval West differed from the unified empires of Asia.
415 words, about 2 min05Modern World History: Ideas, Industrial Power and the World Order
From roughly 1500 to the present: the formation and global expansion of capitalism, the revolutions that legitimised it, and the international order from 维也纳体系 to the Cold War and after. The exam links ideas → institutions → industrial power → world order.
394 words, about 2 min06Historical Thinking and Source Analysis: 史料实证, 时空观念 and 历史解释
The five 学科素养 - 唯物史观, 时空观念, 史料实证, 历史解释, 家国情怀 - tested through source-based items. You must say what a source can prove, whose voice it carries, and whether a conclusion is warranted.
417 words, about 2 min