Historical Skills: Source Analysis, Chronology and Interpretation
What this domain tests
This section assesses whether you can use evidence rather than merely recall it. You must identify a source's origin, purpose, content, value and limitation, place events in sequence, and recognise that interpretations differ because historians select and weigh evidence differently.
Core skills
- Provenance: who made the source, when, where and why. A royal inscription and a colonial officer's report serve different purposes.
- OPCVL: Origin, Purpose, Content, Value, Limitation. Value depends on the question asked; a biased source can still be valuable for showing attitudes.
- Primary and secondary: a primary source comes from the period under study; a secondary source interprets it later. Both can be biased.
- Corroboration: compare sources before drawing a conclusion; agreement does not automatically prove truth.
- Chronology: use BCE/CE correctly; there is no year zero. Distinguish cause, event and consequence.
- Interpretation: identify the argument and the evidence used; explain disagreement by source base, emphasis or perspective.
Worked example
A 17th-century Dutch East India Company letter claims local traders are 'untrustworthy.' Reasoning: the purpose is to justify company policy to directors, so the letter is limited as evidence about traders, but valuable as evidence of company attitudes and commercial rivalry. Corroborate with local records and trade data.
Traps that cost marks
Calling a source 'useless' because it is biased; describing content without explaining purpose; writing a narrative instead of answering the source question; muddling BCE and CE; treating one interpretation as the only possible reading of evidence.