CAIE 0470 History Exam Prep Guide

If it is your first-time teaching a subject under Cambridge Assessment International Education or if you haven’t taught in the subject in awhile, it could be a tad stressful figuring out how to approach exam preparation for students. For this reason, I prepared this guide to make it as simple as possible for you to understand how to make sure your students have a good idea about write the exams (a lot of this is about writing structure, thus possibly more useful for those teaching classes with weak English writing skills).

There are 4 Components/Papers to the CAIE IGCSE History Exam (as of 2021), however I have had the most experience with Papers 1, 2 and 4 (3 being the alternative option to 4). Thus, I will focus on these exams. I will share what I have learned from examiner feedback, professional development training and what I have seen to lead me to having above international average results for the course.

I will provide a “HOW TO” for INCORPROATING PAPERS IN YOUR LESSONS, TEACHING THE WRITING STRUCTURE, SAMPLE ANSWERS, and a few other small tips.

I should also note that the approach taken/suggested here is based on a two-year approach to the IGCSE program (G1 and G2). Thus, if you are doing the subject in one year, some of the tips and suggestions here would need to be tweaked to fit in a one-year schedule.