Cambridge AS & A Level History 9489/12 is the May/June 2026 Paper 1 (Document Question), variant 2. It lasts 1 hour 15 minutes, is worth 40 marks and is an AS Level paper. You answer one question, from the option your school taught: the Russian Revolution, the American Civil War or China and Japan. Each question gives you four sources and two parts, and the 25-mark part (b), which tests a view against all four sources, carries more than half the paper’s marks. This guide describes every source and shows what the official mark scheme credited at each level. The paper and its mark scheme are free on the Tutopiya Learning Portal.

For an overview of all four 9489 papers from this series, see A Level History 9489 May/June 2026 past papers: what came up and how it was marked.

9489/12 at a glance

Rubric: answer one question from one section only, and answer both parts of it.

Question	Section and topic	(a) 15 marks	(b) 25 marks
1	A European: The Russian Revolution, 1894–1921	Compare B and C as evidence about Bolshevik food requisitioning	How far the sources support the view that the Bolsheviks were hostile to the peasants
2	B American: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–77	Compare the views in C and D about the exemption clause in the Conscription Act	How far the sources show Americans on both sides agreed with conscription
3	C International: China and Japan, 1912–45	How far B and D agree about the New Fourth Army	How far the sources show the Kuomintang and Communists were united against Japan after 1937
	Total answered (one question, (a) + (b))		40

Question-by-question walkthrough

How every question is marked

All three questions use the same two generic level grids, so learn them first.

Part (a), 15 marks, four levels:

• Level 1 (1–3): you describe or paraphrase each source. A simple comparison of type (a speech against a poster) stays here.
• Level 2 (4–7): you find similarities or differences, but only on one side, or you assert them without quoting or pointing to the sources.
• Level 3 (8–11): you compare views, finding both similarities and differences and backing each one with source content.
• Level 4 (12–15): you make a developed comparison and explain why the sources agree or differ, using context, provenance or both.

Part (b), 25 marks, five levels:

• Level 1 (1–5): you describe the sources without linking them to the question, or write an essay with little or no use of the sources.
• Level 2 (6–10): you use the sources to support the view or to challenge it, not both.
• Level 3 (11–15): you use the sources to support and to challenge the view.
• Level 4 (16–20): you evaluate the sources in context, for example their nature, origin and purpose, to show how far they support or challenge the view.
• Level 5 (21–25): you weigh the evidence and reach a supported judgement on how far the sources support the view.

Every question in the mark scheme ends with “accept any other valid responses”, so the content below is indicative. Other points earn credit if they are valid and supported.

Section A: The Russian Revolution, 1894–1921

The sources:

• Source A: the memoir of a Socialist Revolutionary (SR) who had been a student in Petrograd in 1917, from a landowning family near Kursk, published after her release from a prison camp in 1960. She recalls de-kulakisation in summer 1918, when villages that would not hand over grain or name kulaks were raided, so peasants picked “kulaks” themselves, often childless bachelors.
• Source B: a speech by Lenin read at a party conference on work in the countryside, November 1919. It defends grain purchases and requisitioning as the only way to feed hungry workers, says this is not the workers’ government fighting the peasants, and blames peasants for hiding grain to profit from rising prices.
• Source C: a 1919 White Army propaganda poster, captioned as showing how at home the Bolsheviks feel in Cossack villages. Armed soldiers seize livestock and grain and manhandle the villagers.
• Source D: Lenin’s December 1919 account of the Constituent Assembly elections, which the Bolsheviks had lost to the SRs. He claims the decree on land won the peasants over within hours, taking land from landowners without compensation and copying the SRs’ own peasant mandates.

1(a) Compare and contrast B and C as evidence about Bolshevik food requisitioning (15 marks)

• Similarities in the mark scheme: both show requisitioning happening (the soldiers carry off grain and chickens in C; peasants must hand over assessed quotas in B), both imply peasants are hiding food, and both suggest the Bolsheviks had pressing needs that made the policy necessary.
• Differences: B describes an orderly, official process that leaves the peasants enough, while the soldiers in C seem to take everything; B presents requisitioning as necessary and denies it is a fight with the peasants, while C shows force with weapons; and the authors’ attitudes differ, with Lenin seeing it as vital to save the revolution and the White artist seeing it as terror against innocent people.
• To reach Level 4: explain the similarities through context. Both date from the Civil War and War Communism, when armed detachments seized grain from peasants who refused to hand it over. Explain the differences through provenance: Lenin was addressing Bolsheviks who would carry out requisitioning, while the Whites used its violence as propaganda against the Bolsheviks.

1(b) How far do the sources support the view that the Bolsheviks were hostile to the peasants? (25 marks)

• Support: A shows hostility to kulaks and to poorer villages that refused to give up grain or name kulaks. B says requisitioning will be enforced “without fail” and accuses peasants of profiteering. C shows soldiers taking livestock and grain and threatening violence.
• Challenge: A can be read the other way in context, because the committees of the poor gave poorer peasants power and were meant to win their support. B claims the policy is not a fight with the peasants, regrets that no goods can be given in return and calls the grain a loan. D says the Bolsheviks wanted to be the peasants’ friends and gave them land.
• Evaluation the mark scheme suggests: for A, the number of “kulaks” identified was far greater than their likely number, and the author was an SR, a party that condemned de-kulakisation. B is a public speech that sounds fair but hints at the suspicion of peasants many Bolsheviks felt, and you can test its claims against the food crisis and transport problems. C is White propaganda, and the Whites also took food; Cossacks often supported the Whites. D was written after the SRs beat the Bolsheviks in the Assembly elections, and the land decree took SR policy, so there is some underhandedness in it.

Section B: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–77

The sources:

• Source A: a print titled Southern “Volunteers”, published in the North in April 1862. Confederates drag a man who says he is a Union man and threaten to hang him if he will not fight.
• Source B: a North Carolina newspaper, July 1862. It says conscription is taking small farmers who cannot pay for substitutes away from their families and crops, calls the law unequal, yet praises the people’s obedience and patriotism and asks the wealthy to support soldiers’ families.
• Source C: a letter to The New York Times from a man who took part in the New York draft riots, published 15 July 1863. He says the exemption clause has made the poor outcasts who must fight while the rich stay home, and vows to keep protesting until the law is repealed.
• Source D: the editor’s reply, published the same day. It argues the poor man is not asked to serve needlessly, that families are provided for, that the $300 paid for exemption goes to the men who take their place, and that rioting cannot be justified.

2(a) Compare and contrast the views in C and D about the exemption clause (15 marks)

• Similarities in the mark scheme: both show the clause provoked violent protest, both accept the poor will be compelled to serve, and both agree the clause lets the rich avoid service (D openly admits that $300 buys exemption).
• Differences: the impact on the poor (C says families will starve, D says they will be provided for); how the poor are shown (victims in C, patriotic volunteers in D); how the rich are shown (exploiters in C, men whose money helps the poor in D); and the protest itself (justified in C, condemned as crime in D).
• To reach Level 4: use context and purpose. Both sides needed more men than volunteers provided, so both introduced conscription with exemptions to limit opposition. C voices the poor’s opposition. D reflects the official view; The New York Times was strongly pro-Lincoln and pro-Union and its editors feared the riots would damage the war effort. The mark scheme also points to the timing, just after Gettysburg, and to the many poor Irish immigrants among the rioters.

2(b) How far do the sources show Americans on both sides agreed with conscription? (25 marks)

• Support: B says the farmers submit to the law and praises the people’s boundless patriotism. D defends the draft as an honourable duty and says protest against it is wrong.
• Challenge: A puts “volunteers” in inverted commas and shows men forced to join, threatened with hanging, which implies conscription was needed because men were not volunteering. B also shows reluctance and resentment of an unequal law. C speaks for poor conscripts who did not want to go.
• Evaluation the mark scheme suggests: A appeared just after the Confederate Conscription Act of April 1862 and was clearly Northern, not sympathetic to the Confederacy, though many Southerners were Unionists who resisted enlistment. B was published during the harvest, three months after the Act, so some criticism is unsurprising, while its praise of patriotism aims to keep morale up. C was printed by a pro-draft paper so its editor could reply. D defended the $300 provision during riots that lasted four days, caused heavy damage and deaths, and ended when federal troops were sent in.

Section C: China and Japan, 1912–45

The sources:

• Source A: a 1937 cartoon, “A Sacred Handshake”, by an artist working for a magazine that supported resistance to Japan. The sleeves are labelled Chinese Communist Party and Chinese Nationalist Party, and the clasped hands trap a Japanese soldier.
• Source B: a Communist Party statement issued by Mao Zedong, 20 January 1941. It says the New Fourth Army was obeying orders to move north when it was treacherously attacked by a pro-Japanese clique, mocks the charge of mutiny, and says the time for concessions is over.
• Source C: a 1942 report by a US diplomat in China. It describes genuine co-operation in the early stage of the war, then Kuomintang jealousy and repression of the Communists from autumn 1938, ending in the New Fourth Army clash and near hostility.
• Source D: Chiang Kai-shek’s memoirs, 1957. He says government troops obeyed orders to avoid conflict but the New Fourth Army did not, refused to move north, planned to control the Nanking–Shanghai–Hangchow triangle and attacked the government’s 40th Division, so it was disbanded and its leader captured.

3(a) To what extent do B and D agree about the New Fourth Army? (15 marks)

• Agreements in the mark scheme: the army was ordered north by Kuomintang leaders, it was involved in the Nanking–Shanghai–Hangchow triangle, there was a clash with government forces in which Commander Yeh Ting was captured and imprisoned, and its official status was cancelled.
• Disagreements: B says the army was moving north as instructed, D says it refused; B says it was attacked, D says it attacked first; and B says it entered the triangle to fight the Japanese, while D says it wanted to take control there.
• To reach Level 4: explain why. Each leader presents his own side in the best light: Mao is sarcastic, while Chiang’s account reads as a series of seemingly objective facts. Use the rivalry as context: Communists suspected Chiang had only postponed his aim of destroying them, and the Kuomintang saw the Communist presence in the Yangtze valley, close to Nanjing, as a political threat.

3(b) How far do the sources show the Kuomintang and Communists were united against Japan after 1937? (25 marks)

• Support: A shows the two parties joined so that Japan cannot invade. C describes the early co-operation as genuine, a period many even in the government saw as its most efficient.
• Challenge: B says the Communists were blocked by the Kuomintang and accuses some of its forces of serving Japan. C goes on to describe the breakdown, which it blames mainly on Kuomintang jealousy. D blames the New Fourth Army for the conflict.
• Evaluation the mark scheme suggests: A came early in the war, when the Communists were keen to promote unity, and some Kuomintang leaders saw this as a Communist chance to regroup. B casts the Communists as the true patriots and draws on a common view that Chiang was not committed to fighting Japan. C is balanced, and perhaps surprisingly sympathetic to the Communists for an American source, reflecting American respect for their campaign and criticism of the Kuomintang. D is Chiang’s justification, written long after, and is undermined by B and, more convincingly, by C.

Where the marks are on 9489/12

Skill	Part	Marks	How it is marked
Comparing two sources and explaining why they agree or differ	(a)	15	Four levels
Testing a view with all four sources and reaching a judgement	(b)	25	Five levels
Total		40

• Part (b) carries 62.5% of the paper. Plan it before you start part (a) so you don’t run short of time.
• Balance is the gate into the middle of part (b). Using sources on one side only caps you at 10 out of 25, however good the analysis.
• Evaluation is the gate into the top levels. In part (a), Level 4 needs an explanation of why the sources agree or differ; in part (b), Level 4 needs the sources evaluated in context.
• Own knowledge is for testing the sources, not replacing them. An essay with little or no reference to the sources is Level 1 in part (b).

How to self-mark 9489/12 with the mark scheme

1. Mark part (a) by sorting your points. Label each one as a similarity or a difference and check that it quotes or points to both sources. Both kinds, supported, puts you in Level 3.
2. Look for a “why”. If you explained at least one similarity or difference through provenance or context, you are in Level 4. Use the explanation paragraphs in the mark scheme to check your context was relevant.
3. For part (b), tick and cross each source. Mark each use as support or challenge. One side only is Level 2; both sides is Level 3.
4. Check your evaluation. Did you question a source’s nature, origin or purpose, and did that change how much weight it carries for the view? If so, you are in Level 4.
5. Test your conclusion. Level 5 needs you to weigh the sources against each other and give a reasoned verdict on “how far”, not just repeat both sides.
6. Compare with the indicative content. Note any source the mark scheme uses on both sides that you used on one side only (A in Question 1, B in Question 2, C in Question 3).

Sit 9489/12 as a timed mock

You have 75 minutes for one 40-mark question. Spend longer reading than you think, because both parts depend on the sources.

Block	Marks	Time
Read all four sources and annotate provenance (who, when, for whom, why)	–	12 minutes
Part (a): plan the comparison, then write	15	23 minutes
Part (b): sort sources into support and challenge, then write	25	36 minutes
Check the part (b) conclusion answers “how far”	–	4 minutes

Before writing part (b), decide your verdict in one sentence and which source carries the most weight, then build towards it.

Other May/June 2026 9489 papers

• 9489 Paper 22 (Outline Study)
• 9489 Paper 32 (Interpretations Question)
• 9489 Paper 42 (Depth Study)

Practise and download

• Download 9489/12 and its mark scheme on the Learning Portal →
• All 9489 May/June 2026 papers: overview and marking patterns
• Try a free A Level History quiz

Need help with a 9489 topic? Book a free trial lesson with an A Level History tutor →

Frequently asked questions

How many questions do you answer on 9489 Paper 12 May/June 2026? +

One. The paper has three questions, one for each option: Section A European (the Russian Revolution), Section B American (Civil War and Reconstruction) and Section C International (China and Japan). You answer both parts of the question for your option, a 15-mark part (a) and a 25-mark part (b), so the paper is out of 40 and lasts 1 hour 15 minutes.

How is part (a) marked on 9489/12? +

With four levels. Describing each source scores 1 to 3. Identifying similarities or differences scores 4 to 7, and comparing both, supported with source content, scores 8 to 11. The top level, 12 to 15, needs a developed comparison that explains why the sources agree or differ, using context or source evaluation.

How is part (b) marked on 9489/12? +

With five levels. Using the sources on one side only scores 6 to 10, and on both sides 11 to 15. Evaluating the sources in context, by their nature, origin and purpose, reaches 16 to 20. The top level, 21 to 25, weighs the evidence to reach a supported judgement. An essay that ignores the sources stays in Level 1.

What came up in the Russia question on 9489/12 in 2026? +

Four sources on the Bolsheviks and the peasants: an SR woman's memoir of de-kulakisation in 1918, a Lenin speech of November 1919 on grain requisitioning, a 1919 White Army poster of Bolshevik soldiers in a Cossack village, and Lenin's December 1919 account of the decree on land. Part (a) compared B and C on food requisitioning, and part (b) asked how far the sources show the Bolsheviks were hostile to the peasants.

Which sources could be used on both sides in 9489/12 part (b)? +

In the Russia question, Source A could support hostility but also challenge it, because the committees of the poor were meant to win poorer peasants over. In the American question, Source B praised Southern patriotism but also showed small farmers' hardship. In the China question, Source C described real co-operation at first and then its breakdown.

Where can I download 9489/12 May/June 2026 and its mark scheme? +

Both are free to download and print on the Tutopiya Learning Portal, on the Cambridge AS & A Level History 9489 past papers page.

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