In 0470 the skill stays put while the source keeps moving: judging the message of a political cartoon is the same demand whether the cartoon is about the League of Nations or the Cold War, but the questions testing it are scattered across the papers attached to wildly different material. For Cambridge IGCSE History 0470, assembling every “how far do you agree” essay on the failure of the League, plus a few source-utility questions on the same topic, is what turns that scatter into a focused homework — and doing it by hand means reading the lot. A question bank does it in a minute. This guide is about setting 0470 work by topic, source skill and question type.

What “by topic” actually means in 0470 — and why topic alone isn’t enough

In a numeric subject, a question bank tagged by topic is most of the battle. In History it is only half, because 0470 questions split along two axes at once: the content they test and the skill they demand. A useful 0470 bank lets you filter on both.

On the content axis, you want to pull questions by the periods and studies your cohort actually sits — the core international-relations content (often the nineteenth- and twentieth-century material, the inter-war years, the League, the origins of the Cold War) and whichever depth studies your school teaches. Cambridge offers a range of depth-study options and the exact set a school takes varies, so a bank worth using lets you filter to your periods rather than burying them in everything else.

On the skill axis, you want to pull by question type:

• Source-comprehension and inference — “what is the message of this source”, supported inferences, “how far does Source A support Source B”.
• Source evaluation — utility and reliability questions that turn on origin, purpose and context (“why was this source published”, “are you surprised by this source”).
• Recall and description — the “describe” and “what happened” openers that test knowledge.
• Extended explanation — “explain why” questions that reward causal analysis.
• Substantiated judgement — the “how far do you agree” essays that demand a weighed, two-sided conclusion.

Being able to assemble eight source-utility questions across different topics — or, conversely, every question type on a single depth study — is what turns a folder of papers into a teaching tool. That is the core argument of the parent guide, what a teacher question bank should actually cover; 0470 is a near-perfect case for it, because its skills are so cleanly separable from its content.

Filter by difficulty and command word, not just subject

“Source evaluation” spans a gentle supported-inference question and a demanding utility judgement that has to weigh provenance against contemporary context. Setting both to the same class wastes the confident students’ time and strands the rest. A 0470 bank that signals difficulty and exposes the command word lets you:

• Give a developing group the comprehension and “what is the message” questions to build source confidence before they meet utility.
• Stretch a secure group with the “how far do you agree” essays and the utility questions that actually separate the top grades.
• Build a single homework that ramps — a couple of accessible source-comprehension questions, then an explanation, then one judgement essay — so every student has somewhere to start and somewhere to aim.

The command word is the quiet tell in History: “describe”, “explain why” and “how far” each demand a different shape of answer and sit in a different objective. A bank that lets you filter by it is letting you target the exact skill your data says is weak.

Three ways teachers actually use a 0470 bank

Targeted homework after a topic. You have just taught the Treaty of Versailles. Instead of “revise the chapter”, pull three “explain why” questions and a “how far do you agree” essay on exactly that, ramped in demand, and set them. Students practise on the real thing — Cambridge phrasing, Cambridge command words — not a textbook approximation.

Drilling a single source skill across topics. Your class can describe events but falls apart on source utility. A skill filter lets you assemble a set of “why was this published” and “are you surprised by this source” questions drawn from several topics, so students practise the skill until it is transferable rather than tied to one cartoon.

Closing a gap the data exposed. Your last assessment showed the class reaching only the lower bands on judgement essays — strong knowledge, no balance. A question-type filter lets you set a short, focused run of “how far” essays and re-test, rather than hoping it comes up again.

What “good” looks like — and what to be wary of

A 0470 question bank earns its place when it has: accurate tagging on both axes (period/study and question type/command word); the source material kept with each source question, not stripped out; the mark scheme and level descriptors alongside each question so students see how bands are earned; and enough breadth that you are not recycling the same six essays every term. Be wary of banks that tag loosely (“Sources” with no sub-structure), that separate a source question from its sources, that drop the level descriptors, or that mix in non-Cambridge questions whose command words and mark style differ from what students will sit.

A note on honesty about scale: the platform reports a large shared question bank across subjects (200,000+ questions), but the number that matters to you is coverage of your periods and your source skills. Judge a 0470 bank by whether it has a deep, well-tagged set on the studies you teach and on each question type — not by the headline total.

How this looks on the platform

Tutopiya’s Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 resources let you filter past-paper questions by period, depth study and question type, set them as homework or a quiz, and have the source-comprehension and structured parts marked consistently to the Cambridge scheme so you can see which source skills a class dropped. The extended essays come back as a levels-based first pass you review. It is free to start with one class. For the wider toolkit, see the teacher platform these guides put to work.

This is one of four 0470 guides. The others cover marking 0470 to the Cambridge mark scheme, building a 0470 mock exam from past papers, and 0470 lesson resources mapped to the syllabus.

FAQ

Can I pull 0470 questions for a single topic like the League of Nations or one depth study? That is the main reason to use a question bank over a stack of papers. A bank tagged to the periods and depth studies you teach lets you filter to your content and assemble a focused set in minutes, rather than scanning a decade of papers for the questions that match your cohort’s options.

Can I filter by source skill or command word, not just topic? You should be able to, and in History it matters as much as topic. The same content can be tested by comprehension, by utility evaluation, by “explain why” or by “how far do you agree” — each a different objective. Filtering by question type lets you drill the exact skill your data flags, across several topics if you want it to transfer.

Does it keep the sources with the source questions? A 0470 bank worth using keeps each source question attached to its sources and to the level descriptors, so students practise on the full enquiry rather than a question shorn of the material it depends on. A bank that strips either is much weaker for exam preparation.

How does this differ from just giving students past papers? A whole paper tests several topics and skills at once and takes a long time to mark by levels. A question bank lets you target one period or one source skill, ramp it by demand, re-test a gap your data exposed, and have the structured source parts marked consistently — turning the same questions into something you can act on week to week.

Can it help with the judgement essays specifically? Yes — you can filter to the “how far do you agree” essays and set a focused run when your data shows students stalling in the lower bands. The bank assembles them and marks them as a levels-based first pass you review; the judgement on each argument stays your call.

The bottom line

A 0470 question bank is worth using when it is tagged on both axes — period and depth study, and question type and command word — keeps each source question with its sources, and carries the level descriptors with every question. Used that way, it turns “set some History homework” into “set three utility questions and a judgement essay on the exact skill this class is dropping” — which is the difference between practice that fills time and practice that moves grades.

Build targeted 0470 homework from real past papers — free with one class →

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