AQA
A-level
HISTORY
7042/2S
Component 2S The Making of Modern Britain, 1951–
2007
Version: 1.0 Final
IB/M/Jun23/E5
... [Show More] 7042/2S
A-level
HISTORY
Component 2S The Making of Modern Britain, 1951–2007
Friday 9 June 2023 Afternoon Time allowed: 2 hours 30 minutes
Materials
For this paper you must have:
• an AQA 16-page answer book.
Instructions
• Use black ink or black ball-point pen.
• Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is
7042/2S.
• Answer three questions.
In Section A answer Question 01.
In Section B answer two questions.
Information
• The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
• The maximum mark for this paper is 80.
• You will be marked on your ability to:
– use good English
– organise information clearly
– use specialist vocabulary where appropriate.
Advice
• You are advised to spend about:
– 1 hour on Question 01 from Section A
– 45 minutes on each of the two questions answered from Section B.
A
2
IB/M/Jun23/7042/2S
Section A
Answer Question 01.
Source A
From a speech in the House of Commons during a debate on the Wootton Report, by
Conservative MP Patrick McNair-Wilson, 27 January 1969. This report recommended
the legalisation of cannabis.
I have listened to the arguments of those experts outside this House who have tried to
persuade me and others that the smoking of cannabis is no more than a social pastime.
But I think that we are accepting too many kinds of social changes, not so much because
we want them but merely because we believe that they are inevitable. I do not subscribe
to the inevitability of what must happen to our social order in this country. For the report
to suggest that the use of cannabis amounts to nothing more than youthful
experimentation is the most dangerous premise on which to build any sort of legislation
on drug-taking. We have to keep a firm grip on our society if we do not want it to get out
of control. As a nation we can either just go with the flow or we can draw the line. I want
to draw the line.
5
10
Source B
From comments on the 1960s made in an interview by John Lennon, 1971. These were
published in the influential and widely read music and popular culture magazine,
‘Rolling Stone’.
The people who were in control and in power and the class system and the whole
bourgeois scene was exactly the same except that there were a lot of middle-class kids
with long hair walking around London in trendy clothes. But apart from that, nothing
happened except that we all dressed up. The same people were running everything. It
was all hype. We’ve grown up a little, all of us, and there has been a change and we are
a bit freer, but it’s the same game. They’re doing exactly the same things, selling arms to
the whites in South Africa and here people are still living in poverty. I woke up to that
reality. Nothing happened except that we grew up. We did our own thing in the Beatles
just like they wanted us to, but now most of the so-called ‘Now Generation’ are getting
regular jobs and all of that. I don’t believe in the sixties’ dream any more. It was all a
myth.
5
10
3
IB/M/Jun23/7042/2S Turn over ►
Source C
From ‘Looking Back at the 1960s’ by Sara Maitland, 1988. Maitland is a feminist writer
who had graduated from Oxford University in 1971.
The 1960s were born out of the ‘you’ve never had it so good’ years. The security
provided by the relatively high employment and rising wages of all classes created a new
dynamic in society: a youth group which was both more monied and leisured than any
previous generation. This, of course, does not deny that there were devastating
injustices, prejudices and real poverty, but it was, nevertheless, an historic moment. The
1960s were transforming times, the beginning of the liberation of all women in Britain.
We were undeniably greedy both for personal experience and instant gratification. We
were undeniably arrogant in our conviction that we could change the world, but the
optimism, excitement and aspiration of the time was real and produced the first British
National Women’s Liberation Conference in 1970. Feminism does seem to me to be my
life and in that sense, born in 1950, I am the person I am because of the 1960s.
5
10
0 1 With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context,
assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying social and cultural
change in the 1960s.
[30 marks]
Turn over for Section B
4
IB/M/Jun23/7042/2S
Section B
Answer two questions.
0 2 ‘It was internal divisions and weaknesses that kept the Labour Party out of power in the
years 1955 to 1963.’
Assess the validity of this view.
[25 marks]
0 3 ‘Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy, in the years 1979 to 1987, was overwhelmingly
successful.’
Assess the validity of this view.
[25 marks]
0 4 To what extent did Britain become a multicultural society in the years 1997 to 2007?
[25 marks]
END OF QUESTIONS
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Copyright © 2023 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved.
*236A7042/2S*
A-level
HISTORY
7042/2S
Component 2S The Making of Modern Britain, 1951–2007
Mark scheme
June 2023
Version: 1.0 Final
*236A7042/2S/MS*
MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL HISTORY – 7042/2S – JUNE 2023
2
Mark schemes are prepared by the Lead Assessment Writer and considered, together with the relevant
questions, by a panel of subject teachers. This mark scheme includes any amendments made at the
standardisation events which all associates participate in and is the scheme which was used by them in
this examination. The standardisation process ensures that the mark scheme covers the students’
responses to questions and that every associate understands and applies it in the same correct way.
As preparation for standardisation each associate analyses a number of students’ scripts. Alternative
answers not already covered by the mark scheme are discussed and legislated for. If, after the
standardisation process, associates encounter unusual answers which have not been raised they are
required to refer these to the Lead Examiner.
It must be stressed that a mark scheme is a working do [Show Less]