For Edexcel IGCSE History Paper 2 you have to select one Investigation and one Breadth Study, we selected Russia and the Soviet Union 1905-24 as our Investigation study and China: conflict, crisis and change 1900-89 as our Breadth study. Now as we did with our paper 1 topics I bought my daughter the Pearson student book for each topic (Russia and China) but I wanted a second resource and because we had bought and liked the Hodder Paper 1 book I chose to buy her the Hodder paper 2 book as her second resource.

First of all for paper 2 you do have a large choice of topics that you can choose from and a book like this is never going to include all those topics, so to be crystal clear on what is in this book here are the 2 Investigation studies that they included and the 3 Breadth Studies (this book was a good option for us because both of our paper 2 topics were included).

Okay so this book is set out differently to the student books that we used (when I say student books I mean these ones – Russia and China). This book does not include exam practice questions in the chapters however at the end of the book they do have a section where they discuss the types of questions that you will get asked, they give examples of how to answer them and then give a few questions for you to practice. For us one of the reasons why we liked using both of these books together was because we wanted to get as much advise on how best to tackle the exam questions, we wanted as much exam guidance and good examples of how to structure the answers. So the final chapter on exam guidance is one that you really should NOT miss. (If I had to compare the exam guidance in this book to the student books that we bought there is more exam guidance in the student books).

Content wise – I liked this book. I think they covered both of the topics that we choose well. With IGCSE History it is going to be content heavy so there are lots of paragraphs which you need to read and points you need to remember. If I had to compare the content in this to the student books I would say that is is a bit more summarized. However we did find that although there is content overlap there was also quite a bit that was different (ie included in one that was not included in the other and also content explained or set out differently).

They did also include a lot of source material which I liked. And they had focus tasks throughout which were a great activity to get the kids thinking (but no there are no suggested answers for the focus tasks).

Lastly they included small chapter summaries, which are always useful.

If you are looking for a second resource and if the topics that you choose are included in this book then I would definitely say this is a good choice. I am glad we bought it and I think it was worth the money. Personally I liked having 2 resources for each topic, I think it helped and is one of the reasons why my daughter ended up getting her 8 for History.

For those interested here is an Amazon link – Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History Paper 2 Book

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