Grade 12 NSC History P1 Exemplar 2008 Question Paper
Grade 12 NSC History P1 Exemplar 2008 Question Paper
SENIOR CERTIFICATE
GRADE 12
HISTORY P1
EXEMPLAR 2008
MARKS: 150
TIME: 3 hours
4. Evaluate the usefulness of the sources for the task, taking into
account stereotypes, subjectivity and gaps in the available
evidence.
LEVEL OF QUESTION
Level 1
• Discuss or describe according to a given line of argument set out in the
extended writing question.
1.1.2 What were the reasons for the difference in lifestyle in the two parts
of Berlin? (2 x 2) (4)
1.1.3 Why did Khrushchev and Kennedy become involved with Berlin?
(2 x 2) (4)
1.1.4 Can the action taken by Khrushchev in trying to stop people from
defecting be justified? Explain your answer. (2 x 2) (4)
1.2.1 What differences did Kennedy highlight between the free world and
the communist world? (1 x 2) (2)
1.2.2 (a) How would supporters of the free world view Kennedy's
speech? (1 x 2) (2)
1.3.1 What were the implications of the signboard 'Attention, you are
now leaving West Berlin' to the people of West Berlin? (1 x 2) (2)
1.3.2 Using information from the source and your own knowledge,
explain how you think the issue of the Berlin Wall became a subject
used for propaganda. (2 x 2) (4)
1.4 Using all the sources and your own knowledge, write a paragraph of about
6 lines (60 words) either defending or criticising Soviet actions in the building
of the Berlin Wall. (6)
1.5 EXTENDED WRITING (The length of the essay should be about TWO
pages.)
1.5.1 Explain why Berlin became the focal point of the ideological clash
in the Cold War between the USA and USSR. (30)
OR
Do you agree? Using the information from the sources and your
own knowledge, discuss this statement. (30)
[75]
Study Sources 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D and answer the following questions.
(b) Nkrumah
(c) Chamberlain
2.1.2 Using the source and your own knowledge, explain whether the
European colonial powers were keen to 'get out of Africa'. (2 x 2) (4)
2.1.3 Why do you think Nkrumah was justified in making the following
demand: 'No more white domination! We want Africa for the
Africans'? (1 x 2) (2)
2.1.4 Explain why the following statement cannot be justified: '… the
people aren't trained to manage their own government.' (1 x 2) (2)
2.2.3 (a) According to the source and your own knowledge, what was
the message Macmillan was bringing to South Africa?
(1 x 2) (2)
2.3 Compare Sources 2A and 2B. Explain how they support each other regarding
the process of decolonisation. (2 x 3) (6)
2.4.2 How does this source show that colonial rule was not in the best
interest of Africans? (1 x 2) (2)
2.4.3 Using the source and your own knowledge, explain your
impressions of Nkrumah as a leader. (1 x 2) (2)
2.5 Using all the sources and your own knowledge, write a paragraph of about
6 lines (60 words) explaining why, if you were in the position of a Ghanaian,
you would want independence for Ghana. (6)
2.6.1 How does Source 2D support the argument that colonial powers
created the problems in Africa? (1 x 3) (3)
2.6.2 According to this source, why did it become necessary for Africans
to forge 'new identities'? (2 x 1) (2)
2.7 EXTENDED WRITING (The length of the essay should be about TWO
pages.)
2.7.1 Discuss the factors that led to the decolonisation process in Africa
in the 1960s and 1970s. (30)
OR
3.1.1 What kind of society did Martin Luther King advocate? (1 x 2) (2)
3.1.2 Using this source and your own knowledge, explain what inspired
Martin Luther King to make the 'I have a dream' speech. (1 x 2) (2)
3.1.3 Explain what was meant by the following: ' … they will not be
judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their
character.' (1 x 2) (2)
3.1.4 What do the words 'Free at last! Free at last! … we are free at
last!' tell you about the situation in which African Americans found
themselves? (1 x 2) (2)
3.2.1 What evidence is there in the source to suggest that the slogan
'Black Power' was adopted by different African Americans? (2 x 1) (2)
3.2.2 How did African Americans affirm (assert) Black Power? (2 x 1) (2)
3.2.3 Using this source and your own knowledge, explain why Black
Power appealed so strongly to some black people in America.
(1 x 2) (2)
3.2.4 With reference to the source and your own knowledge, to what
extent do you think Black Power helped shape the culture and
define the destiny of the African Americans? (2 x 2) (4)
3.3.2 How does Malcolm X wish to address the challenges facing African
Americans? (2 x 2) (4)
3.3.4 Explain why Malcolm X's speech 'The Ballot or the Bullet' is
appropriate in the context of the civil-rights movement. (1 x 2) (2)
3.4 Explain in what ways Source 3A differs from Source 3C regarding the civil-
rights protests in the USA during the 1960s. (2 x 2) (4)
3.5 With reference to Sources 3A, 3B and 3C, explain how they support each
other with regard to the civil-rights protests in the United States of America. (5)
3.6 Using all the sources and your own knowledge, write a paragraph of about
6 lines (60 words) explaining how leadership formed the basis of the struggle
for pride and dignity by the black Americans. (6)
3.7 EXTENDED WRITING (The length of the essay should be about TWO
pages.)
3.7.1 The 1960s are often referred to as 'the decade of the civil-rights
protests' in the United States of America.
OR
3.7.2 Using the information from the sources and your own knowledge,
explain how the different forms of civil-rights protests that occurred
in the United States of America made an impact on the struggle for
human rights. (30)
[75]
4.1.1 Using this source and your own knowledge, explain the term Black
Consciousness. (1 x 2) (2)
4.1.3 How did Biko propose to change the 'totality' of white power? (1 x 2) (2)
4.1.4 To what extent do you agree with Biko that the political system
subjected blacks to a psychological feeling of inferiority? (2 x 2) (4)
4.1.5 What justification does Biko give for the formation of the South
African Students' Organisation (SASO)? (1 x 3) (3)
4.2.1 What attributes in the opinion of Donald Woods made Biko the
'most important political leader in the entire country'? (3 x 1) (3)
4.2.2 'He was a militant in standing up for his principles, yes, but his
abiding goal was a peaceful reconciliation of all South Africans.'
Explain whether you agree with this assessment of Biko. (2 x 2) (4)
4.2.3 Using the information from the source and your own knowledge,
explain why Donald Woods regarded Steve Biko as his 'most
valued friend'. (1 x 3) (3)
4.3 To what extent do Source 4A and Source 4B agree about the personality of
Biko? (2 x 2) (4)
4.4.2 In what way would this source be useful to a historian studying the
contribution of Biko in the liberation struggle in South Africa during
the 1970s? (4)
4.5 Using all the sources and your own knowledge, write a paragraph of about
6 lines (60 words) explaining why Biko was seen as a threat by the apartheid
government of South Africa. (6)
4.6 EXTENDED WRITING (The length of the essay should be about TWO
pages.)
OR
4.6.2 Use all the sources and your own knowledge to evaluate Biko's
role and influence in the Black Consciousness Movement in South
Africa during the 1970s. (30)
[75]
TOTAL: 150
Copyright reserved
NATIONAL
SENIOR CERTIFICATE
GRADE 12
HISTORY P1
EXEMPLAR 2008
ADDENDUM
SOURCE 1A
This is an extract from The Cold War by David Taylor commenting on life in Berlin and the
construction of the Berlin Wall.
West Berlin received large amounts of money under the Marshall Plan. This part of the
city was rebuilt and soon began to prosper. There was plenty of food in the shops, and
there were cinemas, theatres, cafes and nightclubs. West Berliners could enjoy life
again. Above all, they were able to vote in free elections and speak their minds without
fear of arrest.
East Berlin, under communist rule, was a dour (harsh) place. Many buildings remained
derelict and there was very little to buy in the shops. Most people lived in dull apartment
blocks and few owned cars, refrigerators or washing machines, which were becoming
common in Western Europe and the USA. East Berliners did not enjoy freedom of
speech and lived in fear of being arrested by the secret police. But, despite these
differences, people could still travel wherever they liked in the city. Underground trains
and trams ran between the East and West. East Berliners were free to visit friends in the
West, and over 50 000 of them travelled to work there each day.
Many East Germans wanted a better standard of living and defected to West Berlin.
Most of the defectors were under the age of 45 and many had useful skills. Defectors
included teachers, lawyers, doctors and engineers. There were more job opportunities in
the West and wages were higher. Soon more than 200 000 people a year were
defecting to the West. East Germany was losing most of its skilled workers.
Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, and JF Kennedy, the new president of the USA, met in
Vienna in June 1961. Kennedy was determined to hang on to West Berlin. Khrushchev,
somehow, had to stop the flood of people defecting. Khrushchev decided to build a wall
that would seal East Berlin off from the West. In the earlier hours of 13 August 1961,
East German workmen started to erect a barbed-wire fence between East and West
Berlin.
SOURCE 1B
There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is
the great issue between the free world and the communist world. Let them come to
Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to
put up a wall to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on
behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who
are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to
share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no
city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality, and the force, and
the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most
obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the communist system, for all the world
to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your mayor has said, an offence not only
against history but an offence against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands
and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I
take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner'. ('I am a Berliner.')
SOURCE 1C
PHOTOGRAPH 1: Shows the Berlin Wall with the famous Brandenburg Gate in the
background. The board says: 'Attention, you are now leaving West
Berlin'.
PHOTOGRAPH 2: Shows West Berliners looking over the Berlin Wall soon after it was
built in 1961.
SOURCE 2A
Nkrumah: 'No more white domination! We want Africa for the Africans.'
General de Gaulle: 'We lost thousands of French soldiers in the war in Algeria.'
Chamberlain: 'Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal for itself – what cheek.'
King Leopold II: 'The United Nations Organisation disapproves of what we're doing in the
Congo … we have to hurry up and get out of Africa before anything else
goes wrong.'
General de Gaulle: 'Gentleman, let's see how fast we can get out of Africa.'
French colonial officer: 'But Sir, the people aren't trained to manage their own
government.'
French administrator: 'They'll just have to manage. We cannot spend money on these
colonies.'
African community: 'We are poor and suffering. But at least we are beginning to govern
ourselves and build new institutions.'
SOURCE 2B
This is an extract from a speech by British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, to the South
African Parliament, February 1960. The extract is taken from Causes and Consequences
of Independence in Africa.
The most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of
the strength of … African national consciousness. In different places it may take different
forms. But it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this
continent.
SOURCE 2C
This is an extract taken from Africa Since Independence with reference to Nkrumah's
address.
When Kwame Nkrumah uttered the immortal words, 'Seek ye first the political kingdom
and all else will be added unto you,' he was articulating a widely held belief that self-rule
would make a profound difference. For Nkrumah and like-minded nationalists, the colonial
state had functioned in the service of European interests. Once commandeered by
Africans, however, the state would deliver collective benefits and greater material
prosperity for all.
SOURCE 2D
In Africa, most of the colonies that had been created were made up of several culturally
and historically different groups which did not share a common history. Their main basis
for unity was that they were subjected to a common alien (foreign) ruler.
The expression of nationalism in Africa then was a desire of these different communities to
forge new identities that would help them in their struggle against the atrocities and
shortcomings of the colonial administrations.
SOURCE 3A
This extract comes from the most famous speech made by Martin Luther King, a
Baptist minister, during the Washington march. He promised that African
Americans would struggle for their rights until they were no longer oppressed. He
also spoke of his broader vision for the future.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, and live out the true meaning of its
creed ... that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of
Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children one
day will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the
content of their character ... [So that one day] all of God's children, black men and white
men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the
words of that old Negro spiritual 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are
free at last!'.
Martin Luther
King addressing
more than
200 000 people at
Lincoln Memorial.
Here Martin
Luther King
delivered his
famous speech, 'I
have a dream …'
SOURCE 3B
This is an extract from The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, by
P Boyer et al., explaining Black Power.
The 'Black Power' slogan was adopted by African Americans of virtually every
persuasion. Revolutionaries used it to preach guerrilla warfare; liberals, to demand
reform; conservatives, to demand self-help. For many who adopted it, the phrase
simply meant self-pride. 'Say it loud - I'm black and I'm proud', chanted soul singer
James Brown, and a generation of African Americans affirmed that 'black is beautiful'.
Rejecting skin bleaches and hair straighteners [which helped users look more like
whites], young blacks donned dashikis (berets), wore Afro hairstyles, enjoyed soul
music and soul food, and established black studies programmes at colleges. Black
Power reflected an insistence that African Americans shape their own culture and define
their own destiny.
SOURCE 3C
These are excerpts from a speech Malcolm X gave in Detroit in 1964, a year before
he was assassinated (he was 39) called The Ballot or the Bullet.
... This country is a hypocrite. They claim they set you free by calling you a
second-class citizen. No, you are nothing but a 20th century slave ... So, where
do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies. The
entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation ...
... When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can
then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN ...
You can take Uncle Sam (USA) before a world court ... Civil rights keep you
under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction ... Civil rights mean you're asking
Uncle Sam to treat you right ... Human rights are your God-given rights.
... Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, take it into the
United Nations, where our African brothers can throw their weight on our side,
where our Asian brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Latin-
American brothers can throw their weight on our side ...
The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should
control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more. The black
man in the black community has to be re-educated into the science of politics so
that he will know what politics is supposed to bring him in return ... We want
freedom now, but we're not going to get it saying 'We shall overcome'. We've got
to fight until we overcome.
This is a photograph
of Malcolm X
addressing an outdoor
rally in New York.
SOURCE 4A
This source is part of an interview Steve Biko had with a European journalist in the first
half of 1970. It is extracted from I Write What I Like: A Selection of His Writings, by Steve
Biko.
When I came to varsity [Durban Medical College, University of Natal], which was
some time in 1966, in my own analysis and that of my friends there was some kind
of anomaly [inconsistency] in this situation, where whites were in fact the main
participants in our oppression and at the same time the main participants in the
opposition to that oppression. It implied therefore that at no stage in this country
were blacks throwing in their lot in the shift of political opinion. The arena was
totally controlled by whites in what we called 'totality' of white power at that time.
So, we argued that any changes which are to come can only come as a result of a
programme worked out by black people – and for black people to be able to work
out a programme they needed to defeat the one main element in politics which was
working against them: a psychological feeling of inferiority which was deliberately
cultivated by the system. So equally, too, the whites, in order to be able to listen to
blacks, needed to defeat the one problem which they had, which was one of
'superiority' ... First of all, we said as black students we could not participate in
multiracial organisations which were by far white organisations because of the
overwhelming number of white students at universities in this country ...
So, in 1968 we started forming what is now called SASO – the South African
Students' Organisation – which was firmly based on Black Consciousness, the
essence of which was for the black man to elevate his own position by positively
looking at those value systems that make him distinctively a man in society.
SOURCE 4B
This is an extract taken from No. 46: Steve Biko, by Hilda Bernstein, where Donald Woods
pays tribute to Steve Biko.
My most valued friend, Steve Biko, has died in detention. He needs no tributes from me.
He never did. He was a special and extraordinary man who at the age of 30 had already
acquired a towering status in the hearts and minds of countless thousands of young
blacks throughout the length and breadth of South Africa. In the three years that I grew to
know him, my conviction never wavered that this was the most important political leader
in the entire country ... Wisdom, humour, compassion, understanding, brilliancy of
intellect, unselfishness, modesty, courage – he had all these attributes ... The
government quite clearly never understood the extent to which Steve Biko was a man of
peace. He was militant in standing up for his principles, yes, but his abiding goal was a
peaceful reconciliation of all South Africans, and in this I happen to know he was a
moderating influence.
SOURCE 4C
This is an extract taken from 'A resource to inform us of our present and future' by Nadine
Gordimer in Steve Biko 25 Years On.
This is a photograph of
Steve Biko, the founder
of Black Consciousness.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Visual sources and other historical evidence were taken from the following books: