NECTA ACSEE 2025 — HISTORY 2 (112/2): Questions with Full, Exam-Style Answers-MWALA_LEARN

Objectives: NECTA ACSEE 2025 — HISTORY 2 (112/2): Questions with Full, Exam-Style Answers

NECTA ACSEE 2025 — HISTORY 2 (112/2): Questions with Full, Exam-Style Answers

HISTORY 2 (112/2) — Structured Questions & High-Quality Answers

Each exam question appears first, followed immediately by a complete answer: six clear points, explanations, vivid real-life examples, a short model paragraph to copy in an exam, and quick exam tips.

Table of Contents

  1. Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) – more challenges than solutions
  2. Demographic revolution as an obstacle to feudalism in Europe
  3. How social & economic circumstances accelerated the 1789 French Revolution
  4. Circumstances behind the formation of “Armed Camps” in 19th-century Europe
  5. Why Sino–American relations deteriorated after 1949
  6. USA 1920s economic boom (3) & how it fed the Great Depression (3)
  7. Why the USSR installed missiles in Cuba

Q1 Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) brought more challenges than solutions in the African economy. Validate this statement in six points.

  1. Austerity cut essential services. Fiscal cuts slashed health, education and extension services. Example: In the late-1980s Tanzania and Zambia closed rural clinics and froze teacher hiring; immunisation and exam pass rates fell.
  2. Currency devaluation spiked prices. Devaluations made imports (fuel, farm inputs, medicines) costly, pushing inflation and squeezing urban/rural poor. Example: The Tanzanian shilling’s sharp devaluations raised fertiliser and transport costs, reducing smallholder yields.
  3. Subsidy removal hurt the poor. Food and fuel subsidies were lifted instantly while incomes adjusted slowly. Example: Maize meal and kerosene price jumps in Kenya and Ghana triggered strikes and food riots (“IMF riots”).
  4. Privatisation caused layoffs & asset loss. State firms sold quickly, often below value, with mass retrenchments and local capital crowded out by foreign buyers. Example: Sale of state textile mills in Tanzania/ Nigeria shed thousands of jobs without alternative industry.
  5. External dependency & policy loss. Conditionalities transferred decision-making to creditors; policy tailored to debt service, not development goals. Example: Credit tranches suspended when governments raised teacher pay or food supports, forcing reversals.
  6. Inequality & deindustrialisation. Trade liberalisation exposed fragile factories to imports; gains concentrated in a few export enclaves. Example: Cheap second-hand clothing undermined local garment production in East Africa.
Vivid picture: A small maize farmer in Morogoro now pays more for fertiliser and fuel after devaluation and subsidy removal; the nearby ginnery was privatised and shut, so his children walk farther to a school that lost teachers to austerity.
Model paragraph:
Structural Adjustment promised efficiency but in practice produced austerity, inflation and social pain. In countries like Tanzania, devaluation and subsidy removal raised living costs while privatisation shed jobs and closed factories. With conditionalities limiting policy space, states prioritised debt service over health and education, widening inequality and shrinking industry. These features show SAPs created more challenges than durable solutions.

Tip: Use the 3-E memory hook — Expenditure cuts, Exchange rate shock, Enterprise sales — then add dependency, inequality, deindustrialisation.

Q2 “Demographic revolution was an obstacle to the existence of feudalism in Europe.” In six points, justify.

  1. Population growth shifted labour markets. Rising numbers in the 17th–18th centuries and earlier waves after the Black Death improved peasants’ bargaining power, undermining forced labour dues.
  2. Urbanisation & wage labour expanded. Growing towns absorbed rural migrants into crafts and proto-industry, pulling people out of manorial obligations. Example: The English “Putting-Out” system hired peasants for paid spinning/weaving.
  3. Land pressure encouraged enclosure & mobility. As populations rose, landlords enclosed fields for commercial farming; displaced tenants resisted feudal controls and moved for wages.
  4. Market integration replaced customary dues. Cash rents and market taxes substituted labour services; peasants sold produce in regional markets, weakening the manor’s closed economy.
  5. State centralisation overrode seigneurial justice. Growing populations required uniform taxation, standing armies and royal courts, reducing lords’ legal autonomy. Example: French royal intendants curbed noble courts before 1789.
  6. New ideas travelled with people. Mobility spread Enlightenment notions of liberty and property; peasant/urban crowds challenged feudal privileges, climaxing in 1789 with the abolition of feudal dues in France.
Vivid picture: A peasant son leaves a crowded village for Lyon to work for wages in silk weaving; he pays cash rent for the small plot at home and questions why a lord still claims his harvest and court fees.
Model paragraph:
Europe’s demographic surge undermined the pillars of feudalism. More people meant more towns, wage work and markets; cash rents replaced labour dues while royal institutions eclipsed seigneurial courts. As mobility spread new ideas, peasants and artisans resisted privileges, leading to the formal abolition of feudal obligations, especially in revolutionary France.

Tip: Structure as Labour → Urban → Land → Market → State → Ideas.

Q3 In six points, show how social and economic circumstances accelerated the 1789 Revolution in France.

  1. Tax inequality. Peasants and the Third Estate bore taille, gabelle and tithes while nobles/clergy enjoyed exemptions.
  2. Price shocks & bread crises. Bad harvests (1788) and deregulated grain trade raised bread prices; hungry crowds radicalised politics.
  3. State debt & fiscal paralysis. War debts (American War) and interest costs forced the Crown to summon the Estates-General, opening political floodgates.
  4. Rise of bourgeoisie without power. Educated professionals led demands for representation, merit and rights.
  5. Village grievances. Cahiers de doléances listed feudal dues, corvée labour and seigneurial courts as intolerable.
  6. Enlightenment & public sphere. Salons, pamphlets and newspapers spread ideas of liberty, equality and popular sovereignty.
Vivid picture: In Paris, a baker’s queue stretches at dawn; in the evening, readers debate Rousseau in a café while their lawyer friend drafts a pamphlet demanding a constitution.
Model paragraph:
The French Revolution erupted when social injustice met economic crisis. A tax-exempt nobility and soaring bread prices enraged commoners, while the state’s war debts forced a political opening. Bourgeois professionals, armed with Enlightenment ideas and the peasants’ grievances, transformed the Estates-General into a National Assembly and overthrew the old regime.

Tip: Pair each social point with an economic trigger: privilege + taxes, ideas + prices, grievances + debt.

Q4 Analyse six circumstances that propelled the formation of “Armed Camps” in Europe in the 19th century.

  1. Power shifts after German & Italian unification. A strong Prussia/Germany alarmed France, Austria and Russia, encouraging counter-alignments.
  2. Alliance diplomacy. Bismarck’s complex treaties (Dual Alliance 1879, Triple Alliance 1882) provoked responses leading to the Triple Entente (France-Russia 1894; Britain later).
  3. Militarism & arms races. Conscription, general staffs and naval competition (e.g., Dreadnoughts) normalised permanent preparedness.
  4. Imperial rivalries & crises. Clashes in Africa/Asia and Moroccan/Balkan crises hardened blocs with war plans.
  5. Nationalism & revanchism. France sought revanche for Alsace-Lorraine; Slavic nationalism split Austria-Hungary and tied Russia to Serbia.
  6. Railways & war plans. Timetabled mobilisation (Schlieffen Plan) made speed essential, pushing states to rigid alliances and pre-emptive logic.
Vivid picture: A German general studies railway timetables while British newspapers debate Dreadnought launches; in Paris, schoolchildren memorise “lost provinces.”
Model paragraph:
The “Armed Camps” emerged from new power balances and deliberate alliance building. German unification and Bismarck’s treaties provoked counter-alliances, while imperial crises and nationalism entrenched hostility. With conscription, modern staffs and railways, Europe divided into rigid blocs—the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente—primed for rapid war.

Tip: Name both blocs and at least one treaty by year; add one naval and one Balkan reference for guaranteed marks.

Q5 Why did Sino-American relations after 1949 deteriorate? Explain by giving six points.

  1. Ideological conflict & containment. Communist victory in China clashed with U.S. anti-communism; Washington refused recognition for two decades.
  2. Taiwan issue. The U.S. protected Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan, signed defence pacts and patrolled the Taiwan Strait—seen by Beijing as support for a rival Chinese state.
  3. Korean War (1950–53). Chinese “Volunteers” fought U.S./UN forces; casualties cemented hostility.
  4. Trade embargoes & isolation. The U.S. led embargoes and blocked PRC’s UN seat, deepening suspicion.
  5. Proxy conflicts in Asia. On opposite sides in Vietnam and later in Indochina, both saw the other as expansionist.
  6. Domestic politics & propaganda. McCarthyism in the U.S. and mass campaigns in China made compromise politically costly.
Vivid picture: A U.S. Seventh Fleet carrier sails the Taiwan Strait while Chinese posters call for resistance to “American imperialism.”
Model paragraph:
After 1949, Washington’s containment and support for Taiwan collided with Beijing’s claims to sovereignty. The Korean War turned suspicion into bloodshed, and embargoes plus UN isolation froze relations. With proxy wars in Asia and hard-line domestic politics on both sides, distrust dominated until rapprochement in the 1970s.

Tip: Always mention Taiwan + Korea + embargo/UN seat; then add ideology, proxies, and domestic politics.

Q6 Analyse three factors which accelerated the 1920s economic boom in the USA and, in three points, show how the boom accelerated the economic depression.

A) Three accelerators of the 1920s boom
  1. Technological innovation & mass production. Assembly lines (Ford Model T), electricity and chemicals lifted productivity and cut prices, expanding consumer markets.
  2. Consumer credit & advertising. Hire-purchase and national branding (radio, magazines) enabled mass sales of cars, radios and appliances.
  3. Pro-business policy & tariffs. Low taxes, weak regulation and high tariffs (Fordney-McCumber) sheltered U.S. industry, fuelling corporate investment.
B) Three ways the boom fed the Great Depression
  1. Overproduction & weak farm incomes. Factories and farms produced more than people could buy; prices fell, debts mounted, and layoffs began.
  2. Speculative bubble & fragile finance. Easy credit and margin buying inflated the stock market; when prices fell in 1929, banks failed and credit collapsed.
  3. Inequality & export weakness. Wages lagged behind profits; high tariffs reduced foreign demand for U.S. goods, deepening the slump.
Vivid picture: A Detroit worker buys a radio on instalments; by 1929 his hours are cut as unsold cars pile up, his bank holds risky stock loans, and a farm cousin loses the homestead to debt.
Model paragraph:
The 1920s boom rested on new technology, mass marketing and friendly policies. Yet the same forces produced imbalances—overproduction, speculative finance and unequal purchasing power. When markets turned in 1929, these weaknesses transmitted collapse through banks and trade, turning a downturn into the Great Depression.

Tip: Write “Boom 3” then “Bust 3”. Use the triad: Innovation / Credit / Policy → Overproduction / Bubble / Inequality.

Q7 Why was it necessary for the USSR to install missiles in Cuba? Explain by giving six points.

  1. Strategic balance & deterrence. The U.S. had a nuclear edge and missiles near the USSR; Cuban missiles would narrow the gap and deter a first strike.
  2. Protection of a new ally. After the Bay of Pigs (1961), Moscow sought to shield Castro’s Cuba from another U.S. invasion.
  3. Reciprocity for U.S. missiles in Turkey/Italy. Soviet leaders viewed deployment in Cuba as a counter to NATO’s Jupiter missiles on their doorstep.
  4. Leverage in Berlin and wider negotiations. Missiles provided bargaining chips to gain concessions on Berlin and European security.
  5. Prestige & credibility. Demonstrating reach into the Western Hemisphere boosted Soviet status among allies and the non-aligned world.
  6. Rapid deployment option. Stationing medium-range missiles close to the U.S. provided quick-reaction capability compared with limited ICBMs then in service.
Vivid picture: Soviet freighters carry long crates under canvas to Cuban ports while U.S. U-2 photos expose launch sites; in Moscow, leaders calculate that visible missiles may prevent the next Bay of Pigs.
Model paragraph:
For Moscow, Cuban missiles were a defensive equaliser. They protected Castro after the Bay of Pigs, offset U.S. Jupiters in Turkey and gave the USSR leverage over Berlin. By improving deterrence and prestige at a time of U.S. nuclear superiority, the deployment seemed necessary—until American discovery triggered the 1962 crisis and a negotiated withdrawal.

Tip: Always pair deterrence with Turkey missiles and Bay of Pigs; then add Berlin leverage, prestige, and ICBM limits.

Use these model answers to practise writing concise six-point essays. Underline key terms and end with a one-sentence judgement.

© Study helper — Free to copy for classroom use.

Reference Book: N/A

Author name: SIR H.A.Mwala Work email: biasharaboraofficials@gmail.com
#MWALA_LEARN Powered by MwalaJS #https://mwalajs.biasharabora.com
#https://educenter.biasharabora.com

:: 1::

➡