Short-answer question (SAQ)
Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
- Units 5 and 6
- 3 points
- About 13 minutes
You read one source and answer three short parts (A, B and C) about it, each in a few sentences. Each part asks you to describe or explain something about the source or the history around it. On the exam: 3 required questions in 40 minutes (Section I, Part B), 20% of the score. Starting May 2027 every SAQ has a source: question 1 a secondary text, question 2 a primary text, question 3 a non-text source such as an image, map or chart.
The question and its sources
Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.
Passage
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. . . .
We wished at the period of the Revolution [of 1688 in England], and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. . . .
The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. . . . The science of government being, therefore, so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.
Source: Edmund Burke, Irish-born member of the British Parliament, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790. From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 3 (London: John C. Nimmo, 1887). A priori means based on theory or reasoning alone rather than on experience.
Suggested time: 13 minutes
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Part (a)
1 pointDescribe Burke's argument about how governments should be changed.
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Part (b)
1 pointExplain how ONE development in France in the period 1789–1794 could be used to support Burke's concerns about the French Revolution.
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Part (c)
1 pointExplain ONE way European leaders acted on conservative ideas like Burke's in the period 1814–1848.
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