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How To Tackle The OPCVL Question For IB History

The document provides guidance on answering the OPCVL question for the IB History exam, which requires analyzing a historical document's origin, purpose, content, values, and limitations. It explains that to fully understand the document, one must ask questions about its origin (who created it, when, etc.), purpose (why it exists and intended audience), and content (what it says). One must then consider how the document's origin, purpose and content provide historical value but may also have limitations from the perspective and biases of the author. To earn full points, the response needs to reference the document's origin, purpose, and content, and discuss at least one value and one limitation related to each.

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Bob Barker
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2K views3 pages

How To Tackle The OPCVL Question For IB History

The document provides guidance on answering the OPCVL question for the IB History exam, which requires analyzing a historical document's origin, purpose, content, values, and limitations. It explains that to fully understand the document, one must ask questions about its origin (who created it, when, etc.), purpose (why it exists and intended audience), and content (what it says). One must then consider how the document's origin, purpose and content provide historical value but may also have limitations from the perspective and biases of the author. To earn full points, the response needs to reference the document's origin, purpose, and content, and discuss at least one value and one limitation related to each.

Uploaded by

Bob Barker
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to Tackle the OPCVL Question

for IB History
By David Boyd-Thomas
(IB English and IB History tutor at The Edge Learning Center)

When considering the OPCVL question on the Paper 1 exam (worth 4 of the total 24


points) we must look at one specific historical document and refer to
its origin, purpose, and content to determine what its values and limitations are
to historians.

To be clear on what each of these terms means it is helpful to think of the kinds of
questions we need to ask ourselves to gain a deeper understanding of the document
presented.

Who created the text, and if anyone else is


speaking, who are they? When was it created
Origin
and when was it published? Where was the
author from? Where was it published?
Why does this source exist and why did the
Purpose creator choose this particular format? Who is
the intended audience?
Content What does the source say? What do the
images convey?
How does the source help us understand the
time and place, as well as the events
occurring at the time the source was created
Values or is focusing on? How does the text help us
understand the perspectives of a given time
and place? How does it help us understand
the perspectives of the author?
What is there from the time and place
discussed that we cannot understand from the
Limitations source? Are there limitations in the
perspective that leave out important
information? Could this be intentional?

We’ll have to ask all of these questions, but the set of origin, value, and content
questions have to be asked in light of the values and limitations questions. For
instance, if we identify the author of a specific text as a Japanese business person
and the text was created in 1924, we’ll then ask how that helps us better understand
Japan at that time as well as the perspective a business person might have. We
might also ask if there are any limitations to this business person’s knowledge, and
any bias that he or she (presumably he, given the time and country) might have.

To get all 4 available points, we need to reference the origin of the text, its purpose,
and its content, at least one time each. We must talk about values and limitations as
they relate to origin, value, and content, so the possibilities are as follows:

Origin: Value Origin: Limitation


Purpose: Value Purpose: Limitation
Content: Value Content: Limitation

We don’t have to mention every possibility, but rather just any four of the six. Thus
we can choose the four we are most confident in. For instance, let’s say we have
chosen the following:

1. Origin: Value
2. Purpose: Value
3. Content: Limitation
4. Purpose: Limitation

You’ll notice that “purpose” appears twice. This is because a purpose can both have
value for historians investigating a particular aspect of history while having some
limitations in some other ways. The same holds true for origin and content as we can
talk about values and limitations for either without saying anything contradictory.

When we’ve identified which four points we would like to include in our response, it is
simply a matter of writing them out. Now remember, we need to ensure that our
answer is clear so it’s perfectly fine to rely on a fill-in-the-blank approach to
answering. In fact this is particularly useful because it helps us save time and
becomes quite automatic with some practice. For instance:
“The (origin/purpose/content) of this source is that (explain), and this
is (valuable/limited) because (explain).”

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