We never "learnt" any facts (like who was king/queen/PM/president or whatever) - usually you'd study one very narrow period for an entire year. So one year you

We never "learnt" any facts (like who was king/queen/PM/president or whatever) - usually you'd study one very narrow period for an entire year. So one year you'd learn about the Roman empire's withdrawal from Britain, the next it was the Russian revolution, the year after it was the Wars of the Roses or whatever. Exam questions were always always always in the form of "The Roman withdrawal from Britain was inevitable. Discuss" or "The Industrial revolution led to the fall of the British Empire. Discuss". I.e. long-form essay answers, perhaps 2 or 3 essays within a single 2 or 3 hour exam. You never had to just recall naked facts on their own - you needed to know some to answer the essays of course, but you never just recited. So pros and cons - I have no idea about what order the Prime Ministers were in or Kings and Queens or if the Edwardian Era came before or after the victorian era etc. I lack historic knowledge, but I guess the skills learnt were useful? I have no idea what it is like now - my experience is a couple of decades out of date. edit: looks like things are more or less the same still. Example paper with questions specifically asking you to critique historic sources (page 3): https://cdn.savemyexams.co.uk/uploads/2023/01/1hia-11-que-20211119.pdf https://cdn.savemyexams.co.uk/uploads/2023/01/1hia-11-que-20.... Moar: https://www.savemyexams.co.uk/gcse/history/edexcel/-/pages/past-papers/ https://www.savemyexams.co.uk/gcse/history/edexcel/-/pages/p...