History

How to Answer a Compare Question in History

Compare inside each paragraph, not across the essay. The paragraph shape, a worked example on 1914 and 1939, and the connectives that carry a comparison.

Short answer

How do you answer a compare question in history?

Put both things in the same paragraph. One point of comparison per paragraph, both sides side by side, joined by a word like whereas — never half the answer on one and half on the other.

The short answer
A compare question is answered one point of comparison at a time, with both subjects inside the same paragraph. Name the thing being compared, say what each side did, then say what the similarity or difference amounts to. Writing about one subject and then the other leaves the comparing to the reader, which is where the marks were.

What changes the answer

"Explain one similarity" wants no judgement at all, while "how far were they similar" wants a judgement and a conclusion — answering the first when the second was asked caps the mark.
Some questions supply the point of comparison themselves, in which case inventing your own is a way of drifting off the question.
Where the two things sit in different periods, the comparison usually needs a sentence on why the difference existed, not only that it did.

The structure that quietly loses the marks

The commonest compare answer has two halves. The first describes one thing, the second describes the other, and a final sentence reports that they were similar in some ways and different in others. Everything in it can be accurate and it will still score low, because the answer never compares anything. It supplies two descriptions and leaves the comparing to whoever is reading.

The distinction is worth stating plainly. Knowing about both subjects is the entry requirement, not the answer. A compare question tests whether you can set two things beside each other and say what the relationship between them is, and the marks follow the relationship rather than the material.

One point of comparison, one paragraph

The shape that works has four moves and fits comfortably inside a single paragraph.

The fourth move is the one that gets left out, and it is the one that turns two facts into a comparison. Without it the paragraph has still only described, in a tidier order.

Name the point of comparison in the first sentence — the category, not the content: "Alliances mattered in both cases, but they worked in opposite directions."
Give side one briefly, with a fact attached to it.
Give side two, joined by a comparative connective rather than a full stop.
Say what the comparison amounts to: same in kind but different in scale, similar cause but opposite result, and so on.

A worked paragraph: 1914 and 1939

Take the question "in what ways were the causes of the First and Second World Wars similar?". Here is one paragraph of the answer.

"Alliances helped cause both wars, but they worked in opposite directions. In 1914 the alliance system spread a local quarrel: Austria-Hungary's dispute with Serbia became a European war within weeks because Russia, Germany, France and Britain were each committed to somebody. In 1939, by contrast, the decisive agreement was the pact Germany signed with the Soviet Union that August, which did not spread a war so much as make one possible, by assuring Hitler that invading Poland would not mean fighting in the east as well. In both cases written commitments between states decided who fought and when — the difference is that the first set multiplied a conflict and the second isolated a victim."

Read it again and notice how little of it is description. Each side gets one sentence and one fact. The paragraph earns its length in the opening sentence and the closing one, which are the two doing the comparing.

The phrases that carry a comparison

Comparison is done by the joins. A paragraph containing no comparative connective is almost certainly two descriptions with a paragraph break missing.

The last two on the list are worth practising, because they are how a strong answer separates itself from a competent one. Noticing that two events were both caused by economic pressure is a start. Noticing that the pressure came from opposite directions is the answer.

whereas / by contrast / on the other hand — for a difference
similarly / in both cases / the same was true of — for a similarity
to a far greater extent than / more sharply than / on a much smaller scale — for a difference of degree
the important difference is not X but Y — for correcting an obvious but shallow comparison
both were caused by X, but for opposite reasons — for a similarity that conceals a difference

Compare like with like

A comparison only works when both halves belong to the same category. Setting the causes of one event against the consequences of another looks like comparison and is not, because the two halves are answering different questions and nothing follows from placing them together.

Naming the category in the paragraph's first sentence prevents this almost automatically. If you cannot say what the paragraph is comparing in three or four words — alliances, the role of the army, the speed of change, the part played by ordinary people — then the paragraph has no point of comparison yet, and no amount of detail will supply one.

Common questions

How many points of comparison should I make?

It follows the marks. A short four-mark similarity question wants one, developed properly, and squeezing in a second usually costs the development. A longer essay wants three or four, each with its own paragraph. Read the mark allocation before you plan, rather than discovering it halfway through.

Do I need a conclusion?

Only where the question asks for a judgement. "How far" and "to what extent" require you to come down on one side and say why. "Explain one way in which they were similar" does not, and a conclusion bolted onto a four-mark answer spends time you needed for the development.

Can I use bullet points or a table?

For planning, yes — a two-column table is the fastest way to check whether your pairs are genuinely like-for-like. In the answer itself, no. Comparison lives in the connectives between the two sides, and bullet points strip out exactly those, leaving two lists that never meet.

What if the two things are barely comparable?

Say so, give the reason, then compare what can be compared. "The two rebellions differed in almost everything except their trigger" is a legitimate and often high-scoring opening, because it shows you have measured the comparison rather than assumed the question already made it for you.

Is "they were both important" a comparison?

No. It is a statement about each of them that would be equally true if you had never looked at the other one. A comparison has to say something that only becomes visible when the two are placed side by side — a difference of scale, of timing, of cause, or of who benefited.

Last updated August 21, 2026