Fiducia TogetherCausation and consequence
Why something happened and what followed. Causes are not a list.
Please note: This page explains a word or a process in education. It is general information about the system, the law and the guidance in England — not advice about your child, your school or your exam. If a decision is going against you, get advice from one of the free services we link to before you agree to anything or miss a deadline. If you are revising, check your own exam board's specification: boards word things differently and yours is the one that marks you.
What it is
Causation asks what brought an event about. Consequence asks what followed from it. Both are usually assessed by whether you can rank and connect, not just list.
Where it applies
GCSE and A Level history, and it transfers to geography and RE.
How it works
Causes can be long-term, short-term and triggers; political, economic, social and military. The strongest answers show how causes INTERACTED rather than treating them as independent.
A counterfactual — would it have happened without this? — is a good test of whether a cause was necessary.
How to use it in your work
Group causes into categories, then argue which mattered most and why. That structure alone lifts an answer a band.
Link your paragraphs: "this mattered because it made the next factor possible".
Answer the actual question — many are of the form "how far was X the main cause", which requires you to weigh X against others, not describe all of them.
Where to get help
Your teacher and your board's specification — options differ enormously between centres, and yours is the one that counts. Bitesize covers the skills; the subject song runs the topics.
Revise this with a song
These are ours. We write revision songs because a lot of people remember a tune when they cannot remember a page, and because revising out loud in the kitchen beats staring at a highlighter.
- The History Song The GCSE history topics, set to music.
Where to read more
Last reviewed 2026-08-28 by Fiducia Together · Next review due 2027-08-28
Please note: This page explains a word or a process in education. It is general information about the system, the law and the guidance in England — not advice about your child, your school or your exam. If a decision is going against you, get advice from one of the free services we link to before you agree to anything or miss a deadline. If you are revising, check your own exam board's specification: boards word things differently and yours is the one that marks you.