How do I get the higher marks in an A Level history essay?

To get higher marks, you have to make sure that you have three clear factors to answer the question. For example, if the essay was "‘The political violence of the extreme right caused the biggest threat to the Weimar Republic in the early 1920’s’ How far do you agree?", the three factors I would use would be violence from the extreme right, the loss of World War One (including the Treaty of Versailles), and the economic problems in the Weimar. Next, within each factors you have to highlight which is the most important, and this has to be consistently mentioned throughout the essay. For example, I would argue that the Treaty of Versailles was the biggest threat, as this caused both the economic problems and the violence from the extreme right. I would make sure that this is mentioned in the intro, in all the paragraphs, and in the conclusion; this way the examiner can see that your judgement is consistent. A final way to get the higher marks is to make sure you cross link through out the essay, this can be done by adding a sentence to the end of each factor paragraph and arguing why that factor is more or less important than the others. An example of this in the essay question I have highlighted would be: "However, it could be argued that without the loss of World War One, there wouldn’t be much political violence from the right due to the fact that the Treaty of Versailles would have not been put in place, therefore conscription wouldn’t be banned and the army wouldn’t have to have been reduced to only 100,000 men, consequently meaning that the Freikorps wouldn’t have existed and then the right would not have had as much power."