DSE Chinese History Syllabus: Compulsory Topics, Electives and Exam Structure

Chinese History is one of the elective subjects in the Personal, Social and Humanities Education key learning area at senior secondary level, and its public assessment is based on the Chinese History Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4–6) jointly prepared by the Curriculum Development Council and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority. Candidates are expected to have the basic knowledge built up in junior secondary Chinese History and to have grasped the initial methods of reading historical sources and of historical thinking; the ability to organise, synthesise, analyse and evaluate historical events that the subject demands builds precisely on the Chinese History studied in secondary school. The DSE Chinese History Syllabus is designed to link two threads: the vertical thread of change over time and the horizontal thread of cultural landscape.

In terms of curriculum structure, Chinese History is planned at about 250 hours over three years and divided into three parts: the Compulsory Part (Development through the Ages) (chronological in design, divided into Section A and Section B, and compulsory for all candidates); the Elective Part (Themes in Chinese History) (thematic in design, with six units of which candidates choose one); and the Attitude and Methods of Historical Study, infused into everyday teaching, with particular emphasis on developing students’ ability to learn how to learn, so that they master the skills of historical enquiry through practice and cultivate the scholarly spirit of seeking truth.

The Compulsory Part breaks away from a framework organised around dynasties and highlights the main characteristics of different historical periods: Section A runs from the Xia dynasty to the mid-19th century and is divided into five periods, while Section B runs from the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century and is divided into three periods. Each period selects topics that bring out its distinctive features, and an Overview is given before the topics are studied — written records for the Xia and Shang are fragmentary, so those two dynasties have no set topics and their major events are introduced in the Overview only; to keep the learning content from becoming unwieldy, the Overview is not included in the public assessment.

It is worth noting that the public assessment of Chinese History has no School-based Assessment, and the whole subject mark comes from the public examination: Paper 1 (Development through the Ages) carries 70% of the subject over 2 hours 15 minutes, and Paper 2 (Themes in Chinese History) carries 30% over 1 hour 20 minutes. Paper 1 sets compulsory questions covering both Section A and Section B, while three questions are set for the rest of Section A and three for the rest of Section B, from which candidates must answer one each; the arrangement for Paper 2 has changed from the previous “answer one question from each of two units” to “answer two questions from the one unit you have chosen”, so candidates should confirm the latest assessment arrangements with their own subject teacher.

The distinctive difficulty of Chinese History is that it demands three sets of abilities at once: remembering and ordering chronology, identifying and interpreting historical sources, and organising and arguing a historical case. Memorise the events but lack any one of these links and your marks will stall on a particular type of question, with no way through.

Section A runs from the Xia dynasty to the mid-19th century and is divided into five periods, each selecting topics that bring out its distinctive features. The focus of Section A is the causes of order and disorder and institutional change: the centralisation of power under the Qin and Han, the aristocratic clans and ethnic integration of the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties, the good government and decline of the Sui and Tang, and the centralisation of power and ethnic policies of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing all interlock with one another. The main topics and learning focus of the five periods follow; parents and students can use them to check whether their own notes are complete.

Section B runs from the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century and is divided into three periods; it is the core of the subject’s modern-history content and the range from which the compulsory question in the public examination is most often drawn. Here too, an Overview should be given before each period, and the Overview is not included in the assessment. The main topics and learning focus of the three periods follow.

The Elective Part is thematic in design and offers six units; candidates choose one according to their interests, and Paper 2 examines only the unit chosen. The six units approach Chinese history from different angles — culture, geography, people, institutions, religion and gender — in order to broaden students’ understanding of the different dimensions of Chinese history and to lay a foundation for more specialised historical study at university. Before choosing, you must check which units your own school actually offers.

The public assessment of Chinese History consists of two papers, with the public examination accounting for 100% and no School-based Assessment. Paper 1 (Development through the Ages) examines the Compulsory Part (Section A and Section B) and carries 70% of the subject over 2 hours 15 minutes; Paper 2 (Themes in Chinese History) examines the Elective Part and carries 30% of the subject over 1 hour 20 minutes. According to the HKEAA’s latest Chinese History assessment framework, these weightings remain unchanged.

The assessment of Chinese History aims to evaluate three areas of ability: understanding the origins, development and interrelationship of important historical events, and building key historical concepts and a personal sense of history; organising, synthesising, analysing and evaluating historical events, and using historical materials and the arguments around them to express one’s own views; and mastering the methods of historical enquiry, thinking independently, and identifying the authenticity and credibility of sources. These three kinds of ability are not revised in the same way, and dividing your time equally between them is usually the least efficient approach.

The first is knowledge and understanding, based mainly on the fundamentals of chronology, institutions, people and events, and appearing chiefly in the factual parts of the compulsory and elective questions. This is the area most easily improved by practice, and the key is to write the causes of order and disorder, the features of institutions and the key figures of each period into a single page of your own notes — the three far-reaching effects under the Qin and Han, for instance (the centralisation of power, government by scholar-officials and the new economic policies), should be remembered as one chain of cause and effect rather than recited in fragments.

The second is identifying and interpreting historical sources, which appears mainly in the compulsory questions of Paper 1. Questions provide several sources — written extracts, statistics, maps, cartoons and photographs — and test whether candidates can extract information from them, tell true from false, and connect them with the topics they have studied. When answering, read the source’s provenance, author and standpoint first, then decide which period’s concepts to bring in, and make clear whether you are arguing from the sources or from what you have learned.

The third is organising and arguing a historical case, mainly in the elective questions. Marking has always valued the completeness of the chain of cause and effect and the levels of argument: background and causes first, then course and mechanism, and finally results, impact or appraisal. Appraising a ruler’s governing policies, for instance, requires setting out in turn the background to his rule, the specific measures, the positive results and the negative costs, and only then an overall judgement; omitting any one link loses key marks.

Chinese History is both knowledge and evidence of ability. The three points below are the practical considerations parents and students discuss most often when choosing subjects.

Results in Chinese History rarely turn on whether a student is clever; they usually turn on method. The four points below are the places where students most often lose marks in our tutors’ experience, with the strategy that answers each.

• Official resources—the Education Bureau’s Chinese History Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4–6) (jointly prepared by the Curriculum Development Council and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority); and the HKEAA’s Chinese History assessment framework and its Examination Report (with marking scheme and comments on candidates’ performance). Curriculum documents and assessment frameworks are always more reliable than notes circulating online.
• Further reading—articles in our syllabus series: DSE Geography Syllabus, DSE Economics Syllabus, and DSE Mathematics Syllabus.
• Tip for parents—in Chinese History, marks are lost far more often because students are unwilling to write evidence than because they do not know the events. Encourage your child to pay attention to historical and cultural issues in the news (heritage conservation, museum exhibitions, history documentaries, for example) and to link textbook concepts with real material — far more effective than reciting notes blindly.

Note: The information above is for reference only. Please consult professional education institutions for details.

This article was initially drafted and organised with AI. Editor / Professor Chan Kwok-wai,

Managing Editor / Kong Yee-leung