This page lists what we actually have for OCR GCSE Ancient History J198. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.
The compulsory half, which is the half everyone sits
OCR structures both papers the same way. A compulsory period study, then a depth study chosen by the department.
All eight of these activities are on the compulsory sections. The Persian Empire 559 to 465 BC on Paper 1, the Foundations of Rome 753 to 440 BC on Paper 2.
The depth studies, Alexander the Great and Hannibal with the Second Punic War, have nothing here.
For once, covering half a specification is not a caveat about options. These two period studies are sat by every candidate for this qualification, so this page does not need to ask what your department chose. It simply stops before the part that varies.
Persia, in four
The rise of Cyrus and the making of the empire. The succession crisis of Cambyses, Smerdis and the accession of Darius, which is the passage where the source problem becomes unavoidable. The reign of Darius, satrapies, roads, tribute and the machinery of governing something that large. Xerxes and the Greeks.
The Darius activity is the longest and the most worthwhile, because administration is the part students find least memorable and examiners find most examinable.
Rome, in four
The legendary kings, Romulus and Numa and the origins. The Etruscan kings. The expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus and the origins of the Republic. Securing the Republic.
Early Rome is a peculiar thing to teach, because most of what is known was written centuries later by people with a case to make about what Rome had become. That is not a difficulty to work around. It is the historical skill the specification is after.
Sources that are not neutral, treated as the subject
Herodotus is the main narrative for Persia and Livy for early Rome, and neither was present.
Herodotus wrote decades after the Persian Wars, for a Greek audience, about their enemy. Livy wrote centuries after the kings, under Augustus, about the founding of the state Augustus was reshaping. A student who treats either as a record of events has misunderstood the discipline; a student who dismisses them has nothing left to work with.
These activities put the source problem inside the content rather than in a methods section, which is how the paper asks about it: not "is Herodotus reliable" in the abstract, but what this particular passage can and cannot be used to show.
Alongside Classical Civilisation
Departments often run these two together, and they are genuinely different subjects. OCR GCSE Classical Civilisation is about culture, literature and daily life, and all six of its entry routes are covered here.
If your students take both, the overlap is smaller than expected and the habits of mind transfer well.
Using them
The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.
The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.
What this page does not do
Nothing on either depth study, which is half of each paper.
It does not supply the set sources. The activities work around them and your department provides the texts.
It does not mark extended writing. The tasks ask for seventy to ninety words with a structure to follow.
It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.