This type of essay question tests your ability to explain change and continuity. As discussed above, historical study typically focuses on changes. In this essay type, you have to identify major changes and explain the significance of those changes—that is, why the changes matter—for the topic described in the prompt. You will also have to analyze why something changed. But because some things continue largely the same for hundreds of years or more, you also have to identify continuities, explain their significance, and explain why these patterns persisted for so long.

Your essay response must clearly address both elements—continuity and change. A strong argument must do more than simply identify some continuities and changes. It has to analyze why both the continuities and changes existed and why they mattered. It’s a good idea to weigh the relative value of continuities and changes. In other words, do you perceive continuities to have been more powerful than changes on the topic addressed in the prompt, or vice versa? Why do you think so? In terms of structure, avoid the temptation to organize your essay into two large paragraphs, one for continuities and one for changes. Instead, identify important topics or categories of comparison—governmental structure, trade patterns, or gender relations—and use those topics as the body paragraphs. Then, in each body paragraph, address both continuities and changes, being clear to signal your transition from one to the other.

In the same way that identifying change is an easier historical thinking skill than identifying continuity, change is also easier to write about than continuity. Historical narratives devote a lot of time to, say, reasons for the fall of the Han empire—a significant change in East Asia. So if you’re writing an essay about states in that era, that information will come to mind more quickly.

After brief reflection, however, you’ll realize that the Han empire endured for more than 400 years—a significant continuity. Hopefully, you’ll also remember what you learned about how Han rulers governed their empire. Their techniques of government help explain why the empire lasted as long as it did. Therefore, in an essay about change and continuity in the Han empire you would want to identify a major political continuity in the era (the continued existence of the Han empire), discuss why this was significant (this large dynasty influenced a large region of East Asia), and explain why it endured (its governing techniques).