Evaluate the attempts at modernization in Iran or Saudi Arabia or one North African state.

The question requires that candidates make an appraisal of the attempts to modernize one of the stated territories (or another one relevant territory of the candidates’ choice), weighing up the strengths and limitations of those attempts. For Iran, candidates may refer to Reza Shah’s programme of modernization (which met with limited results); for Saudi Arabia they may refer to its unification as a country in 1932, and the limited modernizations it achieved before that time (and before the discovery of oil in the country in 1938); for the alternative state, much will depend on that chosen, as the degree of modernization varied significantly and was sometimes dependent on the degree of European influence that had been exerted on the region.