It's nearly time; a year of ridiculously complicated content, a year of learning thousands of specific, accurate, relevant and detailed examples, a year of trying your best to pronounce foreign words, is finally going to pay off. I am of the firm belief that Modern History is one of the most difficult subjects in the HSC (and I did Extension 2 Maths!), and the Modern History exam is certainly the most difficult exam I sat. With only a few days to go until your Modern History, exam, how do you ensure that you maximise you study techniques, and ensure success? Follow the below tips, and ask any questions by making a
free account and hitting 'reply'. There are heaps of users here to answer your questions, from myself to the legendary Sudodds, so ask anything you want!
Where To StartI think it's super important to have a complete, detailed set of notes. Presumably you have that by now, but if not have a look through our
free sets of notes online. From there, I think there are two main things I would recommend focusing on.
Start off by compiling past HSC questions relevant to your topics. Generally, you can put them into 'themes' of questions, each addressing specific dotpoints or areas in History. Figure out how many types of questions there are, and write up some essay plans for each. Basically, decide what content you would include (ie. what examples you need), and come up with a solid thesis. Within each general 'example/theme', decide on which specific, accurate, relevant and detailed examples you plan to use. For instance, if you were writing about Weimar Germany in 1939, and specifically interested in the political climate, a good idea would be to have election results and relevant quotes down on your essay summary sheet.
Once you have a thesis, and have decided what examples you plan to use, you've basically 'done' the essay without actually writing it. Everything else is just filler. Do this for all types of questions in each of your topics, and you'll be seriously prepared for the exam.
Now, the second type of thing I would be focusing on is topic-area palmcards/summary sheets. Go through your essay plans, and write out any specific details you haven't memorised yet. On your palmcards, use a certain colour for dates, a certain colour for numbers, quotes etc. etc. This is just to help you learn the relevant information.
After that, if you're having trouble learning the information to a sufficient degree, I would seriously recommend creating worksheets. I only did this a few days before my HSC, and it seriously seriously helped.
Basically, I would write out my own worksheets with blank spaces, photocopy the worksheets a hundred times, and fill out the worksheet 5 times a day.
Amazingly, it works. It almost doubled the number of statistics I remember for my Modern History HSC.
For each section (dotpoint perhaps?) I would write a worksheet with ONLY the absolutely crucial statistics that you are planning to remember. That means maybe 10-15 statistics per subtopic, max.
Obviously this doesn’t help for an actual thesis, but it definitely does help memorising statistics.
Group StudyI spent a lot of my time in the library, just chatting about the curriculum with a friend. I couldn't recommend that more; it's a great way to identify gaps in knowledge, and to build a thesis efficiently and effectively. It'll also make the timeline much easier to remember, and you'll recall essay structures very quickly in an exam setting. Don't spend all of the next few days in group study, because you absolutely need to do some private work. In particular, you need to be doing complete past papers if you have time. However, group study is a really beneficial way to work effectively!
Other TipsIn the last few days before Modern History, I used to talk to myself a lot. Like, a lot. I would look at a dot point, and basically just talk for as long as I can about any information relevant to that dot point. It was like a game; see how much you remember, and see how eloquently you can say it. I would walk down to the beach and talk to my self, sit at my desk and talk to myself, have a shower and talk to myself. I think it's a great idea, because you can tell straight away which dot points are your weakest. I tried not to use my notes, except to check that I was right about a specific statistic. I also did a similar thing when it came to answering essay questions; rather than writing it out, I would just verbally answer/structure the response. It's a lot quicker than handwriting it, I can tell you that!
It's seriously important that you're writing your History essay correctly, thinking about the right things. You can find a detailed explanation of my top tips for History essay success in an
article I wrote earlier in the year.In summary, make sure to use enough specific details, maintain a thesis throughout any essay, don't just explain what happens for the entire essay, build a nuanced essay, and think carefully about your structure before walking into the exam room!
When it comes to source analysis, I also wrote an
article earlier in the year. Make sure you have a good plan for your source analysis, because it isn't worth losing easy marks.
Finally, for your personality study, check out
this article here! This is a section you can prepare quite comprehensively for, and don't need to spend too much study time on. The questions are always very similar, and so forming a thesis is something you can almost always do before seeing the question. In any case, let me know if you have any questions!
And those are my main tips to History exam success. If you have any questions, please ask below. Good luck, and catch you around the forums
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