So, it’s that time of year where you’ll be working hard on your personality study. The personality study section of the Modern History curriculum, whilst often considered the easiest part of your year, is often done pretty badly. I think that this is because people assume it’s a straight forward assessment: talk about a person’s life for a bit, discuss a few differing opinions from various historians, write a quick conclusion to your personality study, and move on with your life. However, by putting in just a little bit more effort, you can push up your mark for this section with ease.
Generally, very little time is spent (in class) on the personality study aspect of Modern History. Consequently, most people focus on the middle parts of the curriculum which is by far the focus of the time spent with teachers. It’s very easy to forget that the personality study is worth 25% of your final HSC mark. It’s probably worth 25% of your Trials too. And, it’s super easy to do well in. How? Structure, research and some simple memorisation tips.
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Personality Study: Structure
As you know, there will always be a ‘Part A’ and a ‘Part B’ section of the personality study section of any test. The first part is an outline of the person’s life and the second is a more in-depth analysis of conflicting opinions of the person. It is worth noting that Part A is generally worth less marks than Part B: you should be allocating your time accordingly. Still, the marks are roughly the same, so you definitely can’t be writing a paragraph for Part A, and 5 pages for Part B. Spend about 2/3 of your time on the second, more nuanced section of the essay.
Part A
Part A should be logical, comprehensive and specific with regards to your personality’s early life. That being said, it is of vital importance that you decide which facts are important, and which aren’t. Try to work them into sentences succinctly in order to avoid wasting valuable time. You want to be hammering on the key points, not irrelevant ones.
Part A needs to be pretty specific in order to impress a marker. We will talk about the best way to memorise statistics and quotes later, but I’ve just quickly written up an example paragraph from an Albert Speer essay I wrote in my HSC.
“Upon the death of First Architect Paul Troost (21 January 1934), Speer was appointed First Architect of the Reich. He thereafter developed the Zeppelinfeld stadium, where large events could take place and Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will was shot. It was able to hold 340,000 people, and the rally became iconic due to the 130 searchlights (known as the ‘Cathedral of Lights’, or to British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson a “Cathedral of Ice”) that shone into the air at night, giving a grand and ominous atmosphere to the grounds. Work on extending this compound began in 1937, and Speer planned the end product to be over 16 square kilometres, and have a 2 kilometre avenue for parades.”
Another section reads as follows:
“Speer was a pragmatic industrial leader, who believed that slave and foreign forced labour was necessary during war time. By 1944, Auschwitz had over 55,000 foreign workers, and V2 rockets were developed first by concentration camp labourers. Speer seemed opposed to the removal of Jews to death camps as they would otherwise make good armament workers for him, stating in a cross examination by Justice Jackson “if the Jews who were evacuated had been allowed to work for me, it would have been a considerable advantage to me”. It is estimated that for each V2 rocket produced, six forced labourers died, emphasising the horrendous conditions of the workers under Speer.”
A couple things to note for Part A. It needs to follow a clear path, and should be in chronological order. Your facts need to be specific and relevant to the personality’s life, and your use of historical language should be as sophisticated as possible. Every sentence should be targeted, because there is always so much to talk about in the personality study section. Your personality has been chosen because of the huge impact they have had on history (good or bad), so you can be sure that they have had a lot of experience in multiple sectors of society. Additionally, being super comfortable with your personality’s life is a great way of getting a leg up in Part B; linking arguments and a thesis to concrete facts is a good way to get ahead in that section!
Part B
Now, let’s talk about Part B, the most difficult part of the personality study. The question is often very vague, very general, and very unhelpful, because it is meant to capture every personality that you could be studying (and there are like 40 options). Typical questions are:
“Evaluate the contribution of your personality to national and international history”
“The significance of an individual is created more by themselves than by the
events of their life. How accurate is this statement in relation to the personality you have studied and their period of national or international history?”
“To what extent did the personality you have studied have a positive impact on his or her times?”
You get the idea. Vague, general questions that really don’t mean anything. Let’s try to deconstruct the best approach to answering these kinds of questions.
The trouble with these vague questions is that it’s really tempting to just write out a pre-written essay and hope for the best. This is not a good idea. Tailoring your essay to the question, although difficult, is the best way to get a good mark. You can almost always work in your argument to a question, but don’t just assume that the marker can figure that out. Make your thesis really explicit, and use the words of the question left right and centre.
For instance, in answer to the first question above, I wrote the following in my introduction:
“This essay will attempt to deconstruct the façade developed by one of the most prominent members of the Nazi party, an opportunist instrumental in the shaping of the German war effort and, as such, the course of 20th century national and international history. Through the exploration of Speer’s relationship with his Fuhrer and the direct evidence unequivocally implicating Speer in inhumane policies, this essay will make evident the extent to which this influential figure effected the direction of history.”
Try to form as nuanced a thesis as possible. A typical question is about your personality being “swept away” in their surroundings. Maybe you could say that yes, they were swept away for a bit, but then they took control of their situation and used it to their advantage. A thesis that is just a little bit more complex than a typical “yes/no” type response will go a long way.
The structure of Part B should follow the same structure as any essay; introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion. In your body, you should move forward thematically; pick out the three most-discussed (from a Historian’s perspective) aspect of their life, and work through them. For instance, with Albert Speer I wrote about his proximity to Hitler, his anti-Semitic policies and his time at Nuremburg. From there, you want to look to as many historians as possible, using them as evidence for your thesis. You also MUST use statistics to back up your points; intermingle all of these features with your thesis. For instance,
“In this way Speer’s contribution to national history is evident; his “unwarranted access to the most powerful man in Germany” (Van Der Vat, 1997) due to his ability to increase armaments productivity, having inherited an industry producing only “25% of the armaments of the Allies” (Trevor-Roper, 1971), gave Speer4 both a place in Hitler’s inner circle, and, more significantly, a voice. While it has been suggested that Speer exaggerated his own contribution to the successful nature of the armaments industry by doctoring his report, the Reichschafterich, in order to “secure a favourable judgement from both history and the historians” (Shmidt, 1985), it is his approach at Nuremberg that most effectively sought to alter the perception of his contribution to international history.”
Make sure you are very, very clear with what you are trying to say. Too often, students will ramble on about the pros and cons of their personality study, the goods things that they did followed by the bad. Try to use historians to understand both under the same umbrella. It seems a bit tricky, but once you have a good essay you have nothing to worry about; you can almost always replicate it in the exam, as the question will always be very malleable.
Personality Study: Research
It is really important that you have specific, accurate, relevant and detailed examples in your personality study essay. The best place to find these are books from your local library. Sure, the internet has loads of good stuff, but nothing beats 500 pages of dedicated analysis of your person! Find the ‘big names’ in your field, there are usually at least a couple, then head to your local library and borrow a book by them. You can use them to find quotes from Part B, statistics for Part A, and even help to inform your overall thesis for this section.
Before starting your Part A, write out a list of statistics, quotes, dates etc. that you are planning to use. MAKE SURE THERE ARE A LOT, and then work it into this section. It should NOT just be “Then they did this, and they thought this, but then they did this, and they thought this”. You need specific details to back up what you’re saying.
Find lots of quotes from historians significant to this area of research. If you can find interviews conducted with your personality, that would be ideal; using the person’s own words is a powerful tool. Have a plan for these quotes before you start your essay; what will the structure be? How will you use them? Will you use them in support of your thesis? Will you claim that some of them are flawed (a great idea for a band 6 essay)?
Once you’ve put all of these components together, write a practice essay, send it to your teacher for feedback, fix it, send it in again, and again, and again. Once you have a perfect essay, basically your next job is to memorise it. This is a section that is so easy to do well in, once you’ve put in the initial effort. Unlike all the other sections, where you have to know a huge amount of content (but will only be memorised on a tiny percentage of it), here you can make sure you know all of the important details and nothing more, and can be sure that you’ll need to use all of it!
Personality Study: Memorisation
It’s seriously important that you remember all the statistics, and all the quotes, for your personality study essay. Throughout your Modern History journey, there is one thing that is absolutely certain: you will have to memorise literally hundreds and hundreds of specific, accurate, relevant and detailed examples to back up any point you make. Modern history is nothing without statistics, and whilst I personally think it is silly that you have to memorise them as opposed to having an open book exam, that’s just the situation you are in!
Note that the following methods works perfectly with any other content-heavy subject!
The technique I used to memorise statistics was work sheets. 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 for weeks and weeks.
Amazingly, it works. It almost doubled the number of statistics I remember for my Modern History HSC.
The way I would use worksheets is as follows.
For each section I would write a worksheet with ONLY the absolutely crucial statistics that you are planning to remember. Make a worksheet for each topic, and use it throughout the year to help you learn what you need to learn! For the personality study, you can do exactly the same: Write out the quote with some blanks, or with the author removed, and test yourself to see if you can fill in the blank parts! It’s a seriously useful tool, and I couldn’t recommend it more. For a comprehensive outline of how to use this technique, as well as EVERY World War I statistic that you will ever need, click here! You can see a quick example of what I mean below.
And those are my tips for the personality study section of your Modern History exam! Building a great essay is a good way to hit the ground running during an exam, so I wish you the best of luck building your thesis!
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