With only a few hours to go until your Modern History HSC, I'm sure a lot of you are feeling pretty concerned about the exam. Like I wrote about in my
90 hour prep article, 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. 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. But what can you be doing tonight, and what should you be thinking about during the exam tomorrow?
Last Minute PrepI wouldn't be doing any more past papers at this stage. It just isn't a productive use of your time; the likelihood of getting the same essay question tomorrow is very, very low. So, put down the pen, and ignore past papers.
I think there is something to be said for committing things to short-term memory, this close to the exam. That said, I think the only real study you can be doing now is going over your specific, accurate, relevant and detailed exams over and over. Say them outloud, explain them in an interesting and funny way, get your family to test you on them. Even if you remember 20 of the 100 you go through tonight and tomorrow morning, that can still make a serious difference to your essay. You can't write a modern history essay without evidence to back up your argument! That being said, things like names, years, names of battles, those are all specific details. Make sure to use them wherever possible!
You can also be revising your thesis' tonight. I would highly recommend doing this; run through the syllabus, and just say outloud what you would argue for a question on that point. What were the successes and failures of the Weimar Republic? What were the key turning points in WWI/WWII? Just chat to yourself, whether you record it or not; it'll seriously help shove more detail into your brain in a concentrated period of time.
Finally, if you have any last minute Modern questions, feel free to post them below, or in our
Modern History question thread! We're always here to help, even hours before your exam
Acing the ExamDuring any Modern History exam, there are certain things that are absolutely crucial to think about. I'm going to go through some of them here, the ones that are (in my opinion) most important to a successful response, however there's definitely heaps more to wrap your head around. Again, if you have any questions, chuck them below!
Specific, accurate, relevant and detailed examplesYou need to be using specifics. If you've gone too long (a couple sentences) without throwing in a detail, reassess how you're going about answering the question. It's seriously important that you use evidence to back up your argument; no-one really cares what you THINK about history, they care about what you can PROVE.
The point of the essay is to build up your fact-base so that you can draw whatever conclusions you want. Saying that the Allies won WWI is about as useful as saying Germany invaded America in 1918; explain HOW the Allies won WWI, on what date you think they defeated Germany, how many tanks they used at the Battle of Marne, how many political prisoners did they take? For a list of EVERY SARDE you need for the WWI section, click here.
ThesisThis is probably the most important part of your essay. It's also the most difficult to get right. My main recommendation is to, for your own benefit, write out what your thesis IS in one or two sentences. This doesn’t need to necessarily be included in the essay itself: just have it there for you to refer to. As you’re writing the essay itself, try to constantly refer back to your thesis. If you go an entire paragraph without referring to your thesis, you may as well not include the paragraph. Use sentences like “this supports the notion that…” and “This solidifies the idea that…” etc. etc.
Your topic sentence (ie. The first sentence of each paragraph) should introduce the general idea of the paragraph. The concluding sentence should directly link it to your thesis, and also perhaps allow for a quick introduction of the link between your current paragraph and the next. These things are really difficult to get right, and in this case practice makes perfect.
Make sure to have a thesis that is nuanced enough to sustain a discussion for the entire essay. If your thesis is "X caused Y", you're probably going to run into issues. If, on the other hand, your thesis is "X was a contributing factor to an aspect of Y", you have a bunch of other things (other contributing factors, other aspects of Y) to talk about throughout the essay!
StructureStructure can make or break an essay. If you're not sure of your own structure, and the marker isn't sure of your structure, then your essay becomes way more difficult to write/read. Plan your structure at the beginning of your essay. If a question asks about Social, Political and Economic factors, you already have your structure; One paragraph on each! If it is a more complex question, you should still plan (at the start of the exam period) how you are going to set out your answer so that it flows logically.
There are two main ways to structure an answer: Thematically or Chronologically. I would say that, the majority of the time, structuring it by theme works far more successfully. However, obviously answering a question like “outline the significance of the events leading up to the breaking of Stalemate” should be answered chronologically, simply because it’s easier for you.
Seriously, I would recommend spending two minutes thinking about your structure and writing up a plan. It just makes life so much easier for you when you're writing out your essay; you don't have to think about what comes next, you can just think about what you're writing right now!
Analyse, Don't Just ExplainIt is really easy to spend an entire paragraph explaining what happened 100 years ago in Germany or Indo-China. However, that won’t get you a very high mark in a history exam. What you want to be doing is spending a sentence or two explaining the events, and then a few sentences explaining their IMPORTANCE to your thesis/the time period etc. Saying that there were 478 Tanks at the Battle of Cambrai is all well and good, but where you get the marks (other than knowing the statistic) is by linking that to the question: For instance, the success of the tanks at Cambrai display the tactical advantage Britain had over Germany due to highly developed technological equipment, which would eventually lead to the end of the war.
Seriously, good luck! You've come such a long way in a year, learned so many goddamned statistics. Your working knowledge of Modern History will be a party trick you pull out for years to come, and your hard work will pay off tomorrow. It's a seriously scary exam, but the fact is that you'll be okay, and it'll be over soon. So, good luck, and check back here for post-exam discussion! I hope you all get the questions you hope for