HSC Modern History Notes

[sudodds]

You are a Modern History angel, blessing us proles with your endless abyss of knowledge.


THANK YOU!! 

So sweet thank you I forgot to add this as well, here is a link to a video I had to make for an assessment task on Trotsky last year. Ignoring my INSANELY (almost embarrassingly) posh accent (you'd think that 10 years in australia would have forced it out of me but I guess not...  ) and my failed attempts at humour, this should be pretty useful for part A as it summarises the life and importance of Trotsky. Heres the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmytZ4lhggo&feature=youtu.be

Now back to trying to compress the Russia notes...

[diesxel]

That's a really informative video, it was so interesting and engaging as well! I'm going to tell my teacher about it so he can show the rest of the class. Those jokes are SPOT on!

Your editing is amazing by the way!

[sudodds]

Trotsky linking table is up. Basically it just shows you how to link each of the factors to the key debates for a part B response. Still working on shrinking the russia file, will hopefully be up soon 

[cwoods2]

Hey, Im having trouble with summary notes with 20th Century Russia. Im doing the course by distance and finding it hard to understand the topic, mainly the changes in the Soviet Foreign policies. Any help will be greatly appreciated 

[sudodds]

Hey, Im having trouble with summary notes with 20th Century Russia. Im doing the course by distance and finding it hard to understand the topic, mainly the changes in the Soviet Foreign policies. Any help will be greatly appreciated 

Hey! My essay collection, cosolidation linking table and detail table should help There's also a heap load of other notes on this topic uploaded under the notes section which you should definitely check out! Soviet Foreign policy is probably everyone worst section so you're definitely not alone there. I'm pretty sure I have a soviet foreign policy essay included within that essay portfolio, but I'll also have a soviet foreign policy linking/summary table up soon (similar to the trotsky one I posted below - I'll also try and get a stalinism one done) as I've had a couple of PM's in regards to this section of the syllabus so stay tuned!

Also update on the Russia notes, I've attached the ones that cover Bolshevik Consolidation of Power to this post The others will be up in a sec (just fyi though these were just the notes I wrote in class and sometimes I wrote them in a workbook so there are sections missing - mainly the entirety of the power struggle  ).

Hope this helps! If you need help with anything else let us know

[sudodds]

Okay so Stalinism and Soviet Foreign Policy still wouldn't fit, so instead I've put them on google drive (i'll upload them to the notes section too), here is the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Stq3XUWYSObjdQNlUxYzFWWXM/view?usp=sharing

[cwoods2]

Thank you so much, you have just made doing summaries for Half Yearly's ten times easier  thanks again.

[f_tan]

Is it better to write my notes chronologically, or write it to the syllabus dot points?

[sudodds]

Is it better to write my notes chronologically, or write it to the syllabus dot points?

Syllabus dot points 1100000%.
They cannot assess you on anything outside of the syllabus (even though sometimes it may appear as if they have, that is usually just confusing wording more than anything). Thus chronologically, there may be some events that are pointless studying because they just will not ever come up in a question, or can be used in a response. Along with this, writing your notes chronologically will make it a lot easier for your brain to start viewing history as a narrative, which you DO NOT want. Focusing on the syllabus dot points (many of which are in chronological order anyhow) will mean that you can view the subject more conceptually, and allow you to more easily extrapolate the key themes and issues.

Plus, particularly in WW1, questions in the exam are literally just syllabus dot points with a question mark at the end. If you study by syllabus dot point you will find these a lot easier to answer, than if you write your notes chronologically and have to use precious exam time to have to try and work out which events and issues are relevant.

Hope this helps!

Susie

[f_tan]

Syllabus dot points 1100000%.

Thank you!
Just one more question - when writing essays, is it better to be writing three paragraphs or four?

[sudodds]

Thank you!
Just one more question - when writing essays, is it better to be writing three paragraphs or four?

Write as many paragraphs as you have points/judgements.

Throughout Modern History I fluctuated between 3 paragraphs and 6 paragraphs (obviously the size of these paragraphs also fluctuated). In the actual HSC exam, for the Cold War essay I only wrote two paragraphs (wasn't the plan, but I didn't give myself enough time after the personality study, so I had try and integrate some of the detail of what would have been my third para within my other two instead of having it separate)! The amount of paragraphs you write is also going to be dependant upon what type of essay you write - thematic, factor or syllabus (the last two being very similar).

For example for a Bolshevik Consolidation of power essay, which I always wrote by the syllabus, I would always have 4.5 paragraphs (I'm saying .5 because my third paragraph was kind of split into two mini paragraphs when I touched on the Civil War and War Communism - related but still different.) However for a Stalinism essay (or literally any Cold War essay I wrote),which I always structured thematically, I'd usually only have three paragraphs - Political, Socio-cultural and Economic.

So yeah, don't think about how many paragraphs as if there is a quota. Think about it more in terms of a) how many points you want to make, and b) how much can you actually write within a 45 min period

Hope this helps!

Susie

[Diala]

Hi! I have a question about Nazi Germany, I have an essay to do in 60minutes and the teacher's going to give us 4 options from the syllabus (Weimar Republic, Rise of the Nazi Party etc) and I know that the last thing anyone wants to do is just narrate. But how are we meant to analyse the question enough to get good marks ( I know stupid question!) its just that I'm focusing on Weimar at the moment because that is what I'm planning to write about, except let's say the question was on successes and failures... do i state the failures with examples and further explain how its successful etcetc? What would she be looking for mainly in my response? Also, for a 25 marker is the minimum about 6 pages?
Thankyou! xx

[sudodds]

Hi! I have a question about Nazi Germany, I have an essay to do in 60minutes and the teacher's going to give us 4 options from the syllabus (Weimar Republic, Rise of the Nazi Party etc) and I know that the last thing anyone wants to do is just narrate. But how are we meant to analyse the question enough to get good marks ( I know stupid question!) its just that I'm focusing on Weimar at the moment because that is what I'm planning to write about, except let's say the question was on successes and failures... do i state the failures with examples and further explain how its successful etcetc? What would she be looking for mainly in my response? Also, for a 25 marker is the minimum about 6 pages?
Thankyou! xx

Dammit, another question I'm only now finding  Probably too late for your half-yearlies, but might be able to give you some advice for later assessments. I studied Russia, but we also had questions on successes and failures, so I'd assume the format would be similar. So lets say the question was 'Analyse the successes and failures of the Weimar Republic.' You will need to make a judgement as to whether you think it was overall successful or overall a failure, and support this with your argument. You must not sit on the fence and just describe the successes and failures, you need to demonstrate that you understand their significance to the events in question, and to what extent one outweighs the other.

In terms of page number I was always told that 8 pages was the minimum, as that is how many pages the HSC booklet will have (and they expect you to fill them all in),s o roughly around 1000 words. However in the HSC for my Cold War essay I didn't fill up all 8 pages (7 pages i think) and I wasn't negatively impacted.

[bellerina]

The Trotsky video above was quite informative fyi! But, i am here, to ask whether anyone has Conflict in indochina Notes? 

[sudodds]

The Trotsky video above was quite informative fyi! But, i am here, to ask whether anyone has Conflict in indochina Notes? 

So glad you enjoyed! Took me a long time to make haha. We actually have a lot of Indochina notes uploaded in the notes section! Just put "Indochina" in the search bar and they should come up