History Extension Question Thread!

[henrychapman]

Has anyone else handed in and received their majors back from marking yet? I recently got mine and was warned that she marked harshly due to her students last year getting dragged down because they were marked easy. I received 39/50 where I lost marks linking and also my log book was quite "detached" (Which I 100% understand because I didn't really put effort into it).

There were a few bits and pieces here and there where I should have also linked to science (My project question was "Assess the Justifiability regarding the Myth of Atlantis being a Critical part of the Historical Past) but overall my teacher said that I handed in a thoroughly researched project with excellent historiography.

Any advice I could give to future students - just because a section is 5 marks doesn't mean you can slack off. DO EVERYTHING TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY!!!

I have - and kids in my class didn't get full marks for the bibliography or the project log and were wondering why... it just shows that they aren't 5 guaranteed marks each and a lot of effort has to go into them.
Our essay was out of 25 and the top mark in our year was 22 - I feel you with the harsh marking... they were essentially looking for perfection. I received 21 and when i learnt this, I was very happy with my mark compared to the rest of the cohort. Ordinarily, I'd be hoping for something slightly better but the marks are all dependant in comparison with the cohort !

[emilijab]

Hi,

I'm fixing up the endnotes for my major work and I keep on getting confused on the format that I'm using. Does anyone have a link to a simple and reliable referencing guide? I'm not even sure which format I've started to use but I think it's Oxford.

Thanks
Emilija

[katie,rinos]

Hi,

I'm fixing up the endnotes for my major work and I keep on getting confused on the format that I'm using. Does anyone have a link to a simple and reliable referencing guide? I'm not even sure which format I've started to use but I think it's Oxford.

Thanks
Emilija

Hey,
We were given this document from USyd to help us reference and I think it's in the Oxford style. This website might also help because it gives a lot of examples.

Hope this helps!! 

[emilijab]

Hey,
We were given this document from USyd to help us reference and I think it's in the Oxford style. This website might also help because it gives a lot of examples.

Hope this helps!! 

Thankyou Should I be doing Oxford btw? My teacher didn't really specify.

[katie,rinos]

Thankyou Should I be doing Oxford btw? My teacher didn't really specify.

Hey,
I don't think it matters too much, as long as you acknowledge your sources and have a consistent system of referencing. If you are worried, maybe email your teacher because they are the one marking it.

Hope this helps!! 

[EmzieRose]

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to check over my exam response for my trial that I just got back. I'm happy with my mark but I just wanted another perspective of what I need to include/expand on.

[katie,rinos]

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to check over my exam response for my trial that I just got back. I'm happy with my mark but I just wanted another perspective of what I need to include/expand on.

Hey,
Feel free to post it here and I, or someone else, will hopefully be able to get some feedback to you soon. 

[chickenlaksa123]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me approximately how long the introduction for the essays should be, and the number of points that I should talk about to score in the top Band?

Thank you

[owidjaja]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me approximately how long the introduction for the essays should be, and the number of points that I should talk about to score in the top Band?

Thank you

Hey there,
Your introductions are generally longer than your standard 2U intros. Mine take up at least one page (and I have medium size handwriting), and the essays that I've read have intros that are at least over 300 words- pretty sure this is something Bruce Dennett (supervisor for Modern history marking but also gives HIX advice) also mentioned that your intros are supposed to be long.

As for the number of points, there isn't a specific number assigned to this. Generally I do three points but I do know others who do two long paragraphs (for Question 2 I wrote 2 large paragraphs in the Trials).

Hope this helps!

[henrychapman]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me approximately how long the introduction for the essays should be, and the number of points that I should talk about to score in the top Band?

Thank you

In HIX its all about what suits you and what suits the question and the source. As such, there isn't a set "structure" that you're required to adhere to.
As long as each of your paragraphs has a topic sentence that relates directly to the question and the source, your own sources and your own voice then you've got a good HIX essay !
I did 4 main ones for the trial in the 'What is History?' section and I think 3 for case study (I was running out of time too haha)
Hope this helps

[chickenlaksa123]

In HIX its all about what suits you and what suits the question and the source. As such, there isn't a set "structure" that you're required to adhere to.
As long as each of your paragraphs has a topic sentence that relates directly to the question and the source, your own sources and your own voice then you've got a good HIX essay !
I did 4 main ones for the trial in the 'What is History?' section and I think 3 for case study (I was running out of time too haha)
Hope this helps

Thank you for your answer. This really helped to clear up my worries

[theyam]

Hello,
Was just wondering if anyone was willing to share their trial papers for Extension History or any exemplar responses? I wasn't able to find much on thsc and acehsc.
Thank you ~ 

[katie,rinos]

Hello,
Was just wondering if anyone was willing to share their trial papers for Extension History or any exemplar responses? I wasn't able to find much on thsc and acehsc.
Thank you ~ 

Hey,
It would possibly be best to see if your teacher has any. I know my extension teacher was able to give us a booklet of past trial questions. Unfortunately, both CSSA and Independent papers (which are two of the main papers/companies) are copyright and therefore can't be shared on the forums.

However, there are some really good exemplar responses here (if you haven't seen them yet).

[theyam]

Hey,
It would possibly be best to see if your teacher has any. I know my extension teacher was able to give us a booklet of past trial questions. Unfortunately, both CSSA and Independent papers (which are two of the main papers/companies) are copyright and therefore can't be shared on the forums.

However, there are some really good exemplar responses here (if you haven't seen them yet).

Thank you

Was just wondering if anyone could suggest how they would approach this What is History question?
The construction of history can never be divorced from its purpose

Thanks

[katie,rinos]

Thank you

Was just wondering if anyone could suggest how they would approach this What is History question?
The construction of history can never be divorced from its purpose

Thanks

Hey,

This was actually my trial question last year (but the source could have been different).
I argued that history cannot be fully objective as it's construction cannot be divorced from it's purpose.

My points were:
- History can be written with a purpose & initial hypothesis in mind and historians are guided by their beliefs. I talked about public history and how this is funded by the government and could push different political beliefs/ideologies.
- You could also talk bout teleology or how some historians selectively use evidence (I used E.H Carr's fishmonger analogy for this and the historians in my major did this as well).
- I also talked about marginalised groups & how post-modernism gave rise to the acceptance of marginalised groups writing history. The purpose of post-modern historians was that there is no truth and everything is equally valid. I talked about Foucault and how he was influenced by his post-modern beliefs and focussed on concepts/power struggles due to his own context.
- I also talked about 'outside traditional academic practises' through the Annals school which aimed to have a total history and therefore constructed history using branches such as oral history, genealogical research, maps, and science.

Those were some of my points (some were a bit weak though) but you could definitely come up with others as well (especially as you could have a different source).

Hope this helps!!