HSC Modern History Question Thread

[samuels1999]

Hi Jake,

In my school, we have our 1st sem exams next week (it is unusual I know), and for the Personality section, since we have no done enough of the historiography, the 2nd part of the question which is on Albert Speer, by the way, is:
Assess the contribution of Albert Speer to the Nazi Party up to the outbreak of WW1.

Our teacher says that we have to somehow include an argument in this essay. I just want to know how would you assess someone's contribution? Do you compare them to other people?
What way should I approach this question?

Thanks,
Samuel

[jakesilove]

Hi Jake,

In my school, we have our 1st sem exams next week (it is unusual I know), and for the Personality section, since we have no done enough of the historiography, the 2nd part of the question which is on Albert Speer, by the way, is:
Assess the contribution of Albert Speer to the Nazi Party up to the outbreak of WW1.

Our teacher says that we have to somehow include an argument in this essay. I just want to know how would you assess someone's contribution? Do you compare them to other people?
What way should I approach this question?

Thanks,
Samuel

Hey Samuel!

Firstly, I'm going to assume that you mean the outbreak of WWII. I think Speer was a bit young in WWI to have any sort of major contribution

You want to be coming up with an argument in the same way as you normally would! What do you think Speer's contribution to the Nazi party was? The war effort? Propaganda? What were his major achievements/contributions up until this time? Was he small-time, or a major player? What was his role?

Despite having not done real historiography yet, I would find some anyway. Historiography in this section is absolutely key, because you can really build an argument around the thoughts of prominent historians. Go to the library and borrow a book or two on Speer, or google some quotes from well-renowned historians.

I would structure an essay around different streams of historical opinion. Some believe that Speer was highly significant in the pre-war efforts; others suggest he was merely an architect (albeit a Nazi one).

Do some research, read some historiography, and come up with a thesis that you agree with. More than happy to take a look at it once you've got it!

[Snew]

Does anyone happen to know what the statewide average is for the national study essay? 

[sudodds]

Does anyone happen to know what the statewide average is for the national study essay? 

I'm not 100% sure but I believe it's around 17-19/25. That would make sense since the average overall mark is around 77%, and the National Study is considered one of harder sections. I'll see my old modern teacher on Wednesday so I'll check if that is correct, if not I'll update ya! 😎

[damecj]

Hey,
I have this question for a practice question for a speech, I'm not sure how to answer it and what key points I should be adding cause it's quite a broad question.

The question is:
“In the end, people are judged by their actions.”

And my personality that I have to use in the question is Leni Riefenstahl

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[chloeannbarwick]

hey hey Chloe! Excellent question Modern markers are pedantic AF, so its really important to have a strong structure when analysing a source.

The number one, most important thing is to start with a JUDGEMENT. To what extent is the source useful? That is the question after all! However, a big thing that people get caught up in is the to what extent part. See that is a super key part of the question - it is not asking you if the source is useful or not, therefore "Source A is useful" or "Source is not useful" just doesn't cut it. NESA will never give you a useless source, however they can give you a source that is less useful than others, so buzzwords like highly, limited, partially are super super super important!

But how do you make that judgement? Well you need to consider three things - content, perspective, and reliability. I underlined the last two because they are the most important + you should be underlining them in your responses

Content: How useful is the content? Does it provide a detailed explanation of the events/issues in question? Does it cover a wide area of information or does it only cover a small aspect of it? These will all impact the usefulness of the source You want to write about maybe 1-2 sentences on this - any more than that and you are probably drifting too far away from the Source.

Perspective: VERY VERY VERY important that you discuss this, and discuss this explicitly as it is part of the question. That is why I suggest underlining the word perspective, so as to make sure that the marker doesn't miss that you have covered it. Perspective covers these sorts of questions; Who produced the source? Was it an individual or a group? How are they related to the events? Did they take part or are they writing about it years later (or both in the case of a memoir!)? Why did they produce the source? Do they have any particular reason to discuss the events in a particular way - ideology, political agenda, personal agenda/prejudice? Is their perspective unique/specific - female, solider, king etc. The answer to the these questions will have a particular impact on the usefulness of the source as well, HOWEVER remember that just because a source may appear "biased" (hate that word - better to use terms like underlying ideology, political agenda or personal prejudice/agenda), doesn't mean that it isn't useful. E.g. A propaganda poster is very clearly a biased source, however it is still super useful to a historian - and that leads us onto reliability. (also you probably want to spend about 2-3 sentences on this!)

Reliability: This is where the bulk of your analysis should be! And like perspective, you should underline reliability within your responses, because it is part of the question, and you want to make sure that the marker doesn't think that you have skipped over it. Like when assessing overall usefulness, you need to make an overall judgement as to whether the source is reliable or not, using buzzwords. When analysing the source's reliability, we want to conduct 3 reliability tests. The first two can we whatever you want, e.g.; Was the source produced in close proximity to the events in question? Was it produced by someone who was involved? Was it produced to be published? Is it an extract (therefore incomplete)? In the case of a photograph, was it taken with a wide angle or narrow angle, or was it obviously staged? If it is a secondary source (ie a historians text) is it the product of extensive research and a peer reviewal process? etc. etc. The third reliability test that you will want to do is a cross-reference of content. This is where you use your own knowledge of the content or other sources in your repertoire to back up the content of the source - for e.g. do the facts that the historian presents in the source corroborate with the facts that you have learnt? or can we assert that the propaganda poster encouraging men to enlist in the british army was effective in achieving its aims due to enlistment statistics from the time? For the most part, the 10 marker requires a lot less integration of your own knowledge throughout the response, so it is a good idea to pack as much as you can into this cross reference of content, to make sure that the markers are given no opportunity to question the depth of your understanding - try and get stats and detail outside of the textbook, that one one else will be using Again like before, remember that sources that may appear "biased" aren't always unreliable, because we can break up reliability into two things - factual reliability and reliability as evidence. So just because a source may be factually unreliable - eg. a propaganda poster - it can still be a reliable piece of evidence for attitudes at the time, aims of the producer etc. etc.

Once you have covered everything above - it is time to round of and conclude your work with that source. Restate your judgement upon the usefulness of the source (and maybe, if you have time you can suggest other sources that will work well to expand the historians knowledge). Then hey presto! You're finished with source A, and now you just need to repeat the process above for source B (Never intergrate them, deal with the two sources separately - this isn't english  )

Obviously when it comes to the shorter answer responses you will not need to be going as in depth, this is the structure of a 10 marker. When it comes to the shorter ones, depending on the length just make sure that you are integrating content from the source, and relating your own knowledge back to it.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you're confused with anything

Susie

Thanks for the awesome response, this is so helpful for me and I appreciate your time on this!

[sudodds]

Thanks for the awesome response, this is so helpful for me and I appreciate your time on this!

No worries! I'm so glad you found it useful I'll have your essay marked asap!

[sudodds]

Hey,
I have this question for a practice question for a speech, I'm not sure how to answer it and what key points I should be adding cause it's quite a broad question.

The question is:
“In the end, people are judged by their actions.”

And my personality that I have to use in the question is Leni Riefenstahl

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hey! I didn't study Leni so content wise I can't help to much. However I can tell you that that question is an interpretations question, and thus you want to be focusing on the key debate for your personality. For example for Trotsky (who I studied) we look at the debate as to whether he was a practical revolutionary of a naive idealist. The debate for Leni should be explictly stated in the syllabus (near the end under 'evaluation').

With that is mind, structure wise I would recommend writing three paragraph, each paragraph focusing on a specific event/issue in Leni's life that can prove contentious. You don't need to do all of the events/issues mind - just the ones most relevant to the debate (I wouldn't go over three). For example with Trotsky, I would write a paragraph on his role as Commissar of Foreign Affairs, and demonstrate how his actions throughout that role suggest that he was either a practical revolutionary or a naive idealist - making a judgement as to which interpretation I believe is the most appropriate. Historians and historiography is great to include, so finding some quotes from some historians who demonstrate the different views will be a fantastic.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Susie

[chloeannbarwick]

I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on what would be a good argument for this question?

- Has history vindicated Trotsky, or were his critics right to condemn him as a failure?

I'm so stuck right now! And I suck at making decisions so it's hard for me to decided weather he was deemed vindicated or a failure!

Please help!

[sudodds]

I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on what would be a good argument for this question?

- Has history vindicated Trotsky, or were his critics right to condemn him as a failure?

I'm so stuck right now! And I suck at making decisions so it's hard for me to decided weather he was deemed vindicated or a failure!

Please help!

Hey! So this is an interpretations question, so you want to be looking very keenly at this debate in regards to Trotsky - whether he was a practical revolutionary (the left wing argument which would more closely align with vindicated) or a naive idealist (right wing argument that would condemn him to failure).

The argument that he was a practical revolutionary says that overall, Trotsky was pragmatic. The decisions that he made were for the most part to the benefit of the party, and even when he made mistakes he was able to lessen the impact of the damage to the party through quick thinking, and sacrificing his own ideological beliefs to the benefit and survival of the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, there is the view that Trotsky was a naive idealist (and also a ruthless authoritarian), who stuck too rigidly to his ideology of Permanent Revolution to the detriment of the Party and the Soviet Union overall.

When it comes to interpretations questions, I think the best things to discuss are his role as Commissar of Foreign Affairs, role as Commissar of War and the Power Struggle. Within all of these events/issues there are very different opinions in regards to his significance, all of which can be backed up by some pretty hard evidence! You need to discuss both sides, but you do need to make an overall judgement as to which side you agree with the most. Me? I think he was a practical revolutionary overall rather than a naive idealist - however I can definitely see how the opposite side has formulated their opinion. Attached to this post, I have included my Trotsky debates table, which outlines every argument (with detail to support it) for the personality study. For your question, you want to be looking at the interpretations side of the table rather than the "shaped by/shaped" columns (thats the other type of question you can receive.)

As this is an interpretations question, it is great to include some historians to back up your arguments. For the naive idealist/ruthless authoritarian argument i'd suggest finding some arguments/quotes from Robert Service and Robert Conquest (the former is better). For the practical revolutionary argument - DEUTSCHER DEUTSCHER DEUTSCHER (Wood is also pretty good  )

Hope this helps!

Susie

[chloeannbarwick]

Wow, thank you so much! This is such a great start and is so helpful, although I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you there and argue that Trotsky was a naiive idealist  Hopefully I'll have my attempt up for marking soon! Thanks again!

[jakesilove]

Wow, thank you so much! This is such a great start and is so helpful, although I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you there and argue that Trotsky was a naiive idealist  Hopefully I'll have my attempt up for marking soon! Thanks again!

Sudodds is as communist as they come, so stick with your interpretation and ignore her socialist rhetoric )))

[sudodds]

Sudodds is as communist as they come, so stick with your interpretation and ignore her socialist rhetoric )))

jakesilove is as brainwashed by the bourgeoisie as they come, so stick with the person that actually studied Trotsky and ignore his incoherent crapitalist ramblings  ))) (he'll get there one day).

But seriously - do stick with your interpretation. It can be just as easily argued whether I agree with it or not - happy to discuss if you are interested in the other side though 😉

EDIT: I just realised you said this on KARL MARX'S BIRTHDAY how dare you.

[maria1999]

hey!
My personality is Albert Speer and my assignment is on the Good Nazi debate. I want to talk about: His knowledge of the Jewish flats situation in the Germania project, his use of forced labour, claim of not knowing about the "final solution" and the facade that he created at Nuremberg. Now I'm getting marked on how well I cover all areas of this historical investigation; is there anything important that I've missed or any VITAL things I should make sure I include that isn't mentioned? Thanks in advance!!

[jakesilove]

hey!
My personality is Albert Speer and my assignment is on the Good Nazi debate. I want to talk about: His knowledge of the Jewish flats situation in the Germania project, his use of forced labour, claim of not knowing about the "final solution" and the facade that he created at Nuremberg. Now I'm getting marked on how well I cover all areas of this historical investigation; is there anything important that I've missed or any VITAL things I should make sure I include that isn't mentioned? Thanks in advance!!

Looks like you've covered the vast majority of the content! You could perhaps talk about his actions as the Minister for Armaments etc: You've said he used forced labour, but the very fact that he so efficiently developed the war effort tends towards his central role in WWII, suggesting he was a key Nazi figure without whom the war may have ended much earlier. It may also be worth bringing in the point at which be because infatuated with the Nazi party; there are some great quotes explaining this stage of his life. If you can point to his affinity with the ideology, rather than simply the rhetoric, you can build a strong argument that he was a real and proper Nazi, as opposed to the (rubbish) tale he told at Nuremburg.

Personally, I found that the best analytic process was to briefly mention someone who supported Speer's persona of the 'Good Nazi', then absolutely decimate their argument (bringing in modern historiography, of course). Obviously, you're welcome to argue that he was actually a Good Nazi.

However, he wasn't.