History Extension Exam Discussion!

[sudodds]

Hey guys!!!!!!

CONGRATU-FRICKEN-LATIONS!!!!!!

You just completed what is quite possibly, one of, if not the, hardest exam that the HSC has to offer! You are all absolute legends, and I hope that the exam treated you well. I'm super proud of all of you

Though I won't be doing full solutions like the other two history exams, I'm still really keen to hear how you guys went!!

Did you like the paper? Did you think the sources were fair? Did it relate well to your case study? Were you able to incorporate any of your major work into Section I?

Again, congratulations! This is such a happy and a sad time HSC History for the 2017 crew is done and dusted!!!

Susie

[Zainbow]

I absolutely loved question 1

I had prepared v well for it. Two of my prepared historians discussed purpose in depth, so what I did was this:
- first paragraph: Russel Nye and his discussion of the purposes of history. He pretty much paraphrased the source we were given so my analysis here was quite easy to produce
- then I discussed Tony Taylor, and how he had grouped the types of history into five categories according to purpose (history as it happened, history as it is recorded, history for political purposes, personal history, public history). I was able to support each category by a quote from the source, and mentioned examples for each
- for this one, I feel like it was my weakest but I'm still happy with it. I brought up the historical approach model put forth by Peter Burke, how he compared 'Traditional' to 'New History' and that, despite there being varied purposes for the two, they both aim to preserve the memory of the past, which I linked back to the source

Question 2 was a bit harder imo but still manageable. We did the Crusades and I focused on the debates surrounding the origins and motives of the Crusades:
- for the first paragraph, I talked about the historians that concluded the origins and motives were purely religious, focusing on Thomas Madden and Nicholas Schofield. I talked briefly about each of their personal contexts and the kinds of institutions they wrote for, arguing that this caused them to 'mould' the historical knowledge according to their personal judgments.
- my next point was about the historians who argued that the motives were a combination of religion and other factors, mentioning Jonathan Phillips, William of Tyre, and Nicholas Danforth, and how the academic background of each defined the "varied processes" with which they approached the debate and ultimately shaped their interpretation
- my third and final paragraph was how Marxism influenced the interpretative processes of the Crusades. I talked about Neil Faulkner, who wrote 'A Marxist History of the World' and argued that the Church was a feudal corporation that used the Crusades to export secular feudal violence, and supported his claims by Elaine Graham-Leigh. For them, I compared how their socialist activism impacted their work and resulted in conclusions that differ greatly to other historians hence concluding that the sources assertion of history not being standard as correct

I wasn't able to complete my conclusion for Q2, I had reached my final sentence and had pretty said want I wanted to say by this point, but I didn't have time to finish. How could that affect me?

Overall, I think it was a really great exam

[katie,rinos]

Hey guys,
I really liked the questions and the sources and found it a pretty good paper. 

For section 1, I did four main paragraphs/points. I talked about how the purpose of history is not always truth (with the post-modernist historians Schama/Foccault) as the PM's saw history as many different subjective events because they believed there is no form of objective truth. I also argued that a historian's purpose may be to learn more about humanity (the good and bad), using the historians from my major (Holocaust historians Browning/Goldhagen) which was great as I knew heaps about them and was confident to write about them. With this part I argued that a historians hypothesis (and purpose) may affect their methodology as my historian's were selective with their use of sources. I also argued that Carr wished to write about humanity as he warned others of conditions that arose to individuals in the past and through his emphasis on interpretation with the fishmonger analogy (learning more about historians). I talked about how history's purpose may be to learn more about the past and how it has progressed over time through Von Ranke ('as it essentially was'), his emphasis on objective history and his attempts to trace the will of God throughout history.

Question 2 was really good for my case study as well (JFK). I'm so incredibly happy they only asked for one area of debate ! I talked about Cuba (Cuban missile criss, Operation Mongoose and Bay of Pigs). I argued that  the context, purpose and available evidence has been different for each school of history leading to new/contrasting interpretations of the events. I forgot and mixed up some of my interpretations (especially towards the end) but I tried to link my context, purpose, available evidence/methodology paragraphs to the question and think I did that good.

Congrats everyone!! How did you all go? Pretty sad HSC history is all over now for us 2017ers.

[Primallis]

Overall I quite liked the exam!

S1 - Pretty good, I used four different historians and aligned three of them (Von Ranke, Braudel and Denning) with Carrier's view and the other one I contrasted (Schama.) The purposes of history was quite good for empirical or methodological historians but wanted to show depth so included Denning and contrasted with Schama and contrasting with Carrier's view of a 'true history' with his construction of a history of 'fantasies...myths' in his traditional relativist view.

S2 - I really liked the question and the idea that Historical Knowledge can be changed and developed over time. I did two historical debates (2 historians for each) within the Jesus Christ case study. I thought it was really good the idea of historical knowledge being a 'malleable product' that is shaped by different 'processes' which allowed a good discussion on methodology. Was able to effectively show how the view of Pinto and Taithe were aligned to the change in methodologies by historians and how their interpretation highlights this.

Overall, quite happy with this paper and I can't complain!

P.S - Can someone show me the whole S2 stimuli if they have it? Just want to see something in it again.

[Maraos]

[Maraos]

History is not a screw and is malleable.... hahaha
Exam was pretty good overall,
I feel like i did better in the second question then the first, I kinda info-dumped a bit in the 'what is history' but I brought up some good points about Hobsbawm and how he perceives the historian and their purpose as a custodian.

The second question worked really well with my case study (appeasement) and I felt like everything just fit in nicely with the question.

So hopefully my results turn out well,
Best of luck to everyone else
and thank you so much for all the support this year!   ATAR notes history threads have been top notch (probs the best thread just saying.... defs not biased guys)