HSC Modern History Question Thread

[jakesilove]

hey guys!
I'm in the midst of writing a practice essay on the impact of Nazism on German society by 1939 and I'm try to do a paragraph on the economic impact but I'm really struggling. In what ways did the Nazis help the German economy after the Weimar? I know that they helped virtually eradicate unemployment but I still need a bit more. Any help would be great. Thank you!!

Hey! I would definitely be focusing on unemployment. Pre-Hitler, I think unemployment was at around 6,000,000. Try cite these figures over time (ie. as Weimar increased its unemployed population, Nazis rose to power). Then, Hitler developed a number of infrastructure projects which helped to employ many people previously without work. So that's a pretty strong point.

You may want to discuss the gearing of the economy towards 'total war'. This ensured every gear and lever of the economy was working perfectly, towards a single aim (remobilisation, weaponry production, etc etc).

Other than that... I'm not too sure! I think that should be sufficient to fill a paragraph though. Let me know if you have any other thoughts!

[chloeannbarwick]

Hi Modern history students, I'm in desperate need of some Arab-Israeli summary notes if anyone is doing the topic and can help me out. I've made my own for every other topic but I just don't have enough time for Arab-Israeli. I'd be open to swapping with some of my notes with anyone who can help me out, or even if anyone could just point me towards a great page or book that is really efficient for summarising the topic. thanks very much.

[sudodds]

Hi Modern history students, I'm in desperate need of some Arab-Israeli summary notes if anyone is doing the topic and can help me out. I've made my own for every other topic but I just don't have enough time for Arab-Israeli. I'd be open to swapping with some of my notes with anyone who can help me out, or even if anyone could just point me towards a great page or book that is really efficient for summarising the topic. thanks very much.

Hey Chloe! I don't have notes on the Arab-Israeli crisis, as unfortunately I didn't study that topic, however I recommend checking the notes section (perhaps a past student has uploaded their notes ) and checking to see if your local library has a copy of 'Key Features of Modern History' by Bruce Dennett. 'Key Features' is a textbook, but its really good, and is structured according to the syllabus. Before the HSC I used it as a study guide for WW1 I checked and it covers the Arab-Israeli crisis!

Sorry I couldn't be more help!

Susie

[chloeannbarwick]

Hey Chloe! I don't have notes on the Arab-Israeli crisis, as unfortunately I didn't study that topic, however I recommend checking the notes section (perhaps a past student has uploaded their notes ) and checking to see if your local library has a copy of 'Key Features of Modern History' by Bruce Dennett. 'Key Features' is a textbook, but its really good, and is structured according to the syllabus. Before the HSC I used it as a study guide for WW1 I checked and it covers the Arab-Israeli crisis!

Sorry I couldn't be more help!

Susie

Thank you susie, I'll be sure to check out the textbook! Thank you so much for your help!

If anyone has any other notes or suggestions please let me know

[Thebarman]

I'm brushing up on my 1918-1939 Germany notes atm and I'm struggling to write notes for the last dotpoint (impact of ideology on Nazi foreign policy to September 1939). Any suggestions regarding what to add? Thanks

[sudodds]

I'm brushing up on my 1918-1939 Germany notes atm and I'm struggling to write notes for the last dotpoint (impact of ideology on Nazi foreign policy to September 1939). Any suggestions regarding what to add? Thanks

Hey! I'll have to leave it to jake or someone else to help you out with the specifics as I didn't study Germany, however I might be able to help you out with how to structure your notes I'd assume in terms of how the dotpoint is structure, it'd look fairly similar to the Soviet Foreign Policy dot point that I did study for Russia. With that in mind, it might be a good idea to consider structuring your notes according to themes - socio-cultural, political, economic, military/strategic impact etc. etc. Furthermore, I'd make sure to have a clear understanding of the aims and purposes of foreign policy, as a very common question at least the Russia students receive is "how successful" was foreign policy. Consider whether the aims were contradictory - for example, Soviet foreign policy had two aims - domestic stability and international revolution, neither of which could be achieved without forgoing the other.

But yeah, sorry I couldn't be more useful! Hopefully this helps either way

Susie

[vasanti]

Hi, I was wondering how do you about memorising the modern history content, because once I have memorised a certain part of the syllabus and I come back to it later I tend to forget certain aspects and dates. would you be able to share any tips on how you went about it in you hsc?

Thanks,
Vasanti

[sudodds]

Hi, I was wondering how do you about memorising the modern history content, because once I have memorised a certain part of the syllabus and I come back to it later I tend to forget certain aspects and dates. would you be able to share any tips on how you went about it in you hsc?

Thanks,
Vasanti

Hey Vasanti! The way that I memorised was through writing a shit tonne of practice papers - first open book, then closed book. After writing the same stat a million times, it ends up being stuck in your brain, plus practice papers helps in so many other ways as well. I also wrote a detail table (you can find mine from last year in the notes section as an example), which I studied the night before and morning of an exam, using the look cover write check method (a classic ).

I recommend checking out this thread Jake made about how to memorise stats through creating and using worksheets I tried this method after I read this thread last year and it was super helpful!

Hope this helps!

Susie

[katie,rinos]

Hey Vasanti! The way that I memorised was through writing a shit tonne of practice papers - first open book, then closed book. After writing the same stat a million times, it ends up being stuck in your brain, plus practice papers helps in so many other ways as well. I also wrote a detail table (you can find mine from last year in the notes section as an example), which I studied the night before and morning of an exam, using the look cover write check method (a classic ).

I recommend checking out this thread Jake made about how to memorise stats through creating and using worksheets I tried this method after I read this thread last year and it was super helpful!

Hope this helps!

Susie

Does this work for ancient as well? I might try to use some of these to memorise glossary terms, stats and quotes.
Thanks!

[sudodds]

Does this work for ancient as well? I might try to use some of these to memorise glossary terms, stats and quotes.
Thanks!

Definitely would all work for ancient history!! One thing that both modern and ancient share is the emphasis and importance of historical detail and terminology, so study wise often very similar These techniques I'd assume would work well for most humanities subjects!

[damecj]

Hey,

I was just wondering if you would be able to look at this introduction for me...

It's for this question
 “Assess the effectiveness of the League of Nations to the maintenance of peace in Europe to 1939.”

The League of Nations was severely ineffective in the maintenance of peace in Europe to 1939. The League of Nations was the association of nations tasked with preventing future conflicts by allowing nations to meet and discuss their differences. Although it was established ‘with the most noble of intentions’, the collapse of collective security and the resulting conflicts in Abyssinia and the Spanish Civil war undermined its authority and resulted a loss of authority for the organisation. Although the league boasted some successes, its lack of authority and efficacy in dealing with the volatility of events in Europe undermined its efforts to maintain peace up until 1939.

[Diala]

How, in your opinion, did the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact contribute to the growth of European tension?

[rodero]

Hey,

I was just wondering if you would be able to look at this introduction for me...

It's for this question
 “Assess the effectiveness of the League of Nations to the maintenance of peace in Europe to 1939.”

The League of Nations was severely ineffective in the maintenance of peace in Europe to 1939. The League of Nations was the association of nations tasked with preventing future conflicts by allowing nations to meet and discuss their differences. Although it was established ‘with the most noble of intentions’, the collapse of collective security and the resulting conflicts in Abyssinia and the Spanish Civil war undermined its authority and resulted a loss of authority for the organisation. Although the league boasted some successes, its lack of authority and efficacy in dealing with the volatility of events in Europe undermined its efforts to maintain peace up until 1939.

Hey, i'm not a lecturer but I do study the Conflict in Europe. I think the intro you have there is great, but you might want to bring in some other dot points to substantiate your essay - I personally cannot see myself writing an entire essay that is purely on the League of Nations dot point. For this reason, might I recommend that you bring in the other dot points under 'Causes of the conflict'. These being the German and Italian dictators, appeasement and the non-aggression pact.

 You need to ensure that you are always mentioning the League of Nations, so maybe you could show how the factors are interlinked; The dictators saw the failures of the League in Abyssinia and the SCW, found that the League if powerless, so they continued to take territory. The failures of the League required the policy of appeasement to be adopted. And it was this policy - together with the League - that forced Stalin to sign the Non-Aggression Pact, which allowed Hitler to invade Poland and ultimately spark World War 2.

On that note, I'd like to say again that I am merely recommending a potential restructure of an already great essay start. However, the question does say 'to 1939', so you need to mention the other events which caused the outbreak of war, and the League's role in this event. For this reason I don't think you should limit yourself purely on the League and it's failings/successes, but integrate the other causes and show how they are intrinsically linked.

Hope this helps

EDIT: Sorry forgot one thing. If by any chance you decide to stick to your existing structure, you might want to change your topic sentence up a bit. Rather than stating that the League was 'severely' ineffective, might I suggest 'partially/moderately' effective? I say this because you seem to be preparing yourself to mention the successes of the League, so perhaps it is not severely bad, but somewhat bad.

[sudodds]

Hey, i'm not a lecturer but I do study the Conflict in Europe. I think the intro you have there is great, but you might want to bring in some other dot points to substantiate your essay - I personally cannot see myself writing an entire essay that is purely on the League of Nations dot point. For this reason, might I recommend that you bring in the other dot points under 'Causes of the conflict'. These being the German and Italian dictators, appeasement and the non-aggression pact.

 You need to ensure that you are always mentioning the League of Nations, so maybe you could show how the factors are interlinked; The dictators saw the failures of the League in Abyssinia and the SCW, found that the League if powerless, so they continued to take territory. The failures of the League required the policy of appeasement to be adopted. And it was this policy - together with the League - that forced Stalin to sign the Non-Aggression Pact, which allowed Hitler to invade Poland and ultimately spark World War 2.

On that note, I'd like to say again that I am merely recommending a potential restructure of an already great essay start. However, the question does say 'to 1939', so you need to mention the other events which caused the outbreak of war, and the League's role in this event. For this reason I don't think you should limit yourself purely on the League and it's failings/successes, but integrate the other causes and show how they are intrinsically linked.

Hope this helps

EDIT: Sorry forgot one thing. If by any chance you decide to stick to your existing structure, you might want to change your topic sentence up a bit. Rather than stating that the League was 'severely' ineffective, might I suggest 'partially/moderately' effective? I say this because you seem to be preparing yourself to mention the successes of the League, so perhaps it is not severely bad, but somewhat bad.

Absolutely awesome advice Rodero! Please don't worry about "not being a lecturer" when providing feedback - this was fantastic, and way more helpful than I could have been given that I didn't study the unit! Jake and I may answer questions most of the time, but that does not mean that we don't want/don't encourage other students to pipe up and answer questions too! Last year, before I was a lecturer, found out my rank, got my mark - I often answered questions on here as well It's a really really really effective study method, that I recommend everyone try out!

What you are recommending is a differentiated essay, which is super sophisticated (and exactly what I would have recommended ). A few notes on differentiated essays, as rodero states, linking the other factors to the League of Nations is a really great way to structure your response (you can actually write a band 6 essay without linking if you are really struggling, but linking will always push those essays into the higher marks!).

A few other pointers on your intro though:
- I agree with rodero that "severely" is perhaps a little bit too over the top. I personally (as someone who admittedly hasn't studied the topic) wouldn't mind if you said "highly", however I'd want you to preface that by saying "overall highly ineffective" - that shows that you are a) still making a strong judgement (ie. not sitting on the fence), b) providing nuance, and not ignoring other factors. If you mention these successes, but demonstrate why they were inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, I believe that that would justify the "highly", and make your essay appear super analytical and sophisticated However "partially" or "moderately" would definitely work well too, just giving you other options
- After your judgement, I want a brief, one sentence explanation of your judgement, not just a description of what the League of Nations was. This goes back to what rodero was saying about links - where there any overaching themes or issues that overall contributed to its significance?

But overall, definitely agree with rodero - their advice was absolutely fab (hope to see them around more often )

[sudodds]

How, in your opinion, did the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact contribute to the growth of European tension?

Just going to bump your question because I'm worried it'll get lost due to the fairly long replies after it

Unfortunately I didn't study Conflict in Europe, but as it is one of the more popular options I'm sure another student, past or present will be able to help you out!