Revolutions Support Thread 2013

[jeanweasley]

That would certainly be one point. You should then think about specific policies, events or actions that reflect his unwillingness to share autocracy. They could include things like:

* The tsar's appointment of ministers and advisors.
* Reliance on support of the church, Black Hundred, etc.
* His policies of censorship and anti-liberalisation before 1905.
* His determination to go to war in Asia, against all advice.
* His failure to respond effectively to 'Bloody Sunday'.
* His attempts to deal with the 1905 Revolution by imposing martial law.

Finding a good 3-4 points is basically an exercise in lateral thinking. You need to scan through everything you know about the Area of Study / timeframe of the question, and for each fact ask yourself "does this suggest anything about the tsar's unwillingness to share autocracy". It's a good idea to jot down valid points as you come up with them too, in case you forget.

Note that you should not include historians' views in these 3-4 point paragraphs, at least not for the exam. They're supposed to contain straight-up factual detail. Anything specific, like a person, place, name, law, policy, event, document, etc. counts as detail or "evidence" so use as much of that as you can.

I know at this stage of the year that following these processes is time consuming and tedious. But once you've done a few of these answers, you will find that they become easier to construct and write.

R.

I'll certainly keep this in mind. Right now, I'll just finish my notes and if it's okay, I might post a paragraph answer here for people to critique. Also, when are you supposed to use historian quotes? Is it really necessary?

[revsteacher]

In the exam you are not required to use historians in Questions 1 and 2. The assessors don't like this; they complain about it in each year's Study Design. Straight factual information / specifics are required for these questions. Historians are much more important in Questions 3 and 4. You need to use them when responding to the sources, to provide alternative theories or points-of-view.

That's the exam though; your teacher might have different expectations if you are doing a SAC or a homework task. Make sure you are familiar with your teacher's instructions and guidelines. Ask if you're not sure.

R.

[jeanweasley]

In the exam you are not required to use historians in Questions 1 and 2. The assessors don't like this; they complain about it in each year's Study Design. Straight factual information / specifics are required for these questions. Historians are much more important in Questions 3 and 4. You need to use them when responding to the sources, to provide alternative theories or points-of-view.

That's the exam though; your teacher might have different expectations if you are doing a SAC or a homework task. Make sure you are familiar with your teacher's instructions and guidelines. Ask if you're not sure.

R.

Alright, that makes sense. Thanks revsteacher! Off to do my notes. I'll pop back when I'm ready to post my practise paragraph. Thanks again for all your help!

[Cort]

I've got a question for anyone who's more familiar with this subject--

I have a SAC Essay coming up in a few days, and I was wondering, what IF I wrote the essay rather narrative like, yet it still contained the original structure? Something like Hibbert's France in Revolution. Would I be flogged on the spot if I did so, or would generally, in both SACs and exams it'll be wise to follow the traditional '"this that because this that. This that that blah"?

Thanks,
Cort

[jeanweasley]

I've got a question for anyone who's more familiar with this subject--

I have a SAC Essay coming up in a few days, and I was wondering, what IF I wrote the essay rather narrative like, yet it still contained the original structure? Something like Hibbert's France in Revolution. Would I be flogged on the spot if I did so, or would generally, in both SACs and exams it'll be wise to follow the traditional '"this that because this that. This that that blah"?

Thanks,
Cort

Whilst it seems like an incredibly wise idea, I don't think it would be acceptable because the markers prefer direct answers to the question without all the "fluff". I'm not sure but you could double check this with your teacher.

[revsteacher]

I'd advise against that, Cort. Extended writing in VCE History should be mostly or entirely analytical, not narrative or descriptive. There's also a strong risk that you would go off on a tangent and not answer the question.

R.

[Lolly]

Hey guys, I have a Revs SAC for AoS 1 tomorrow, wish me luck! Have you had your SACs already/ when are you having them?

I've done about 5 practices with fairly good results although my last one wasn't too good because I ended up overthinking everything.

I have questions.   How detailed should my notes be at this stage? I'm feeling fairly confident but I've felt confident in SACs before and have still suffered from a complete gap in my knowledge.  I'm a little new to History - I haven't done it since year 9 , so I want to make sure I'm getting this right.

For the C question, you have to talk about events leading up to the event being represented and show how they influence the document, but to what extent are you allowed to mention the event itself? Eg:  "Such a depiction of Bloody Sunday was the result of shortages brought on by the Russo Japanese war ( 1905-6) and the repression of a reactionary autocracy etcetcetc - after that do you go on to describe Bloody Sunday, or is that considered narrative, since technically after that you're not answering the question analytically?

 And the D question -  the approach is different to previous years -  or so I've heard? We're not allowed to mention the historian's schools of thought, anymore, right?  We just say " Pipes would praise the depiction of Tsardom collapsing from within as reliable, promulgating "blahIamcontroversial"  , as the cause of the regime's downfall. However, Trotsky would criticise this interpretation, claiming " blahcommunismblah." and therefore would not see this document as reliable 

Amiright ( or wrong )?

[sjayne]

So I'm not much help but I also have my sac tomorrow! Yours seems very different to ours.  Seems like you skipped units 1/2 like me? I'd say if you feel confident then you know the material well enough and should be able to end up with a good result if you try hard:p

Anyway, I was just wondering to what extent do you discuss different historians perspectives in an essay? And how many quotes, say from other sources and historians would you recommend per paragraph?
Thanks in advance

[koby]

thank you so much  for posting this.


i am struggling with history and like most of history students
my teacher too seem to be just reading the book, and is unable to control the class
most of the kids dont even want to be there, its annoying when you have kids who just wants to
mess around, and distract you from studying, ( teacher always argues with this guy and his friend )
and she has been away for two weeks, we have only studied the causes of tension, havent covered ideas
and our sac is shifted to first week after holidays, so we have to learn half of the course ourselves
over the holidays...

[jeanweasley]

Hey guys, I have a Revs SAC for AoS 1 tomorrow, wish me luck! Have you had your SACs already/ when are you having them?

I have it in two days and our teacher has not finished teaching us the outcome. Though we pleaded her to change the date she still wouldn't do it. I'm not too fussed though because I have my notes and we're allowed a cheat sheet so I guess I'm going to do alright. I'm hoping to squeeze in a practise one before the SAC so hopefully I'll get to that.

It's funny because we're doing a doco analysis and everyone else is doing para answers.

[jeanweasley]

thank you so much  for posting this.


i am struggling with history and like most of history students
my teacher too seem to be just reading the book, and is unable to control the class
most of the kids dont even want to be there, its annoying when you have kids who just wants to
mess around, and distract you from studying, ( teacher always argues with this guy and his friend )
and she has been away for two weeks, we have only studied the causes of tension, havent covered ideas
and our sac is shifted to first week after holidays, so we have to learn half of the course ourselves
over the holidays...

No worries.

I can relate. I feel like my teacher is just like Nicholas, a figurehead with no real authority but in her case no real teaching skills. Though we gathered in the streets of Petrograd (our classroom) and complained and begged about our dire circumstances like the proletariat we were (we are students after all and that's working class enough for me), and though there was K (a student in my class who led our begging), she was like Father Gapon who led us to our marching (complaining and begging) and we were shot by the Cossacks (here I refer to her words that killed us because she refused to change the date of the SAC) and there we were, Octobrists who accepted the reforms (lack of rather) and accepted that she will never ever ever change the date of our SAC.  (insert goat sound)

But seriously, there are great notes on Russian Rev on the forum. I'm using the version by Nat Cutter although I don't know her username on here. I can give you a list of how I structured my notes (only if you're doing Russian Rev though).

[Lolly]

Oh dear......:/

I had to chuckle at your analogy though, jeanweasley

I have had nothing but good things to say about my teacher. He plays CDs of favourite music before the start of each lesson and we have to guess the song.


( and he likes Simon and Garfunkel! )

[koby]

No worries.

I can relate. I feel like my teacher is just like Nicholas, a figurehead with no real authority but in her case no real teaching skills. Though we gathered in the streets of Petrograd (our classroom) and complained and begged about our dire circumstances like the proletariat we were (we are students after all and that's working class enough for me), and though there was K (a student in my class who led our begging), she was like Father Gapon who led us to our marching (complaining and begging) and we were shot by the Cossacks (here I refer to her words that killed us because she refused to change the date of the SAC) and there we were, Octobrists who accepted the reforms (lack of rather) and accepted that she will never ever ever change the date of our SAC.  (insert goat sound)

But seriously, there are great notes on Russian Rev on the forum. I'm using the version by Nat Cutter although I don't know her username on here. I can give you a list of how I structured my notes (only if you're doing Russian Rev though).

the terrible thing about our class is that out of 20 student only 5 of us want to do well,
and since its a school that focuses more on sports and trades, that adds up to the problem
though i love my english and sociology teacher. my history teacher is a nutcase, she is a good person, but not an excellent
vce history teacher, ( there is always fights,she gets all emotional)
we have not been taught on how to answere questions, i am doing french revolutions at the moment,
but we are doing russia next, i would really appriciate it if you do give a list of how you structure your notes, or answeres.


thanks

[Patches]

I have questions.   How detailed should my notes be at this stage?

Realistically, you don't need much more than what's in the textbook (assuming you're using Reinventing Russia, not the old crappy one). If I were you I'd be taking down the chronologies, statistics and so on from the textbook, and then reading the actual work of the historians quoted. You don't really need to add anything from their books - in my experience there's enough in the textbook so answer any question they throw at you.

Actually reading the historians' works will broaden your understanding more than you think - even just going over the chronologies again is, I would imagine, more useful than compiling massive sets of notes. The added bonus is that if you're familiar enough with their views you won't need to memorise quotes word for word - you can more or less make up the precise wording if you understand their argument well.

For Russia, I read Figes' 'A People's Tragedy' as we did the course, so about a chapter a week. Over the holidays I read Fitzpatrick's 'The Russian Revolution', which was quite short but really good for understanding historiography. I'd reccomend them both, and if you're keen you could read Pipes as well, though his views are discussed pretty well in Figes and Fitzpatrick.

So, from all that I would: not worry too much about excruciating detail in your notes - notes uploaded here are a pretty good level of complexity. Instead, spend the time reading and understanding historians' views - it'll set you apart much more than learning every single date or quote verbatim. By the end you won't even need to think about dates and events, because you will have covered them in so many sources - I think this is probably more effective than repeatedly going over your own notes.

We're not allowed to mention the historian's schools of thought, anymore, right? 

As far as I know there's been no changes - you should be able to label them by school of thought. There are varying degrees of sophistication in how you do it though, for instance in this ever so slightly contrived example:
According to liberal historian Figes, the 'soviet was the worst thing evar'

is not as sophisticated as something like:
Figes' view of the revolution as 'a people's tragedy' is reflected in his statement that the  'soviet was the worst thing evar'

This obviously isn't the best example, but if you can work out ways to succinctly categorize historians without saying liberal, revisionist or soviet you'll stand out.


That probably wasn't very helpful for your SAC tomorrow, but good luck for the rest of the year!

[Patches]

the terrible thing about our class is that out of 20 student only 5 of us want to do well,
and since its a school that focuses more on sports and trades, that adds up to the problem
though i love my english and sociology teacher. my history teacher is a nutcase, she is a good person, but not an excellent
vce history teacher, ( there is always fights,she gets all emotional)
we have not been taught on how to answere questions, i am doing french revolutions at the moment,
but we are doing russia next, i would really appriciate it if you do give a list of how you structure your notes, or answeres.


thanks

We had much the same with the class, but the motivated guys just sat and worked together. It worked out pretty well I'd say - our class of 20 or so got a 50, 46 and two 45s

As for structure, the best thing to do is post your practices here and we can have a look at them. There's quite a lot uploaded already - my notes on russia aos1 have a few practice paragraph answers if you can find them. All you really need to do is identify three relatively separate points and explain the significance of each - over time you'll pick up useful phrases to use in almost every question.
The 10 markers are very formulaic - I think people struggle because they try to right an amazing essay, but really all you need is three clearly separated points that each contribute to answering the question. You don't need a flowery introduction or very sophisticated words, just a clear understanding that lets you answer the question.

Good luck!