Hi Jake,
What are your tips for success in modern history?
How did you study/memorise the content and how much extra reading/learning do you recommend doing in order to achieve top results?
Also, what is your advice on how to write a band 6 essay, particularly in the national study?
Thanks in advance!
Hey Sarahhhhhb (I take it that Sarahhhhha was taken?)
A very loaded question, and I'll be addressing a lot of your concerns in content I release in the future, but for now I'll try give you a brief summary of my opinion.
Let's start with "how much extra content do I need". My response is always the same: That depends on your teacher. At our school, our teacher gave us a 500 page booklet at the start of every term, and researching more than that would have been insane. That being said, perhaps your teacher's style is more "At one point there was a war. Cool right? Go research that. Oh I dunno. The first one?".
Every proposition you make in Modern History, for a top level response, should be supported by AT LEAST one
specific, accurate, relevant, detailed example. So what I did was just pick out what we could be assessed on and wrote down a few stats for each part, and then memorised them. In total, I had to memorise hundreds and hundreds of stats. Keep a bank of the best ones, don't bother finding more if you already have a few for a section.
If you want a specific number, I had about
10-15 SARDEs per specific section section. The conditions of women in Britain during WWI? 10 SARDEs. The nature of trench warfare? 15 SARDEs (easier to remember, more likely to be assessed).
Okay, so now you have a beautiful list of stats, either researched of (ideally) given to you by your teachers.
BUT HOW DO I MEMORISE 150 STATS. AND THAT'S JUST FOR ONE FREAKIN' TOPIC.
I'm going to write a comprehensive guide to this in the next month or so. However I'll give you a taster- worksheets.
Write yourself a worksheet that says "The Battle of Verdun was on the ___ of _____, 19__". Each worksheet should probably be about one specific topic, with ONLY THE ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL STATISTICS. Not those extra ones you throw in for fun, the BARE MINIMUM.
Photocopy each work sheet a thousand times (Okay probably like 100).
Do each worksheet 5 times a day.
Do this every day.
For a week.
For two weeks.
No matter how boring, no matter how well you think you know the content.
Thank me later
So now we have the important stats and we've memorised them. But how do we write a band 6 essay? The answer is always
with a thesis so supported by evidence that even a historian is convinced.
Extra reading (books written by historians etc.) is a great way to build a thesis, although definitely isn't necessary. Always have a thesis prepared, always bring your paragraphs back to your thesis, always support your claims with statistics, dates, quotes, etc. That's really it: Have a solid, clear thesis (that is made absolutely evident in the introduction:
do not build up to your thesis, make it clear from the get go) and include loads and loads of SARDEs. You can't go overboard with statistics.
I hope that helps! By the end of the year you'll have a solid thesis for every possible question, so you may as well start thinking about them now! Make them a little different, but not too out-there (WWII was actually an Australian conspiracy to allow for mass exportation of Vegemite etc.).
Great question! Would love more people to get involved in the forum, by both answering and asking questions!
Before you can ask a question, you'll have to make an ATAR Notes account here.
Once you've done that, a little 'reply' button will come up when you're viewing threads, and you'll be able to post whatever you want! Jake
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