Hey Susie
Just wondering what are your tips for scoring in the A band for the longer essays in Ancient (especially with Julio Claudians/Agrippina)? How many pages were your Sparta, Julio-Claudians and Agrippina essays?
My biggest tip would be to make sure that you are making a judgement! So many student write a narrative of the events, rather than assessing their significance. As much as it is definitely important for all history subjects to have a really good and detailed understanding of the events and issues, they should be used to back up YOUR argument. It is also super important to have varied sources - don't just rely on the ancient historians to back you up, look at modern historians, and even better ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE! Numismatic evidence (coins), statues, wall art, graffiti, etc is often even better than just name dropping Tacitus for the 12th time that paragraph
With your detail tables, how often did you look at them/write things out and actively try to memorise stuff (or was it mainly done by using them for practise essays)?
I mainly used my detail table the morning of an exam. I'd use a "look, cover, write, check" kinda method, whereby I'd try and write down as much as I could from the detail table, then check to see how much of it I got.
Do you have any predictions for the essay questions in Ancient?
Hmm... I'm better at modern predictions to be honest haha. Ancient questions are so varied, that it is hard to say. For Agrippina I can almost guarantee a legacy/interpretations question. That pretty much never changes. For Julio-Claudians, I always found that their was always one essay focusing on the emperors, and another on the Principate. So maybe a question on the policies of the emperors and how they changed, or the changing role of the Senate/Army? Something like that, though of course take any prediction with a grain of salt
Do you have any tips for people who are good at history but find it difficult to write essays in English (I find it really frustrating that I can write really complex ideas in extension and get pretty good marks, but my essays in English are really bad)?
ahahaha literally me! I ended up trying to kinda mesh the two forms together, which led me to thematic english essays! So in history, I'd often structure my essays around the themes, rather than events. So i'd extrapolate the significance of certain aspects of the entire period, rather than focusing specifically on one event per paragraph. I started writing my english essays in a similar way - finding the themes of the overall topic (eg. discovery), and then how they related to both the prescribed and if needed the related. So rather than focus specifically on the text, I focused on maybe, lets say for Module C, how language reinforces power structures, and then extrapolate examples from both Wag the Dog and my related text, rather than write a whole paragraph on one text.
Were you expecting the marks/Atar that you received? Do you have any tips for people who are aiming for a highish atar?
Not at all! To be honest, I definitely fell into the trap of thinking that since I wasn't doing any maths or science, my ATAR was going to be pretty meh (I even had a couple of teachers tell me that...). Was a very nice surprise
In terms of tips, I'd say a) don't stress about subjects/scaling, etc. Arguably my highest scaling subject (economics) didn't even count towards my ATAR, but Drama, which everyone considers a really low scaling subject did! Just work hard, and play towards your strengths (some of this advice is directed more towards people picking subjects, but the working hard stuff is definitely universally applicable!).
You’ve mentioned before that you want to mix film with history what type/period/personality would you most like to do?
Russian History!! Absolutely loved studying it in Modern last year. But I'd also be very interested in looking at US and British history as well, but more at the "social" history aspect, rather than the political history. Like the history of Civil Rights, working class, the "forgotten voices", etc. etc.
(you can tell I'm an Hobsbawm fan lol)
Do you have a favourite song/did you have an exam playlist?
I didn't have an exam playlist, but I watched/listened to the Russian Epic Rap Battles of History on repeat (know all the words
) I found that this was good to break up Modern study, because I'm the type of person that if I break focus I can't regain it. So, if I was ever tired and needed a quick break, I'd watch that, and since it was still technically about Modern, my focus wasn't broken
I kinda did this with Ancient as well - the Shaka Zulu vs. Julius Caesar one is v funny ahaha.
Thanks so much for answering all my questions-you are so amazing!! 
No worriesss <3
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