[student01]

In just over a week, I will be sitting my higher history exam. The topics I have learned are German Nationalism and Britian for paper 1. I have two questions about this paper.

Firstly, for Paper 1, would it be considered "safe" to go in having learned how to answer all possible essay questions from three topics (I was thinking democracy, female enfranchisement and the reforms of Labour for Britain; and early nationalism, unification and the failure of Weimar/rise of the Nazis for Germany), or would that be taking a big risk?

My second question is this: where relevant, would comparing the situation today with the situation in the past - very briefly - be a good technique to use in an essay, or would a marker see this as straying away from the question? For example, in an essay about whether Britain was democratic by a certain date, if I was arguing it wasn't because of - in part - governmental secrecy/corruption, would I get credit for mentioning the governmental secrecy/corruption today (i.e. the expenses claims of MPs), or would that be a waste of time?

Thanks for any help, I know it's short notice!

[MrJohnDClare]

student01, on May 24 2009, 04:42 PM, said:

In just over a week, I will be sitting my higher history exam.

Good luck!

Quote

Firstly, for Paper 1, would it be considered "safe" to go in having learned how to answer all possible essay questions from three topics (I was thinking democracy, female enfranchisement and the reforms of Labour for Britain; and early nationalism, unification and the failure of Weimar/rise of the Nazis for Germany), or would that be taking a big risk?

There is nothing wrong is preparing certain topics so that you are expert in them - if they come up, you rock! - but as a general rule, I would advise about putting all your eggs in that particular basket. I would revise the other units so that, if your preferred topics don;t come up, you can at least perform adequately on the other topics.
Having said that, I don't know this specific paper, so it may be that you can specialise safely; contact your teacher/discuss with classmates and see what they say.

Quote

My second question is this: where relevant, would comparing the situation today with the situation in the past - very briefly - be a good technique to use in an essay, or would a marker see this as straying away from the question? For example, in an essay about whether Britain was democratic by a certain date, if I was arguing it wasn't because of - in part - governmental secrecy/corruption, would I get credit for mentioning the governmental secrecy/corruption today (i.e. the expenses claims of MPs), or would that be a waste of time?

Here is the key: IS IT RELEVANT? If you are referring to the present as exempification for an argument/explanation, then I can see that it might be. If you are referring to the present just because you notice a parallel, then it would be extraneous and you would get no credit for it.

[student01]

Thank you for your help!
I think I'm going to take your advice and learn another topic, so then I'll have studied four out of six possible topics - an essay is sure to come up in the exam. Also, I think I'll go without mentioning the parallels between now and then, because, now I think about it, the exam is pretty short (an hour and a half to write two essays) so if I put that in, I'd probably run out of time to write something more valuable, and from what you say it probably isn't worth the risk.

[MrJohnDClare]

VERY WISE, I think.
And best wishes for the exam.