Has anyone here gotten a Band 6 for History or Legal by memorising essays in HSC? (1 Viewer)

[wootwoot1234]

Hi,

I know that a lot of people memorise English responses and haven often achieved great results following this method but has anyone memorised a response for Modern History or Legal Studies in the HSC and gotten a Band 6?

If so, how many essays did you memorise, and more importantly WHAT did you choose to memorise? - strategies of deducting possible essay questions, etc

Thanks in advance

 

[wootwoot1234]

hello? anyone ?

 

[D94]

hello? anyone ?

17 minutes :/

I doubt you could memorise an essay for Modern considering the breadth of the topics and questions. It would be stupid to attempt to memorise essays and I highly doubt you'd get a Band 6 from doing so, because you'd be tempted to just regurgitate that essay, even if it doesn't really answer the question well.

 

[wootwoot1234]

17 minutes :/

I doubt you could memorise an essay for Modern considering the breadth of the topics and questions. It would be stupid to attempt to memorise essays and I highly doubt you'd get a Band 6 from doing so, because you'd be tempted to just regurgitate that essay, even if it doesn't really answer the question well.

Thanks for reply. Did you happen to do Modern History or Legal Studies in the HSC? If so what did you to prepare for the exam?

 

[D94]

Thanks for reply. Did you happen to do Modern History or Legal Studies in the HSC? If so what did you to prepare for the exam?

Modern History. I revised throughout the year, not just the month leading up. I then made notes in a way it would help to answer an essay, instead of just blocks and blocks of information. The notes were succinct, but I guess seeing as I knew most of the content progressively, I could make brief notes instead of long, detailed notes. Leading up to the exam, I read the HTA Modern History Study Guide which refreshed my knowledge on each topic. I would also watch documentaries, attempt to visualise the situation/event/person and do past papers.

This is rather oversimplified though and what I did may differ completely from someone else who got a Band 6.

 

[4025808]

I did Legal Studies here. I never ever memorized a single essay. I wrote them all off scratch. For content based subjects like Modern History and Legal Studies, memorizing essays ain't going to do you any good (unless if you're lucky on the day), because the content that you memorize may be completely different to what is being asked on the question in the exam paper.

IMO, just practice a few essays and write notes. It's seriously not that hard, not as bad as English either, given that they don't mark so harshly on the vocab and grammar side of things.

 

[enoilgam]

Memorising essays for legal and modern is a poor idea, I'll quote from my essay guide for modern:

Another important point is that you should NEVER take a pre-prepared or memorised essay into the exam. Unlike english or SOR, its near impossible to mold your essay to the exam question (unless the topics are very similar, which is unlikely). For example, if you memorise a response for the North Africa campaign, and the questions ask for the Eastern Front and Appeasement, your memorised response will be useless. Even if your pre-prepared response is from the same syllabus point as a question on the exam, it will still be difficult to mold your response unless the questions are asking you to do virtually the same thing.

D94 was right on the money with his method of approaching the modern exam. You right your notes so that the information can easily be converted into an essay, as opposed to putting in slabs of info. You also focus on the issues in modern and legal, as opposed to memorising the entire syllabus. Finally, you do as many practice essays as possible and get your teacher to mark them.

 

[Nooblet94]

Judging from the last two legal studies HSC exams, I think you MIGHT be able to get away with memorising your options essays, because they tend to be pretty broad and don't force you to focus on a specific topic. It definitely wouldn't be feasible to do it for crime though. Anyway, memorising essays is fucking stupid and while it might get you decent marks, you're not actually learning anything... which is, you know, the actual reason we go to school.

Also, have patience. I'd wait at least a few hours before bumping a thread unless it was urgent (which this isn't).

 

[wootwoot1234]

Modern History. I revised throughout the year, not just the month leading up. I then made notes in a way it would help to answer an essay, instead of just blocks and blocks of information. The notes were succinct, but I guess seeing as I knew most of the content progressively, I could make brief notes instead of long, detailed notes. Leading up to the exam, I read the HTA Modern History Study Guide which refreshed my knowledge on each topic. I would also watch documentaries, attempt to visualise the situation/event/person and do past papers.

This is rather oversimplified though and what I did may differ completely from someone else who got a Band 6.

What does revision involve exactly and how would one revise Modern History? Does this just involve making notes, etc

Also, how to you make notes in a way that would help to answer an essay?

 

[wootwoot1234]

I did Legal Studies here. I never ever memorized a single essay. I wrote them all off scratch. For content based subjects like Modern History and Legal Studies, memorizing essays ain't going to do you any good (unless if you're lucky on the day), because the content that you memorize may be completely different to what is being asked on the question in the exam paper.

IMO, just practice a few essays and write notes. It's seriously not that hard, not as bad as English either, given that they don't mark so harshly on the vocab and grammar side of things.

Thanks for reply. How did you study for Legal Studies throughout the HSC year and how did you prepare for the HSC examination, in particular the extended response questions?

 

[enoilgam]

What does revision involve exactly and how would one revise Modern History? Does this just involve making notes, etc

Also, how to you make notes in a way that would help to answer an essay?

Focus on the issues in your notes as opposed to mindless historical minutae. So say for instance your learning about the Russian front in WW2, your notes should focus on the issues involved i.e. What was the impact of the campaign on Germany/Russia/the war as a whole, as opposed to writing a huge history on what happened. Obviously, you need to know what happened, but you dont need to know it in great detail (i.e. memorising every date etc).

 

[enoilgam]

Judging from the last two legal studies HSC exams, I think you MIGHT be able to get away with memorising your options essays, because they tend to be pretty broad and don't force you to focus on a specific topic.

You would need to get lucky, they could ask you to discuss law reform whilst your memorised essay could discuss the effectiveness of the law.

 

[OzKo]

I would suggest writing essay plans for all the questions previously asked in the subject and also making up your own questions and doing the same things.

Doing so allows you to cover all bases.

 

[wootwoot1234]

D94 was right on the money with his method of approaching the modern exam. You right your notes so that the information can easily be converted into an essay, as opposed to putting in slabs of info. You also focus on the issues in modern and legal, as opposed to memorising the entire syllabus. Finally, you do as many practice essays as possible and get your teacher to mark them.

Hey, how do you write notes that would be easily converted into an essay. I've written notes following syllabus dot-points but I'm not sure on how to do write notes that will prepare me for an essay.

Also, what do you mean by focusing on the key issues? And how can I differentiate the important points of the syllabus (don't you have to know everything that's on it?)

Thanks

 

[enoilgam]

Hey, how do you write notes that would be easily converted into an essay. I've written notes following syllabus dot-points but I'm not sure on how to do write notes that will prepare me for an essay.

Also, what do you mean by focusing on the key issues? And how can I differentiate the important points of the syllabus (don't you have to know everything that's on it?)

Thanks

Check out the second post I made in this thread. Also, for more info check out my essay guide for modern, the link is located in my sig.

 

[Nooblet94]

You would need to get lucky, they could ask you to discuss law reform whilst your memorised essay could discuss the effectiveness of the law.

I guess. Either way, we both agree it's a dumb thing to do.

 

[enoilgam]

I guess. Either way, we both agree it's a dumb thing to do.

True. It is a good strategy in SOR and English (tbh, most of the people I know with band 6s in either of these subjects memorised their essays), but in modern, legal or any other humanities subject, its a stupid idea.

 

[DavDav]

hello? anyone ?

Well I just got a Band 6 lol right on 90 for Modern History by just memorising essays.

Our teacher was the unreliable type so I downloaded essays online from here and formed an entirely new essay using the bulk of information from previous years as a structural guide to my own essay, tweaking it up to suit a generic question if it was to come up on the HSC test. Did it for each section i.e. Part A, B etc.

Luckily it worked for me since the questions last year were really open ended but I highly suggest you don't solely rely on this method. Make notes too there's some solid ones online here in the resources section but your own notes are the best notes.

I was also first in the course so that probably helped too lol.

 

[king chopper]

Yeah i just memorised by legal family essay and got full marks - don't memorise crime though, they can ask anything

 

[cem]

Memorising essays for Modern isn't a good idea simply because you would need to memorise about 40 essays and even then could miss the topic of the essays asked. As they can ask on key issues or content or a combination of both and can ask you to explain, assess, analyse etc they require different responses. A question on the Eastern Front in WWII could be on its impact on the war as a whole - a very broad question as you would have to discuss the entire war - or it could be on its impact on either the German or Russian homefronts so a much narrower focus.

Make notes under each dot point and link those notes to the key issues e.g. in your dot points under Eastern Front idenitify which points connect to the key issues at the top of the syllabus pages - use different colours or something.

The best way to learn Modern I believe is lots of past papers as you learn the content needed for the course as well as develop the essay writing skills needed for history - but also hand them into your teacher to get them marked.