How do you actually study? (1 Viewer)

[Exotic]

Hi Boredofstudies!

I've been reading this forum for a couple of days and I find it really useful, but I've never posted before and this is my first time, so I hope I'll enjoy my stay here
So yeah, back to my question. I do extension history and I'm really lost about this subject. I thought I'm gonna enjoy it because I'm generally good in history but it's proven to be pretty hard.

First of all, my teacher seems to not pay much attention to what we need to study and this makes me confused about my trial which is in 4 days. How do you guys actually study for extension? I'm really lost. I never actually understood the concept of this subject and up until today I didn't know you actually have to study a case study. We did appeasement in class and I thought everyone in NSW does that, but apparently that's not the case after I read the forum haha. If I didn't read this forum I would've never known how to actually answer both questions. We have enough info about the first question, the historians but I wanna know how do you guys actually study for the test? What do I need to focus for when I study? Extra historians? Schools of history? I know absolutely nothing about this. I found some kind of source booklet with readings about extension here on the forum and that was the first time I've actually heard about it and when I asked my teacher he responded "but I told you guys to look at bos and find info". We're meant to look at this forum so we can study haha.

As for the major, I've finished it already and should be marked soon. And one more thing, what happens if you get high marks in internals but do bad in internals ? How does that affect your scaling and ATAR and all that crap? Because in our first assignment we all got 100% and there's 5 of us in the class and in the next one I got around 85-90%. Can that affect my final mark?

 

[Morgan1234pooki]

i really like history extension as a subject but it hasn't been what i expected either....
for the first question I have just made notes on each of the historians under the sub-headings;
1. who.
2. construction of history.
3. aims and purposes.
4. changing approaches to history.

as for the case study, i have pretty much done the same thing. but i do women convicts so i can't be much help with the case study! sorry!

goooooood luck! i'm pretty much on struggle street with this subject too!

 

[tambam]

First of all, get yourself this book asap, if you don't already have it. It is SO useful, especially if your teacher doesn't teach you content.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Historians-Access-John-Warren/dp/0340679913

Then, use the syllabus as a study guide/ note writing guide.
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/history-extension-st6-syl-from2010.pdf
To prepare for question 1:
Go through each historian (or pick a few 'main' ones from different times), and answer the main questions- their context, what they see the aim & purpose of history to be, their methodology.
As well as all the other key questions of 'What is History' in the syllabus.

But you said you've been working on 'Appeasement' for most of the time, it seems like you should be alright for question 2.
Just look at the specific syllabus points under the topic to make notes.

Then, (not for trials), do some practice questions, especially learning to integrate the given sources throughout your ENTIRE essay (I found this pretty challenging)

Hi Boredofstudies!
As for the major, I've finished it already and should be marked soon. And one more thing, what happens if you get high marks in internals but do bad in externals ? How does that affect your scaling and ATAR and all that crap? Because in our first assignment we all got 100% and there's 5 of us in the class and in the next one I got around 85-90%. Can that affect my final mark?

You should look at some other threads that explain the moderation process for internal marks.
But at the end of the day, your externals are worth 50%, your internals are worth 50%, and both are averaged to give you your final mark. So obviously both are important.

 

[Exotic]

Thanks a lot for the help guys! Some things are clearer in my mind now, at least I know how to prepare for the exam. Also good luck for your exams if you haven't finished already.

 

[fakermaker]

I think the hardest thing about the history extension course is how fucking conceptual it is.

Modern history we look at some events, find the causation between those events and other events. Find some facts/quotes/details/etc and just write an essay.

The history extension course (at least question One) is so dependent on the question.

Obviously a good starting point is the key questions:
1. who.
2. construction of history.
3. aims and purposes.
4. changing approaches to history.

From these questions, I like to divide the course into two specific fields.

Field 1: Facts and knowledge that must be memorized.
This field includes Question 1. (who) and Question 3. (aims and purposes). This is a really easy thing to study for. Find a few historians that range across several schools of thoughts (and hopefully can be linked to one another) and just learn their methodology. Eg: Learn the context and purpose of: Thucydides, Ranke, Hill, Carr, and a Postmodernist.

This field will be the evidence you use to support the foundation of your paper. The foundation of your paper will be constructed from the second field.

Field 2: ideas that need to be conceptually understood. Their existence, significance and impact should be known (specific details are not important).
This field includes Question 2. (construction of history) and Question 4. (changing approaches to history). Less memorization is needed for these questions, however you should know some basic information. For example, For the construction of history: know that Ancients relied on oral sources and were genuinely flawed/inaccurate. The enlightenment historians valued empirical history but again supported a flawed system. For question 4, I just look at the rise and fall of each school and how each one was influenced by the predecessor. Something like this: Ancients use oral history; their historical truth is subjective and inaccurate ----> leads to rise of empirical based study; their historical truth is too dependent on sources that may or may not be a true reflection on reality ----> leads to the acknowledgement of source inaccuracy, Relativism, the non-attainment of historical truth ----> Postmodernism.

However, this is the first year that my school has done Extension History, and the teacher is just as inexperienced as us. So this may not be the best way to study, but I find its a great way to structure a response to such a conceptual course.

Good Luck.