Epic
Ok Well the first thing is to manage your time effectively. You should be running about 5 minutes ahead of what the BOS tests state for time - like for example if the World War One section is 70 minutes you should hopefully finish it in 65 minutes. This will allow you time to spend more time at the end if necessary on the other essays and to check your answers to the first section.
For the first section I would reccomend blitzing through the source work (the comprehension part, not the analysis part), it should not take a long time and the simplest answer is probably the most correct the majority of time. The first ten marks are a giveaway - they are designed so that anyone, even if they havent done modern before, can still get 10, simply by looking at what the sources tell you. It is crucial that you do not input your own knowledge into the sourcework questions.
When your writing essays make sure you answer the question and dont just spew out content. Have a strong introduction where you immediately state your argument and continue that line of argument throughout the essay. This applies to ALL essays, not just modern but also english. Ensure that you include references to historians (i.e. historiography). An essay without historians is much less likely to be in the band six range than an essay with historiography. Memorise a few facts and statistics too, and insert them into your essay, so the examiner knows that you know your stuff.
To prepare for it I would suggest that you either make up your own questions, or choose questions from past HSC papers, and practise writing them in 50 minutes. You can then give them to your teacher/tutor to mark and get comments. This should help you refine your answers into the band six range. You will have to write fast, by the end of the exam you will probably have RSI but thats what will get you band six. For the Speer essay the first question is always exactly the same, its basically "outline speers life from 1930 to 1945" or something similar so I would reccomend memorising this essay. For the second quesiton on Speer it can really only take on two areas - (1) whether he knew/supported Nazi racial policies or (2) his role as minister for armaments and munitions and how he boosted production. So really if you can answer these two questions you should be fine.
For Germany there is a lot of content so I just wish you good luck that you get a Weimar question because its easier (well, I think it is personally). But don't count on it - make sure you understand how Germany was Nazified, the ideology and racial policies of the Nazis, etc. You can learn all of this by writing essays rather than cosntantly reading notes which is quite repetitive. Perhaps you could quiz your friends at school or online about it too. I found that this helped me a lot.
Above all as has been outlined, I would suggest that you practise writing as many essays as possible in the leadup to trials. because I'm not that good at memorising facts, and also because memorising itslef is not good enough (you have to LEARN the material) that's what I did last year - I ended up writing dozens of essays before the hsc and it fetched me a good mark. So good luck
