NOV11 History paper 1 and 2

[faith]

Lets discuss history- the subject that worried me most in the last two weeks.=)

There is a general agreement at my school that the topic in paper 1 was a little obscure than what we expected. People were expecting more 'general' topics such as Manchuria or the Versailles Treaty. I think I did alright in that paper, except for the fact that I got dates mixed up- for the life of me I couldn't remember whether the Ruhr Crisis was in 1923 or 1924. Also, I didn't know whether I discussed the events between 1920 and 1926 enough in my mini-essay.

Paper two was A LOT better than what I expected. I was stressing out so much before the exams (I can't remember being that stressed out during the whole exam period! Even before my maths HL exam) because I was worried about the questions that could potentially come up and because of the fact that I simply hadn't touched history since my mock exams. The questions, however, were very good! I had three or four questions that I felt I could write about if I really had to, so I could actually choose two that I felt most comfortable on.

How did you guys find it?

[laryxle]

I seem to be making a lot of these

How did everyone find P1 and 2. I have to say, for me they were great, such a relief.

I didn't expect P1 to be on the Anglo-American Guarantee, but the sources were pretty easy to analyse, the only one I didn't like was the comic. I thought the hardest question was the compare and contrast, because I didn't see that many points of comp/cont between the two sources. I also wish that the last question had broadened the date from 1920-6 to perhaps 1933 but it was good overall.

P2 was wonderful! I was dreading it as the hardest history paper and perhaps one of the hardest in all subjects, but it turned out to be such a good paper. I do CPE of Wars (topic 1) and Single party states (topic 3). I went in wanting to do a question on analysing the causes of the Spanish Civil War, and it was one of the question which was great. I loved my essay for that, I was surprised though because the same question was in both M10 timezone papers, but very happy. For SPS, I had wanted to do an ideology question and so it was kind of annoying there weren't any, but I was tossing up between the rise of Hitler question (what everyone in my class was hoping for) and the compare and contrast. I chose to do the compare and contrast economic policies (Mao and Hitler, question 18) because I think that it is a 'safer' question for getting in the 14-16 markband than the rise of Hitler one, seeing as you really just need analysis and a comparative framework. I went quite in depth with my comparison/contrast but I only had 2 comparisons and 2 contrasts, so I hope that that is enough. I stupidly only mentioned at the very end about how Hitler essentially pursued a capitalist programme and Mao a socialist one, can't believe I didn't write about that in the body, but I only want like 14 for that essay anyway as I was very happy with the Spanish Civil War question.

I can only hope that Paper 3 will be as good (hopefully another Spanish Civil War question in there )

[faith]

I just realized I made a really HUGE mistake in my Hitler essay!

It's really stupid- I wrote down Munich crisis when I was meant to write Munich Putsch! Oh my god...=(=( I'm going to get marked down so badly.

[AlonsoDT]

Well, I found both papers fairly manageable... In paper 1, I just couldn't remember what the Anglo-American Guarantee was... I hope a 5 or if I'm lucky, a 6/7 in that one.

Paper 2, on the other hand, was wonderful . I remember reading through that question about Hitler's rise and feeling my lips turn into a smile haha. I did that one and the one of the Cold War on the fall of the USSR... although I didn't finish my last essay, I'm hoping for a 5 here as well.

Right now I should be studying for paper 3 , but somehow I managed to end up in the forum. Well, I've got the whole day to study and get ready for that paper, 'cause it's my last exam! Woohoo! GL to everyone who's taking it on the 15th.

[Xelar]

I hated paper 1. The Anglo-American guarantee was the most minute points on the syllabus, I was sure we were going to get Manchuria. I hated paper 1 immensely.

Speaking of the comic, how did you guys interpret it? I had absolutely no clue and that was the last question I did with the hopes I would suddenly understand it... no luck.

I was so lucky with paper 2 because I had spent so much time on economics that history got a little bit neglected. I had done Hitler is great detail but only did bits and pieces of Stalin so I absolutely loved the Hitler question! Don't worry too much, your error isn't that major and I'm positive they know what you're talking about.

I am SO dreading paper 3. Two and a half hours.

[AlonsoDT]

Ugh paper 3 is just soooo awful! After writing 3 essays, I believe that my whole class ends the test with a cramped hand haha. Also, it's the longest one on IB, right?

About the comic... I remember having written something about Great Britain being deterred to give France protection because the latter wouldn't stop their militarist...eh...attitude? (I hope this is understandable, English isn't my native language), which could be seen in the man's facial expression. And also that this militarism was a must if GB wanted to give them the aid they asked for... which was quite explicit on the source's title "Love me - Love my dog" and the dog said "French Militarism".

[laryxle]

I did all my study for paper 3 like a month ago, and i've been so tired this weekend that I haven't done anything practically. I am praying for easy german unification question, easy cause of WWI/Versailles Treaty/Weimar/Hitler question, and Spanish Civil War/Mussolini/Hitler foreign policy question, or else i'm screwed.

I interpreted the comic as saying that in order for any country to have an alliance with France they had to accept France's need for security/their militarism (love me, love my dog), and also that France was being quite aggressive about the issue of French security (the dog was going to eat the thing the British guy was holding, the French woman was reading a book called 'the next war', and the British guy was shriveling back). I found it really hard to talk about it in question 4, but I said that because it implied the an alliance with France meant acceptance of French militarism, the retreat from the Guarantee meant that they would be uncooperative in international relations. Although my example of that was something that happened in 1930, so I couldn't use it, so I said something lame about the Washington Naval Conference that wasn't even correct...

Edit: My hand is going to be dead after the next few days. Not only do I have 2:30hours of history tomorrow, but 5 hours of Psychology essays on Tuesday and Wednesday

Edited November 14, 2010 by laryxle

[faith]

I think my description on the comic was quite short- something along the lines of what others above me had said:L that France wanted an alliance with Britain but Britain is taken back because of France's militarism; Britain didn't want to get dragged into another war.

Good luck guys for paper 3! I have maths instead of history tomorrow. Even though the paper is two hours shorter I'll argue that it's equally as draining. =(

Thanks Xelar but I still can't get over how I managed to get the Munich Putsch and the Munich Crisis mixed up lol. I guess I'll laugh at myself once I get over it.=)

[Xelar]

Haha, why does the comic make so much sense to me now?? That's annoying, good thing it was only 2 points.

Yeah, I think history paper 3 is the longest one. Not fair, English and Econ HL is only 4 hours of examination, why is history an extra hour? They should get rid of paper 1, in my opinion What paper three do you guys do? I'm doing the Americas (civil rights, cold war, global affairs). I'm fine for civil rights and global affairs but I'm going to have to get lucky in the cold war with either Truman or the Korean war *fingers crossed*

I feel for you, laryxle

Good luck with math, is that HL? why is that so much separated from the other math papers? How come you don't do history in the morning and then math in the afternoon?

I'm going to be so happy at 11 am tomorrow!!! only French left then and that's on thursday.

Haha, yeah, i'm sure the examiner will get a kick out of it I remember in the mocks I wrote an essay on the Cold War and I kept talking about Russia and the USSR instead of America and the USSR. lol. I didn't even realize my mistake until i got it back with circles all on it.

[laryxle]

Lol in my mocks I talked about the Baltic states instead of the Balkan

I do history of Europe; German and Italian Unification, European Diplomacy and the First World War 1870-1923 and Interwar Years, plus my first teacher made us do the French Revolution but i'm not doing that

[Xelar]

Ah, I did that at my old school before I moved. I really wish I could have done that as I really liked it but the school here wouldn't let me and it's not like bio paper 3 where you get all the options to choose from on the day.

[AlonsoDT]

I'm also doing the Americas; emergence of the US in foreign affairs, Mexican revolution, Great Depression, a couple of populist governments, Cuban revolution and a couple of militarisms in the 70s... but I'm not studying Cuba nor the militarisms

[faith]

@Xelar: Yep it's HL maths. I only do SL history so I don't have to do paper 3.