Tips on doing well in SL/HL History

[Cynthia]

Now that I'm done with my History finals (which I've been panicking so much about for the last few months) I'm going to procrastinate by writing some tips on how to do well in IB History while trying not to repeat things that have been said in previous posts on the forum too much.

The historical investigation

I wrote my historical investigation on Ancient Rome and regret it somewhat, although I did find it interesting. Unless you are very much into history as a subject (and even then), doing your HI on a topic that somewhat interests you and is likely to be of some use in your exams is, I think, the best option. This is simply because having spent so much time on your HI, you can probably spend a lot less time in general on revision of that topic, cutting your study time by a lot during what will probably be the busiest time in your IB years, the month or two leading up to the final exams.

Don't spend too much time on the HI and also don't get stuck in refining small details - same advice goes for all IB assignments. Don't underestimate its importance, either - it is worth 20% (or 25%) and could potentially save your grade in case the finals do not go according to plan.

Make use of the resources in this forum, including examples. Also, keep a very close eye on the marking criteria when finishing work; you should aim to achieve the highest one in every aspect.

The same advice goes for your EE if you choose to write it in History; although in this case, choosing something you're passionate about and actually want to research is much more important than for the IA which is comparatively simpler and shorter.

The essays

There's a number of important points concerning essays. There's plenty of good resources for actual essay writing both online and in here, so I won't go into that. Some history specific tips follow...

The subject reports for history seem to indicate that a thematic approach is preferable to a chronological one. This means that, for example, if you're writing an essay on Hitler's successes and failures, you could have body paragraphs for political, social, cultural, economic, and foreign policy, rather than going through everything he did from 1933 to 1945.

Be as analytic as you can make doing so very explicit in your essays for the benefit of the examiner. Some ideas to show analytical skills:

1. Refer back to the question at the end of every paragraph you write. The last few sentences should sum up why, how, and to what extent the things you introduced are significant to the question.
   
2. Use connectors of addition and contrast such as "however", "on the other hand", "in addition" to make it very clear that you're analysing.
   
3. Examine causes and effects for different groups of people. For example, in a Hitler's successes essay, you could discuss the point of view of supporters of liberal democracy, the population, the state, and Hitler himself, and make it clear that this wasn't necessarily the same thing.
   
4. Define the terms used in the question in your introduction (eg ideology) as well as the scope if you're responding to a more open-ended question.
   

Challenge the assumptions in the question if there are any. For example, if you need to discuss the conditions in the rise to power of two leaders, you can briefly say that the methods were perhaps even more important in their rise to power. This should not, however, be a major point in your essay!

If you can use actual figures or specific primary sources in your essay, that's great. Memorising them in large quantities and for everything, however, is probably not worth the time.

Dates are not very important; it is important to know the broad chronology of events, but not the exact dates! So you should learn years for most things, and months for some more short-term issues (eg. collapse of the Provisional Government in 1917 or the 1945 Cold War conferences).

You can place events in context by, for example, discussing the events in the long-term (for example, when discussing the Russian revolution, you can say that WWI was particularly problematic for tsarism since the Romanov dynasty had linked itself greatly to military success) or discussing events in other places at the same time (once again, when discussing the Russian revolution you can say that it may not be surprising that the tsar was overthrown as WWI tended to illegitimise rulers all over Europe and even regimes where the social situation was much more stable pre-1914 collapsed as a result of the war).

Also see the section below for historiography!

Effectively using historiography

When making notes, include a couple of historians for every subtopic, especially those which are more likely to come up in exams (for example, for the Russian option, Alexander II and the revolutions). Make little lists such as:

October revolution

Traditional Soviet view -- as you'd expect. Was a popular rising, as Bolsheviks won over support in 1917, following pre-determined historical laws. Displayed the strength of the party & Lenin's leadership.

Pipes, etc. -- The October revolution was a coup d'etat with little popular support by a well organized group that was ruthless and opportunistic. Note that the SRs gained twice as many seats of them in CA! Events following it showed that Marxism & the Bolsheviks were authoritarian, anti-democratic

Figes, etc. -- Structuralist. Emphasises the Bolshevik party's response to popular opinion to gain power, eg. the land issue in 1917 -- "Revolution from below". October, then, was a popular revolution which was taken over and turned into a dictatorship.

It's pretty easy to find summaries of historians' views on the internet or on this forum, so use them to your advantage.

Saying that, there's no substitute for actually reading proper history books at least for the topics you are focusing on. It helps you gain an understanding of the nuances of the events in question and also a deeper grasp of historiography which should show in your essays. This is especially true if you're aiming for the higher mark bands (although it is perfectly possible to get a 7 without wider reading). Shorter works eg. Pipes' Three Whys of the Russian Revolution give you a lot of benefit for a small investment in time. This also helps you see the kind of style you should aim for in essays. Although style isn't something you should be particularly concerned about, assessment in history will always be in some ways subjective; it might help you score a few extra points!

Integrate the historians well in your essays and critically examine their views. Try to refute them if you can using facts. For example, for the above Soviet view, you could refer to the results of the Constituent Assembly elections following their coup, where the Social Revolutionary party won twice as many seats.

Historiography should complement your facts, but it's in no way a replacement for them. In any given paragraph, roughly 50% should be facts, 30% your own analysis, and less than 20% should be historiography.

Also show an awareness of the factors that affect history writing. So for example when discussing a Soviet view you could refer to state pressure and political ideology; when discussing the view that Hitler was the "Master of the Third Reich" (Bullock) you could refer to the experiences of the victims of the Third Reich and perhaps the fact that emotional and historical distance hadn't had the time to develop.

Revising for the final exam and the exam itself

HL History is probably one of the most time-consuming subjects to revise for since you need to have a good grasp of a large quantity of events and also a fairly good depth of information.

You should not study everything you've gone through in class. The smart thing to do is to use a combination of past papers and the syllabus to determine what you should study. If your teacher has planned the course well (and even if he/she hasn't), there should be a considerable amount of overlap; for example, the paper 1 topic Peacemaking, Peacekeeping, overlaps to some extent with the Causes, practices, and effects of war in paper 2, and the interwar years topic in paper 3. Naturally, you should choose the topics with the most overlap to minimise work and maximise grades. Focus on the questions that come up a lot (such as Alexander II, origins of WWI and Cold War, and the Russian revolutions), but also ensure that whatever the combination of questions, you can answer at least the minimum required amount – you might get very unlucky.

When considering what you should revise, it might be helpful to keep your own interests and strengths in mind. I am, for example, terrible at memorising practices of war since I have no interest whatsoever in military strategy or weapons... So I decided to skip that entirely for my final exams.

I've mentioned notes (see this topic by Julie especially!) a couple of times above. You should have your class notes, but actually rewriting (and expanding) them while keeping the points above in mind is a good way to revise. Markschemes for past papers show the kind of things you should have knowledge on for every topic.

As for all subjects, make yourself a schedule to make it easier to keep up with revision.

At the point where you have a good grasp of the facts – which should ideally be no less than a week before your history exams start – the thing to do is to start going through past papers and writing as many essays and essay outlines as you can. This should be done using the actual timing, so about 45 minutes per essay. Aim to do at least one essay on every topic that is likely to come up. If your teacher is nice, he/she’ll give you comments on essays even during the study break.

During the exam…

1. Try to relax and breathe. Have a sip of water
   
2. Use the reading time to your advantage. Read through all questions (and the sources in paper 1). Decide which ones you’ll write essays on. Start mentally planning the first one if you have any time left over.
   
3. Writing essays against the time limit while revising also lets you know the way you work the best. If you need to plan, do so, as it is 5 minutes well spent.
   
4. Keep up with the time limit and keep an eye on the time. Having three essays worth 15 points is better than having two essays worth 20 points and one introduction.
   
5. If you get lucky and get a question that you find easy, I’d say it’s better to leave it last. This is for two reasons: first, you’ll be tired at that point, and writing on an easy topic will be easier for you; second, if you find that you have more time left than the 45 minutes you’ve planned for, you can use it to your advantage more efficiently by using more of your knowledge (rather than starting with that and finding yourself in the scenario above)
   

Edited May 14, 2011 by Cynthia

[Konni93]

If I may, (since this is I think a rather brilliant summary), I'd add a little something...

Firstly, for revising, I find it incredibly helpful to have certain "themes" in mind for every section. Since the question do take rather different twists, its helpful to have a basic structure, or rather basic themes on every topic that you know you can integrate. Its hard to explain; what I did was have individual modules in my mind that I could twist onto every question on a topic.

E.g.: for any essay on the 1917 revolutions, I would know that I would always devote a considerable section, up to a paragraph, to the effects of the war; within essays on Hitler, I would always place a considerable portion of my essay on the (flawed) economic policies. This probably sounds rather obvious, but its helpful in connection with the second point.

As Cynthia said, reading "real" history is essential. This is especially the case for those frequent questions rewarding "perceptive comments" in the higher markbans. I you have one, two ideas or facts that make your essay stand out from others per topic, remember these as the "themes"; try to group your essays around them. Standing out I think is always good, especially since we all do very similar topics and probably use very similar textbooks (which makes further reading so important).

Two more tips (my personal opinion): I would never start writing an essay without at least rough planning! This is especially the case for paper 3: train yourself to write in 45 minutes (you need it anyways for paper 2) and you have a full 5 minutes more to plan an essay in paper 3, for each! And you should not need 5 so youll still have more time than for paper 2 essays.

Lastly, in general Cynthia's tip on doing easy essays last makes sense, and the point with converting extra time to extra info is good. On the other hand, if you dont need 45 minutes for a "hard" topic, youve probably done something wrong While writing, since our teacher misprepared us to the extreme on the topics I had to chose from rather strange questions on paper 3; and I found it very helpful to the essay on which I had the most pre-prepared structure first, just for warming you up.

PS: for the HI, something I realised: procrastination in itself is never good. But I did mine veeery early and regretted it alot, because my writing style, simply through more practice as I came closer to the exams, improved exponentially. So find a topic, do your reasearch early. But consider writing after you have some experience. (same goes for any EEs)

Edited May 14, 2011 by Konni93

[Tony Stark]

I'd add to this to read as broadly as possible: I never read anything outside of class, and it made my exams really difficult.

[vren55]

HL history over here (predicted 4 though) with a fairly good grasp of context and some historians...My biggest problem seems to be with nerves and crit commentary. Any help with that?

[Where Love Died Laughing]

HL History here... I've got a predicted 7. I realize that a lot of people hate to sit and take notes and I happen to be one of them. Instead, after each lesson I would buy some notecards and then one one side of the notecard I would write a question regarding what we did that lesson and on the back I would write my answer...

So, for example:

Front: When did German unification take place?

Back: 1871

After a while I actually started finding my notecards rather fun to do and even made them into a mini Who Wants to be a Millionaire trivia and started giving them stars based on difficulty levels on a scale of 1-10.

So, a question like "When did WWII start?" would be 1 star, whereas "Describe Germany's role in the Spanish Civil War" would be a 9 or 10. (:

[Alpaca]

Can I also say, don't leave all your revising to the last minute! In my end of year exams I hadn't revised the first topic we learnt at the start of the year (Weimar) since then, and as a result I had to re-learn almost everything. If you keep revising throughout the year, so using your flashcards or re-reading your notes once in a while, that definitely works out to your advantage and leaves a lot less stress during the actual exam. Just a thought!

[rafsey1]

I have a huge problem - English is my second language and lately my essay writing skills have just sunk. I want to be able to write a good paper and write a decent thesis statement. Can someone please upload a paper so that I can see an example. I am currently on a five and I would like to pull up my grade because I love history, with a passion and I wish I was able to write better in my paper 2.

[pedro123dfs]

Hi,

 

i've uploaded my notes and summaries for History and Economics for IB and A-Level examinations here:

 

www.aibnotes.blogspot.com

 

Among other topics, you'll find:

 

• The Arab-Israeli Conflict
  
• The origins of the Cold War
  
• Revolution in Cuba
  
• Dètente between East and West (1962-1975)
  
• The “Second Cold War†Renewed Tension Between East and West, 1975-1984
  
• Vietnam - USA Containment in the Southeast Pacific
  
• Fall of USSR (Part 1) - Gorbachev and the end of communist rule
  
• Fall of USSR (Part 2) - The collapse of the USSR and the end of communist rule
  
• The Sino-Soviet Split: origins and main features.
  
• China - Reforms and Modernization After Mao
  
• ECONOMICS: Government macroeconomic policy objectives and indicators of national economic performance
  

 

Hope you find them useful

[ski37]

Something that's been really helping me is using various types of sources to study. Obviously notes from class are extremely important, but since there isn't enough time to cover everything in class and go into full detail about everything, I like to use my class notes as an outline for what I need to look into more.

Our teacher suggests many readings/books to look at, and along with these I like to find videos, primary sources, etc. to reinforce ideas. Youtube videos, can be amazing when you just can't make yourself read anymore, and audio books/podcasts (ex. Voices of WW1 or Dan Carlin's Hardcore History) are extremely helpful when you're too tired to read, or cleaning/driving/etc.

Also, I have found that rather than creating notes in a linear fashion, making theme based notes helps me come with connections between perspectives and coherent analyses of a topic. A great way to do this is with a mind-map (digital or hand-drawn, I like GoConqr.com)!

Edited May 7, 2016 by talka37
adding another idea

[ski37]

On 2012-05-02 at 6:00 PM, Where Love Died Laughing said:

HL History here... I've got a predicted 7. I realize that a lot of people hate to sit and take notes and I happen to be one of them. Instead, after each lesson I would buy some notecards and then one one side of the notecard I would write a question regarding what we did that lesson and on the back I would write my answer...

So, for example:

Front: When did German unification take place?

Back: 1871

After a while I actually started finding my notecards rather fun to do and even made them into a mini Who Wants to be a Millionaire trivia and started giving them stars based on difficulty levels on a scale of 1-10.

So, a question like "When did WWII start?" would be 1 star, whereas "Describe Germany's role in the Spanish Civil War" would be a 9 or 10. (:

I agree with this idea, and handwriting notes/note cards is a great way to study. For anyone who prefers having their resources compiled digitally, I like using Brainscape as an application for creating flashcards that you can access on your computer or phone (even with an offline option), for studying on the go! There are lots of other apps like this too, I've heard some of my friends use Anki.