The Cold War for May session

[Sauliooz]

What do you think of choosing only The Cold War for the May session? Is it reasonable and enough for the 1st and 2nd exam papers?

[Scade]

Well for paper 1 obviously. But for paper 2, don't you have to answer 2 questions from separate areas (at least I was under that impression), so you would have to know something else than cold war. Generally speaking I think that it is a good idea to know maybe 3 or 4 topics pretty well for paper 2, because you might not end up getting your favourite questions on every topic. Similarly for paper 3 4 or even 5 topics well known. It is of course wise to have the topics in different papers overlap since it reduces the amount of reading nicely.

[Broxtreme]

Yeah, I am definitely going to have to agree with scade.

[homeroom]

[quote name='Scade' post='14303' date='Apr 3 2008, 10:33 PM']Well for paper 1 obviously. But for paper 2, don't you have to answer 2 questions from separate areas (at least I was under that impression), so you would have to know something else than cold war. Generally speaking I think that it is a good idea to know maybe 3 or 4 topics pretty well for paper 2, because you might not end up getting your favourite questions on every topic. Similarly for paper 3 4 or even 5 topics well known. It is of course wise to have the topics in different papers overlap since it reduces the amount of reading nicely.[/quote]

Definitely agree with what's been said above - except that I think that for paper 2, a good strategy would be study two topics very well, and then use one other topic as a backup (so study the third topic, just not in as much detail).

[deissi]

[quote name='homeroom' post='14453' date='Apr 5 2008, 04:39 AM']Definitely agree with what's been said above - except that I think that for paper 2, a good strategy would be study two topics very well, and then use one other topic as a backup (so study the third topic, just not in as much detail).[/quote]

Meh, that certainly is a dangerous approach. If you end up having to use your backup option, you'll be in deep trouble since you haven't studied it that well. In the end, it might then be wise to use a topic you HAVE studied well since you know more of it even though you don't like the question.

[Ruan Chun Xian]

[quote]My strategy is to know Stalin inside out. That takes care of paper 1, and 1 question each for 2 and 3. I'm also studying Mao, Hitler, and Mussolini (I may drop Mussolini if I dont have time) and [b]a couple wars (WW1, WW2, Russian rev, Chinese rev, vietnam, and korea).[/b] I may also study the USSR after Stalin cuz I have a really good book for historiography on perestoika and glasnost. So yeah, with those 11 topics, I shouldn't really have any problems on the exams.[/quote]
A couple? Haha

My advice, guys, is to not rely entirely on the cold war. Know AT LEAST one of the world wars (both is better). If you study the cold war properly you should know Vietnam and Korea as well. So that's your wars sorted. At Cam is right, know stuff on the leaders as well (Stalin, Hitler are most useful and most likely to come up in paper 3 though they may trap you and make you compare them with Mussolini as well). Stuff like the Russian Rev and before is not really necessary unless you really like those topics. 20th century topics from WWI onwards should serve you well enough even for paper 3.