barberogaston Posted November 15, 2014 Report Share Posted November 15, 2014 Hello there IB people!Yesterday I did both History Paper 1 and 2, but the thing is that in Paper 2 I answered the two questions in like an hour. Previously, I had read some posts here that suggested no taking too long on writing the essays, as sometimes you can run out of time, so I was kind of concerned that my answers hadn't been long enough. I wrote about one page and a bit more in each question, and did answer specifically to what the question asked. So, what do you think? Will I get very low marks on this one? Thanks a lot for your answers! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathemagician Posted November 15, 2014 Report Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) Hi, Remember that an answer being longer doesn't necessarily mean a better one. Person A could write both their essay's in 1 hour, and Person B could write both in 1 hour and 30 min, but Person A could still get the better mark. Why? Their answers, whilst being short, could be more detailed, more specific, thus being better. Person B might have just dragged on and on, you never know. If your essay's are shorter, but the answer is right to the point you can still get a good mark. For instance, for one of my History Paper 2 tests (only one question) in class, I wrote like 4 1/2 pages (literally), and I only got a 10/20 (level 5). On the other hand, many others in my class got the same mark as I did (10/20; level 5) but they wrote far less than I did. A girl in my class literally wrote 1 1/2 pages (like you) and got the same mark as me... I wrote 3x as much as her. Based on that you can see quality is more important than quantity. Hopefully this helped. Edited November 15, 2014 by Mathemagician 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barberogaston Posted November 15, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2014 Hi, Remember that an answer being longer doesn't necessarily mean a better one. Person A could write both their essay's in 1 hour, and Person B could write both in 1 hour and 30 min, but Person A could still get the better mark. Why? There answers, whilst being short, could be more detailed, more specific, thus being better. Person B might have just dragged on and on, you never know. If your essay's are shorter, but the answer is right to the point you can still get a good mark. For instance, for one of my History Paper 2 tests (only one question) in class, I wrote like 4 1/2 pages (literally), and I only got a 10/20 (level 5). On the other hand, many others in my class got the same mark as I did (10/20; level 5) but they wrote far less than I did. A girl in my class literally wrote 1 1/2 pages (like you) and got the same mark as me... I wrote 3x as much as her. Based on that you can see quality is more important than quantity. Hopefully this helped.Thanks for your answer! Going to have that in mind Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathemagician Posted November 15, 2014 Report Share Posted November 15, 2014 No problem. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben322 Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 As Mathemagician said, length doesn't really matter - people who obtain the same score (12/20) could write from 3 sides to 7 sides. Think marks are awarded based on an essay's clarity, proper use of evidence and critical commentary / historiography! Out of curiosity, do your teachers focus on historiography / historiographical debates alot? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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