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Is the history textbook enough?


turtle turtle

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So our school recommends that we buy the Pearson IB History textbooks for paper 1, 2, 3. But the thing is, our teacher doesn't teach much, so I rely on the textbook which explains each area that is tested on the exam.

 

Is reading the textbook enough or can you never do well if you virtually only read the textbook? (+ a little bit of online reading for facts, dates)

 

Thanks everyone for any replies!

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It doesn't hurt to read around, though as King112 points out it is possible to read only the textbook and do ok. It didn't work for me though.

 

I don't know what the Pearson textbook is like, but I found our textbooks (we had three) could do no more than provide a very broad picture of events, and i never could manage to make the details stick because they seemed unconnected to each other or the connections were were never really clear.  "Understanding" (i.e. grasping the meaning and significance of events and their connection to each other and to history) remained elusive until I read around. One History for A-Levels series was especially good at making the connections clear and memorable --and i recommend it here--: Access To History (Michael Lynch one of the writers).

 

Reading around also helps to recall events and make connections when you read about the same event from many different sources. It may take a little more time than one reading of a general textbook, but you make up for that with far less need to review later.

 

See what works for you.


hmmm

So our school recommends that we buy the Pearson IB History textbooks for paper 1, 2, 3. But the thing is, our teacher doesn't teach much, so I rely on the textbook which explains each area that is tested on the exam.

 

Is reading the textbook enough or can you never do well if you virtually only read the textbook? (+ a little bit of online reading for facts, dates)

 

Thanks everyone for any replies!

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Well my teacher gave us 7 textbooks...most of them were the access to history textbooks and I personally LOVED them. They are well-organized, have no fluff (get straight to the point) and provide possible essay questions that follow IB standards. 

 

Personally, I don't think just reading anything will help for history. You need to practice actually writing the different papers...but for facts, I only used the access to history textbooks and occasionally researched some historians for different perspectives. And it worked out fine for me. My raw was in the mid-80s so I would assume it would be curved higher. 

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Content wise, I would assume that an IB textbook would touch on all the bases. So you should be good there

I know that in my class we use quite a bit of supplemental articles for historiography. So you might be lacking that aspect. (I'm not really sure how useful historiography is though.)

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