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Are the mark schemes roughly similar for all of the humanities subjects?

Muichiro Tokito

I study A Level Geography, History and English Language

Reply 1

purplepengu1n

Original post by Muichiro Tokito

I study A Level Geography, History and English Language

hmm I'm not sure... I do English lit, history and french, and there are definitely similarities.
In English, the essays seem to value creative thinking and innovative ideas more than the others, but that might just be that I enjoy it more and so feel able to do that... Fundamentally, the construction of an essay is quite similar across subjects. Here's the English mark scheme:
- essay writing/forming a consistent argument/sounding good
- close analysis
- context
- comparing texts
- being able to take into account different opinions eg looking at a critic's opinion or offering multiple sides of the argument
For history, there is some crossover. We have to:
- create a valid argument and come to a judgement
- sounding nice always helps
- organised argument - perhaps less important in English but still necessary
- my interpretations and close analysis skills from English are sometimes useful looking at source questions

but we also are marked on completely different content.

The French mark scheme for the essays seems quite similar to history. We have to:
- write in an appropriate tone
- organised, clear argument which reaches a neat judgement

the difference here is that half the marks come from putting in advanced vocabulary or grammatical structures.

so... there are some similarities in that all three subjects involve writing a good essay. I imagine the same would apply to English language and geography, although every humanities subject has its own challenges and areas of interest. I couldn't imagine analysing a novel in the same way I do a historical source, and the way you have to focus on grammar and accuracy in French is completely different to the memorising facts required by the history syllabus.