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What Should I pick for my Year 13 History Option

Hi I have no idea what to do in my 2nd year of history a level. I am hestitaing between nthe tudors rebellion and russia for my depth study. I am hoping to do law or history at uni (i still havent decided) and which would be better to do to help. my sister did russia so if i picked that option, i could have her notes and essay plans etc but idk

Reply 1

Yipiyap_EthanP

Official Rep

Original post by anne th

Hi there,

I think at the end of the day you have to pick what's right for you. We had similar choices to make in Law and Psychology, whether to do contract or human rights law and whether to do child psychology or sports psychology. For me, I was in the minority for both my choices so had to join the bandwagon with doing human rights and child psychology, but if I could've followed through on contract and sports psychology I absolutely would've done.

Having someone's already existing notes, essay plans, etc, will be massively helpful though!

You might learn more applicable things about law when looking at the Tudors (Henry VIII and the catholic church for example). If there a specifications for each of the topics I would ask your teachers for these and have a good read through to make sure you're picking the one you want to pick. From my experience if you want to do something you will naturally do better at it.

Hope this helps!
Ethan

Reply 2

legendary-capaci

I did Modern History at A Level which included the whole of AS Level focusing on Russia.
It was ROUGH... lots to remember, I started at beginning of Nicholas II reign 1894 and went right through to Stalin's death in 1953.
It's likely your course could cover same timeline as so so much occurred - Tsarist vs Communist Russia, 1917 Lenin uprising and Russian Revolution, Bolsheviks and their opposition, then onto Stalin vs opponents eg Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev after Lenin dies, A **** TON OF ECONOMIC POLICY which was grim honestly (this bit is what made it a difficult subject - five year plans, collectivisation), purges and red terror.
Oh and chuck two World War's in there from a Russian perspective - economy, political, Russian fronts and operations...
My advice would be take Russian history if you have a good memory, enjoy learning about economic policy and enjoy reading (I presume you like reading if you're considering Law or History at uni). Otherwise it is tough going in my opinion. That being said...it was INCREDIBLY interesting stuff which made it less painful to study than it should've been overall.

That also being said, the latest I studied Tudors was my third year in high school... I can't speak on any economic or religious policy in that time, which again i'm sure there is a lot of. All I know is Henry VIII, six wives and Break With Rome haha.

Also, I did a Masters in Law at University..... my A Level history I found didn't really equip me with much for this moving forward as once I went to university, writing and argument style changed quite a lot for essays I found. My advice would be to take the subject you think you'll find the most interesting in order to get a good A Level mark, this is honestly what matters most moving forward if you know you want to go to Uni. Good luck!

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 3

sfp04

I actually had the exact same decision to make, and ended up picking Tudor Rebellions. (I assume this is also OCR; if not, what follows may not be as applicable.) The main difference is that Russia is a lot more content-heavy; not surprising, as the course covers over a hundred years of basically all aspects of Russian history, whereas Tudor Rebellions focuses on one much more specific aspect of the Tudor era.

I enjoyed the thematic side of the Tudor Rebellions course, which for instance contains some pretty interesting social history. The depth studies were drier, and involved learning a lot of facts and dates; though, again, probably less than you would have to do for Russia. I’d also done the Wars of the Roses in lower sixth, and so there was overlap in content between the two (specifically, rebellions during Henry VII’s reign) which helped. As far as university courses are concerned, I don’t think your choice here will matter at all.