Edexcel history AS Jan resits help

I did Henry VIII, Stalin's Russia and Mao's China for AS. I really dislike the style of the Mao questions (much prefer the source-based ones) but the way I revised was basically to memorise the whole text book, but clearly you don't have time for that

Which text book are you revising from? I think I used 'The People's Republic of China Since 1949' (Access to History) which had brilliant summaries at the end of each chapter. They created a small, very basic spider diagram of the main points and influencial factors that I copied out onto A3 paper and added to with anything I thought was relevant.

If worst comes to worst, I remember my teacher saying to all the COD-obsessed boys in class that if they got desperate, they should look at the topics of the past papers and see if there were any major events that hadn't come up before and to perhaps to focus their revision on that. A bit of a gamble, I know, but it depends on how confident or desperate you are. Also, its always a good idea to memorise a few relevant figures if you can. I've heard that examiners like figures?

I hate planning, but it helps to have the conclusion in your head even before you begin so that you can structure your essay in an analytical way. I think I scribbled down the main argument for each of my paragraphs, whether this added support or contradicted the title question/statement, and any names or dates or figures that I knew were important before I forgot them.

Good luck!

Well I did edexcel history, but Henry 8th and Russia at AS. What I found best was writing the timelines from the textbook out on posters and sticking them round my room for that sort of info and then for essays I planned answers (teacher gave us a list of possible questions for each topic). By plan I mean I decided what my 'answer' to the question would be and what 'headings' I would have for my paragraphs. This meant that even if that question didn't come up i had a general feel for my arguements for each topic. I
Or is your problem more the essay writing skills than the learning facts?

Mind maps/cue cards for the facts.
Past papers for the essays. Past papers really is the best way to practice, I'm trying to get as many done as possible now
If your teacher won't help, find another member of the department. Go to workshops if they've got them when college starts.
Go through the textbooks again is all I can advise really. Best of luck!

i did edexcel but luther/witchcraft and irish history which was the worst thing on the planet!!!
im resitting in jan but im really not motivated as i dropped history in AS and none of my universities require it as im applying for engineering....i think im gonna flop this resit just like i did in the summer...

i asked for my paper from the exam board...u have to pay but i got it and went through with my teacher what i did wrong and my main problem was i mention everything but i dont explain it ....but theres barely any time in the exam and theres so much to write ...im so happy im not doing A2 :P

I'm resitting a paper on women's suffrage, I got a D on it...ooops However, I got nearly full UMS on the other paper on german and italian fascism so I'd really like to bump up my grade on the D grade paper to get an A overall for AS....but so far revision stands at absolutely nothing. I'm resitting all of French AS in January so that is my focus. I'm just planning to do some timetabling and mindmaps for each topic and memorise some figures about a week before the exam. I'm confident in my knowledge of it, but my source based essay skills are bordering on useless!

I'm jealous you only have to retake one! I have loads of other exams in January too. My first history exam is on the 13th!

I'm ok on the knowledge too (once I go over it...), almost got a B on the source paper, but my essay skills are kind of crap... You got an A, you have to tell me how you did it!

Maybe the grade boundaries will be lower for the january exams?

Yes, past papers for history just take up so much time and are hard to mark yourself, but they are helpful... I should just force myself to do them lol
My college does both the history papers in the summer, so there are no workshops for january as the AS people aren't sitting any

Your college sounds so unhelpful! Could you not get a teacher to mark them for you? It will really help, trust me
Our college runs workshops all year round, for help on what's been covered in the lessons and extra preparation, and then workshops for the re-sits. That's so unfair tbh :/

Grade boundaries as a rule are going to be lower for Jan exams because less people take them Erm, I honestly couldn't tell you how I aced the other paper though. I was certain that I failed because I made a few really silly mistakes, like confusing stormtroopers (nazi) with blackshirts (fascist italy) and I forgot to even talk about propaganda when the nazi question was on Hitler's rise to power

I suppose the main thing with the knowledge paper is to analyse EVERYTHING. Pretend the examiner is stupid and they need everything spoonfed to them...A was responsible for B because of X,Y and Z like don't make empty points by just stating something- back it up with your knowledge and reasons.

I'm pretty useless with the source paper, I just treat it as a knowledge paper and don't really use the sources

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any revision tips?

I took both papers in June and just scraped Cs. I worked as hard as I could, so it's not effort that was the problem. The topics were India for the source paper and Mao's china and civil rights for the other one.

I signed up for the resits in January (the 1st is on the 13th I think ) I haven't started revising yet and I'm considering just not doing the exams even though I paid for them, as I'll probably get an even worse score anyway. The teacher said she'd support me, but she hasn't helped a bit.

I have to revise for 3 other subject exams for January that are A2 (biology,chem,geog), so I'm not sure what to do... Last time I made notes from the textbook and managed to find a revision guide for one of the topics. I'm pretty bad at planning, because I don't want to end up basically writing the whole answer.

Thanks

ok..here we go, this the a 99% sucess rate to get A/A* mthod in history that I have made...

1. know the general stuff about the topics and if you want, some more interesting stuff
2. LEARN TO WRITE PROPERLY IN THE WAY THEY WANT
3. write a load of bull in the exam, but write it in the way they want
4. get 90%+

the reason this works....the person marking your paper is NOT a historian, not only that but the marks are not awarded for accurate knowledge (its gotta sound like its right and not utter bull****) but for the way you write, so if you can master that, you will get marks even if you talk about elephant's bottoms (as long as you make it relevant)

trust me....A level history....its not what you write, but HOW you write as I wrote WRONG things for my AS unit 2 exam...got 100%....cos I know HOW to write