AS History Edexcel May 2013 thread

Okay, well I hope I did okay! Time to revise Henry VIII for Wednesday, ugh.

I did the ones on Mussolini's foreign policy, and the Nazi electoral success. I would have preferred a Weimar question, but I thought the paper went alright, you?

Well times up. What question did you guys do? I did why stalin rose to power and whether war was the main reason for their downfall. For Stalin my factors were, his powerbase within the party (the positions which enables him to grab power), his personality (knew when to retreat and devious e.g. stopping bukharin plane for meetings), tactical manovering (stalin during the alliances), weakness of his opponents (trotsky missing funeral and other examples). For PG question: war (how it went against the soviets and the losses (e.g. june offensive), political (how PG couldn't order the army about with the permission of the soviets, social (jacquires ad food issues), Lenin (e.g. all power to the soviets, peace land bread), and the Kornilov affair (how it undermined the provisional government and lead to the bolshekis becoming more popular and powerful)

What do people think? Seem good enough for a high grade?

I did the PG question and the industrial policies one. But yeah for the PG question i put basically everything you put there, with a large focus on Lenin's return, but i also included the July Days briefly. I guess it just depends on how evaluative you were really doesn't it

I did the Mussolini question and I did the Nazi education policy, the opposite to you...i thought the questions were particularly difficult, what did other poeple in your school think?

Well times up. What question did you guys do? I did why stalin rose to power and whether war was the main reason for their downfall. For Stalin my factors were, his powerbase within the party (the positions which enables him to grab power), his personality (knew when to retreat and devious e.g. stopping bukharin plane for meetings), tactical manovering (stalin during the alliances), weakness of his opponents (trotsky missing funeral and other examples).
What do people think? Seem good enough for a high grade?

My whole argument for the PG question was pretty much just talking about how much resentment the the PG were building up from war and social factors. I mentioned how these two factors combined lead to the downfall, and said that the other factors were significant but just built on more resentment. How did you use the July days? I don't think anything bad really happened there if anything they just re-asserted there authority. Am I wrong? Also you doing Henry next week?

My whole argument for the PG question was pretty much just talking about how much resentment the the PG were building up from war and social factors. I mentioned how these two factors combined lead to the downfall, and said that the other factors were significant but just built on more resentment. How did you use the July days? I don't think anything bad really happened there if anything they just re-asserted there authority. Am I wrong? Also you doing Henry next week?

I did the same question and put a similar answer. I mentioned powerbase, such as General Secretary which allowed him to put people in the Party who were loyal to him. Then I did his tactics, such as making Trotsky miss Lenin's funeral, making Bukharin miss important meetings, hiding Lenin's Testament and making & breaking alliances. The last paragraph I did was personality, and I kind of linked this in with his tactics to say that without his cunning personality, he wouldn't be able to use these tactics.

You sound like you've got a lot of information in there with specific examples, so you should get at least a Level 4! What did you say was the most important reason?

I said it was a combination between his personality and powerbase, because without each one who wouldn't of become leader and bee able to eliminate the others. I

I just used the July Days in an evaluative way - saying that had the Kornilov Affair not happened then they may not have overthrown because they were actually starting to regain support back after the July Days - does that make sense? And no I'm doing Changing Position of Women (The Suffrage Question). Dreading it!!

Exam was alright really Did unification of both italy and Germany, and was also happy with the themes that popped up. I just hope that I did myself justice! Now time to revise women's suffrage for next week :s

Agreed this exam went extremely well but bricking it for women's suffrage, its hard to revise it all because in addition to women's suffrage I have 3 other maths exams surrounding the date

Did anyone do Mao's China?? I regret choosing the Cultural Revolution question :|

it is hard and extremely boring :/ At least Unit 1 was full of craziness, the only aspect I like about women's suffrage is the part when they became all radical Good luck with maths

No one thought it was a great paper, esp the Nazi section, hopefully grade boundaries are lower

Yeah Is it me or do you think there is far more essential technique in unit 2 and unit 1. And I agree, most of women's suffrage is very boring, just need to get myself to re-revise everything in 1 week haha, being kinda neglecting it.