AS History Edexcel May 2013 thread

Oh nope that not they one im talking about, im talking about the Stalin Russia

It was ok, I did Civil Rights first. My knowledge of Vietnam wasn't as good as Civil Rights so I had to stop and think about what to write for Vietnam. I thought it was a bit strange that they didn't give us a time period to focus on but nevertheless it wasn't too bad. How many pages did you manage for each question?

that was a problem for me too, i had to keep looking at the clock and i had to cram in loads for civil rights. My knowledge was the opposite of yours i guess, i included examples but i maybe couldve used more u.u

i managed almost 3 for vietnam, and a bit less than 2 and a 1/2 for civil rights. u?

Was the black power question more popular in your school? it was in mine, and our teacher said the unpopular question is usually marked more lenient than the popular one so that there can be a spread of grades :L

that was a problem for me too, i had to keep looking at the clock and i had to cram in loads for civil rights. My knowledge was the opposite of yours i guess, i included examples but i maybe couldve used more u.u

i managed almost 3 for vietnam, and a bit less than 2 and a 1/2 for civil rights. u?

Was the black power question more popular in your school? it was in mine, and our teacher said the unpopular question is usually marked more lenient than the popular one so that there can be a spread of grades :L

The Italian unification questions were tricky! I did the one on the defeat of Austria. Basically concluded that it wasn't of massive importance because France seemed to replace Austria as the influential power and barrier to full unification (Nice & Savoy, Rome, Italy getting Venetia - all aspects that France had control over) and that it took Garibaldi to create an Italy that would bear the most resemblance to what we think an 'Italy' is (i.e. control of most of the peninsula, north and south).

Was that the one with Malcolm X and MLK? I looked at that one and I was like hell no. I had nothing on Malcolm X apart from he inspired African American nationalism and pride and left nation of islam, the question at our school which was generally popular was the 1945-1968 question as it was a straight forward factors question.

No actually everyone in my school did federal government, I wrote about 5 for civil rights and 4 and a halfish for Vietnam. I was worrying I didn't write enough when my friend said she wrote 8 pages for one (must have been an exaggeration to be honest) but nevertheless, how about for you guys which was more popular?

8 pages for a 30 mark essay o.o, its probably not impossible if they can write that quick, but you can gain the same amount of marks with a 3-5 page essay imo if you include relevant points and examples + link back to the question.

black power was more popular for some reason, alot just couldnt think off the top of their head for the FG and SC one

what do u think the grade boundaries will be like? 43-A and 39-B last time, hoping for something similar or less lol

I think the federal government one would be more popular, naturally because I think its come up twice before so quite a few people must have done it as a practice. Although this year they extended the date I don't think they've ever asked up till 1968 before

Yeah the longer date is good at testing the candidates picking out parts from each era, I suspect some people will fall into the trap of talking about 1960-1965 an awful lot and not mention beyond then or before then. I liked it though, I had so much relevant knowledge

Yeah, same its a shame though that we didn't have time to mention every single thing we knew about federal government from 1945-68 although it would have taken a good few hours to include everythinggg

True I hope you didn't talk just about FG and SC though :P? that would be bad as it was ''what were the reasons responsible'' questions . I managed to include 1964 CR act and 1965 voting rights act along with 9981 executive order, BROWN II and Boyton Vs Virginia so got quite a lot in there!

How did you structure yours, in terms of what did you perceive to be federal government?

Had this pre-saved from earlier

did a paragraph FG and SC, I talked about there being 4 key civil rights advancements to improve status being proposed then a talked about two of these being voting rights act 1965 and 1964 civil rights act, I also did some work on Supreme court judgement of Boyton Vs Virginia and BROWN II and said BROWN II was limited as well as Johnson's distraction of the Vietnam war that undermined their importance in advancing status.

Then I did a paragraph saying federal officials pressured due to rising support from media reports of the civil rights movement, talked about bham, washington, little rock and then at the end undercut it by saying that the media would not have stories to report on if it weren't for the civil rights movement itself.

Then my main argument on the civil rights movement, stuff they did, what it resulted in, advancements in status, then concluded that it was the main reason responsible for the improvements in status. It said changes but I identified that the changes were mainly improvements

I took the federal government to be the official big acts and Presidents (such as Johnson)

I see, I perceived federal government as Presidents, Supreme Court and Congress, but since supreme court was written, just presidents and congress. Though there wasn't much to say on congress

Yeah that's pretty much what I thought as well but in the exam I put them all into 1 paragraph as a standard argument, I nearly managed to mention all Presidents but forgot Eisenhower!

I did the Black Power/ MLK question. I thought about doing FG/SC but I decided that the date boundary was just too large- like the whole course large!
Most people I talked to did the FG/SC question. However comparing Black Power and MLK is remarkably easy and with only 2 sides to the argument, it's very manageable- particularly when you only have 30-40 minutes.

I don't think either question was especially hard though, it was a relatively nice exam.

That's actually really interesting, I did the FG my teacher actually predicted that Black Power would come up, but none of us did it. For me, I didn't feel as though I could have written enough for the MLK Black Power one, but I think I'm comparing my knowledge of federal government, which was far greater. Out of interest how much did you write for it?