History (Edexcel) or English Lit (OCR) A2?

Take what you love. If you hate it, drop it. English literature is still a very respected subject!

May I ask what books you're studying?

Well at the moment I'm really unsure,,,especially as my history exam yesterday went awful

Next year I think we're doing Anthony and Cleopatra but I'm not sure what book we're doing...I looked at the OCR syllabus and they look kinda boring

Which History unit would you be doing?

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From Kaiser to Fuhrer and for the coursework we're doing USA or something

I'm currently doing that unit and it's amazing! Honestly, it's so interesting it's not too source based either, the exam consists of a normal 30 mark essay and a 40 mark source essay I'd definitely recommend it

Oh that makes me feel a bit better I thought it was all sources! Well not to sound rude or anything but do you possibly have any notes that I could look at just to have a feel of what I'm getting myself into? :P Our teacher is absolutely rubbish at teaching us source stuff...

Thankfully not, I definitely prefer pure essays that's not rude at all, but I'd mostly suggest you check out this thread http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1633199 (the first page) because that'll probably give you a better overview than my notes! If not, I'll happily show you a few ah what a shame! I'm sure you'd be great though

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Me too! I liked the unification of Italy and Germany one we just did Ah that's great, thank you! I'm glad I found someone with experience because nobody seems to do my course (at least not this year!)

I'm glad! you're very welcome haha aww the coursework isn't too bad either, I've actually found A2 easier than AS because there's coursework to help bump up your grade

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Yes! that's exactly what I was thinking haha what did you do for coursework? I know that you need to do a lot of wider reading but what's it about? eg. sources/arguments stuff like that?

Hehe I did Civil Rights, one question was "Assess the role of individuals in reducing discrimination between 1865 to 1980", and the source side was "Assess the short term significance of Rosa Parks" The first is basically just like a 30 mark essay, I had to focus on individuals but then mention other factors that reduced discrimination such as the work of governments, certain events (such as WWI and WWII) and groups such as the NAACP. The second, you have to pick your own sources, I think it was a minimum of six, and then integrate them into your argument! If you ever want to take a look if you need to make a final decision on what to drop, I don't mind sending them

Hehe I did Civil Rights, one question was "Assess the role of individuals in reducing discrimination between 1865 to 1980", and the source side was "Assess the short term significance of Rosa Parks" The first is basically just like a 30 mark essay, I had to focus on individuals but then mention other factors that reduced discrimination such as the work of governments, certain events (such as WWI and WWII) and groups such as the NAACP. The second, you have to pick your own sources, I think it was a minimum of six, and then integrate them into your argument! If you ever want to take a look if you need to make a final decision on what to drop, I don't mind sending them

That sounds interesting! Yeah for the sources one I'd appreciate some advice or just anything important that I need to know perhaps? Like where would you say I get the sources from and do you have to agree/disagree with them like in English Lit?

Just had a little panic about sources as I've just remembered it's the sources that caused me so much trouble this year! (since our teacher never really taught us how to analyse them properly...) I may redo this unit if it's really bad, but I was wondering if i could just ask you stuff next year if I'm having problems? After all, you seem like a fairly reliable source (pun maybe intended)

It was that's absolutely fine! I'll admit I had to dig quite deep for some decent sources, I just searched Google for things like "letter about Rosa Parks" etc. Ended up with things like an interview with her, a speech by Martin Luther King from a meeting, newspaper extracts and so on. You really do have to just search around! You more have to discuss their reliability and utility, so obviously by looking at who wrote it, their motives

If you look at the link to the thread I showed you, there's an example of one of my A2 exam source answers (handwritten though!) and there are plenty earlier on in the thread, you could look at them to see how you go about it because it's pretty much identical to the 40 mark AS section B the best way to do it is to make a point, take a quote from the source that supports that point, and show evidence from your own knowledge from events or whatever no harm in redoing if you need to, and I'd be happy to help! I'll be doing half a history degree at the time too, so hopefully I'll be more helpful/knowledgeable hahaha aww

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