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AS History Exams/Essays

If I reference famous politicians/people and something they said in my essay, would it get me extra marks? For example if I had gotten a textbook and done extra reading around the subject, and a politician had made a comment about the ruling of the Tsar Alexander II or something.

Just curious as to whether it is worth doing or if it is pointless? :colondollar:

Reply 1

subjunctivehistorian

Original post by Pirate123

Definitely a great idea! It just shows the examiner that you really know your stuff. At A2 (what I'm doing now) you're expected to show debate and historians views, but it's not essential at AS. However, it shows you're passionate and have done extra research! I did it in my AS. Look up historians' views, and try to start a debate. E.g. X Historian asserts that..... on the other hand, Y historian insists that.....

Good luck! What topics are you doing in history? Are you going to study it at university? :smile:

Reply 2

Pirate123

Original post by subjunctivehistorian

We are doing Tsarist Russia 1855-1917, and The Impact of Stalin's leadership in the USSR 1924-1941, which is good because I absolutely love Russia, more than any of the other stuff we did :biggrin:

What topics did you do at AS? And what are you doing at A2?

I love history but no I wont be studying it at university I think. As much as I love it, I'm more of a science person at heart :colondollar:

You seem to like it though, I'm guessing you're going to do it at university?

Reply 3

subjunctivehistorian

Original post by Pirate123

We are doing Tsarist Russia 1855-1917, and The Impact of Stalin's leadership in the USSR 1924-1941, which is good because I absolutely love Russia, more than any of the other stuff we did :biggrin:

You seem to like it though, I'm guessing you're going to do it at university?

I did Tsarist Russia too! It's such a great topic, I absolutely loved it, especially the part about Rasputin, which luckily we got a question on :smile:

We also did Britain in the 60s which was ok but not quite as fun...
And yeah, I am indeed applying to do History! :biggrin:

Oh and for A2 we are doing Britain 1959 - 2007 for the exam, very economics based
and for CW we are doing American Civil rights which I <3 <3 as I did slavery for my epq so it leads on really nicely :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

Pirate123

Original post by subjunctivehistorian

I did Tsarist Russia too! It's such a great topic, I absolutely loved it, especially the part about Rasputin, which luckily we got a question on :smile:

We also did Britain in the 60s which was ok but not quite as fun...
And yeah, I am indeed applying to do History! :biggrin:

I think we are doing something on Britain for A2, and something about Ireland, it was a while ago so I don't really remember lol. But I would love to do American Civil rights because it interests me but I have never really done much about it! :biggrin:

If you dont mind me asking, what grade did you get at AS?

And also my teacher has given me a long list of books he recommends for further reading on Tsarist Russia, and I was wondering if there was one you would recommend? I don't fancy getting all the books he's written down, or buying one to then find out it's not relevant or really boring :biggrin:

Reply 5

subjunctivehistorian

Original post by Pirate123

I got an A in AS and 99% on the Russia part... much lower on Britain :L
I would definitely recommend 'Nicholas and Alexandra' by Robert Massie. The film is also excellent, the book's pretty long but I found it really nice to read, it gives a lovely overview and lots about Rasputin.

Also, I would suggest 'Alexei and Rasputin' and 'The diary of Olga Romanov' both of which give information about the context of the family (as you can tell I am obsessed with rasputin)

But of course, when reading around a topic, the most important thing is to know what you've learned from them, rather than just racing through a huge list of books. Get a few 'gobbets' of opinions from historians which you could apply to any essay. :biggrin:

Reply 6

Pirate123