AS LEVEL HISTORY TSARIST RUSSIA EXAM IN 2 DAYS - what might come up on the exams??

Bump?

No one wishing to discuss their answers? D;

For the last question I didn't really have much to say about the Petrograd discontent itself, although I did include two paragraphs about how it was borne out of the strains of the war and the fact that Nicholas II was then considered liable for the war after he became commander in chief. I then went on to argue that more underlying issues included the people's poignant memories of the 1905 Revolution and how the Tsar had not lived up to his promise for genuine reform, as well as the fact that it was not just the discontent of the working people but rather the discontent of everybody ' namely the Liberals, who were frustrated about a lack of constitutional reform, which paved the way for the collapse of Tsardom

I believe that my teachers would have considered that slightly off-topic, but then, they always discourage me from giving in to my love of debating and mentioning of a huge array of facts and explaining them because, they say, it will annoy the examiners and not garner me any points. I'm of a different opinion but I tried sticking to their advice.

You mostly talked about WHY the people were generally discontent though, rather than to what extent it was the discontent of the townspeople in Petrograd that caused the 1917 revolution.. :/ I don't know.. it's just that I had it drilled in my head to never go off topic and keep my essay as utterly connected to the very words of the question as possible.

And so, I wrote:

1) It was very important because the strikes paralyzed Petrograd, a very important industrial hub of Russia's, causing peasants to be unable to sell their grain to Petrograd worsening their economic conditions further (they were already in a sorry state), while they couldn't buy goods from the city. Other industrial hubs would also have to go without Petrograd industrial goods. This spread discontent all throughout the nation, offering the revolutionaries more support.
2) Petrograd was the home of the Petrograd Soviet, a 'main base' of the revolutionaries, so if they would not have had the support of the local masses bred by their discontent, they would not have launched the revolution in 1917.

Argued against with:

1) The discontent population in Petrograd made up a tiny proportion of the nation's population; it didn't even make up a serious proportion of all townspeople in the nation.
2) Most revolutionaries had their main supporter base being the peasants, especially the social revolutionaries and the Social democrats after Lenin's thesis aimed to appeal to peasants. And so, the discontent pop of Petrograd wasn't even a majority of the supporters of the revolutionaries, not only a minority of the nation's population as a whole. And thus, it could be argued that they played a tiny role.

Meh.

What do you think of my answer? Was it on-topic enough?

And I think that only 2 ideas in favour and 2 against would not be enough D; Right? Even though I wrote about 2 pages or so in total, providing some random relevant information too

Yeah I mentioned why but I did manage to conclude at the end of those points by saying that this ultimately paved the way for the Tsar to lack the forces to save his regime by February...better? That was however, the most difficult of the questions I attempted and besides, I did at least link all of these factors back to the question when required.

And yes that sounds good enough so I wouldn't worry.

Ah, yes, much better ^^

And thank you for your opinion! You've put me slightly more at ease =P

I'm just a crammerer and I can only ever study one day before the exam... and so the stress added up because I have one exam a day. So, well, you tend to kinda lose your mind after 28 hours of studying in 3 days, haha.

No that's fine, I kind of need to get a bit of anxiety off my chest too. The exam did go much better than I thought though - I picked questions 1 and 3 and I managed to nearly fill the booklet, which I did not expect - especially since my handwriting isn't actually large. I guess I put myself in that "think and write" mindset.

It was difficult for me to choose between 2 and 3 at first but I went with 3 since 2 seemed a bit dry. The first three questions went very well I thought, the last one perhaps less so but there's no way of telling really. I am just glad that I offered a substantial conclusion and did argue,like you said, that it was not the main factor rather than just explaining why the riots occurred - I did however believe that there were many other things to explore so there would have been an opportunity cost for me not to talk in greater depth about other factors, especially since I did address the focus of the question a the beginning.

PS: Just seen your edit. My opinion is that our teachers are much more pedantic when it comes to marking because they want us to get it right - the examiners perhaps gloss over anything you've missed - remember thatt hey mark you on what you have done, not what you haven't included and besides, I think A Level marking is even more positive than GCSE - just take a look at the exemplar answers for instance.

Haha, thanks a lot for the confidence boost!

And I saw that OC (Opportunity Cost) being stated there =P Did you choose Economics as a subject as well? Or do you just have that sort of general knowledge? Speaking of which, are we even supposed to study for general studies?

No problem again.

Yes I do indeed study Economics but that concept, I really do think, can be applied to anything - revising for example. I even think it could be taught as part of general knowledge from Year 7 since the concept is not wholly confined to Economic situations, but life in general really. Ah so do you do General Studies?

That I do D;

Got in trouble by skipping a general studies lesson to go home to nap too... slept for 2 hours the night before due to anxiety, lol. And I'm never as anxious about exams... and we never do anything in general studies so I don't know what to revise.

I believe that economics (and finance), politics and philosophy and ethics should be mandatory (along with regular quizzes and exams every year) all the way up to year 11 at least. Including how today's democracy is an illusion and how the financial markets are robbing everyone of their livelihoods . Today's kids are far too ignorant and disinterested in... everything intellectual. But then, I just moved here from Romania this year, so I might just be speaking out of my ass. Gypsies aren't Romanian btw.

And it would seem like my teacher found what I wrote decent enough, but I messed up Lenin's thesis thing. Kind of begged her to tell me that I could be awarded 18 marks for the answer and she dodged the question. There goes another bit of my chance of getting into a decent uni...

Oh I see - well yeah, it does seem a little pointless but at the end of the day you get another AS Level out of it so....!

So you basically endorse everyone to study the PPE degree for their secondary education, albeit not to the same degree as our robotic political class did at Oxford! Hmm I don't disagree with you in many ways - perhaps to introduce it as part of enrichment or something but maybe not exam wise - I think such subjects should be explored in a way in which people won't have to worry about regurgitating all the information to produce a perfect exam answer.

Yeah fair enough - you're on about a practice exam question right and not today's exam? Just checking!

Nope.. today's exam D; Question 06

And, well, I suppose that it should be some sort of enrichment. However, I doubt any reasonable amount of people would take it seriously then. The exams should be more focused on debating and proving an ability to empathize with very different opinions/theories (through the use of logic, of course).

But then, I'm also the product of a sort of educational system that made brilliant achievers of pupils, but if left alone to study by themselves to fail their exams. So I'm more inclined to be in favour of a stricter schooling system that is quite paternal, despite the disadvantages that would result from that =p

My old school would make good achievers of even the weakest pupils, but I'm proof of how some such alumni might just fail their exams if they change schools to a crappy half-assed foreign school that couldn't care less about its pupils.

Just wondering why Lenin's These was needed - wasn't that launched in April 1917? Sorry, just checking again xD There probably is a perfectly valid reason.

Yeah that sounds ok - education here is quite lax but it still suits those who do want to try and the good thing is that they can get rather fr in a system that rewards achievement based on merit, which is perhaps not such the case in a country with a ore competitive system. That's just my take on it

Edit: Just realised that you mentioned the latter revolution of 1917 - it was the February/March Revolution which brought about the collapse of tsardom that was asked?