The History Study Thread (Advice and discussion here!)

OP

Revision Tips

thehistoryboreExams are coming up, and I don't know about you but that gives me heart palpitations; but if you're not bricking it, you're not prepared enough! I've seen a handful of exam seasons in my time and I've tried and tested a few methods of revising for History exams. So let me share what's worked for me.

METHOD A; REVISIONCEPTION

Think of the film Inception; it's a dream within a dream within a dream etc. Think of this method as notes within notes within notes etc. Here's how you do it;

- Use textbooks to compile a complete revision guide. You shouldn't simply copy out texts; engage your brain and treat it as a comprehension task and make clear notes, you'll get more out of it that way! Divide the book into chapters based on the topic that they focus on. The notes should be fairly detailed.
- Then, write a more condensed version of these notes based along the same technique; effectively, cut out words to leave the bare information.
- Repeat until you have two or three pages worth of notes for your whole course/module. You can read them the morning of the exam and it should all come flowing back to you. It did for me!

METHOD B; THE READER

You definitely have to be a 'visual learner' for this, so it may not work for all of you. Nevertheless, you should all aim to read at least one book outside your textbook, particularly for A-Level. It'll help develop your understanding of topics enormously.

Effectively; find a book that covers most of your course (there's literally millions of history books out there covering all sorts of things, so there's no excuses saying that there's no book for your course). Then close read it - no skimming. Simple and effective.

If you're doing a degree, you obviously need to read more than one book!

METHOD C; MIND MAPPING

Not something I do extensively, but it helps an awful lot of people and thus is more than worthy of mention.

Make beautiful and colourful mind maps (the more simple they are the better; don't make a wall of text. Each end of a brand should have no more than five or six words on them) on each topic and pin them up directly above your bed; make them the first thing you see in the morning, and the last thing you see in the evening. Revision owns you now. Don't forget it.

METHOD D; INTERACTIVE REVISION

Ever heard of Prezi? No? Well you should do. It's like a more exciting version of PowerPoint, and the more exciting something is the better you will remember it.

Make yourself presentations on topics and then flick through them! It's a quick and simple way to make them.

A friend of mine was a bit of a wizard when it came to video production; he used to make these excellent revision videos (which he gave to my school, rather than making them open source on YouTube, so unfortunately I cannot share them). So if that's your thing, get creative!

undercxver
Condensing Content/Speeding up revision:

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Summarise the content of each module on one sheet of paper and memorise this

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Condense events into 3 bullet points (linking with the point above)

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Make a list of significant events and their dates and highlight each one you manage to remember

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Do every single past paper question

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Plan your essays with bullet points within a minute

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Time yourself when doing essays

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Practice writing really fast

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If you're struggling with content then go through a revision book.

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If teachers tell you some sort of prediction I suggest you don't go by it and revise everything!

Source Questions:

You need to consider the following things:

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Purpose: What's the purpose of the source? (e.g. to inform, to describe etc.)

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Author: Who's the author of the source? Does this make them biased in any way?

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Nature: What type of source is it? (e.g. book, report, article etc.)

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Date: When was it published? Does the date have any significance? Is it outdated?

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Audience: Who was the audience? How did it impact them? [this one isn't neccessary]

General questions to ask yourself:

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How useful is the source?

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Did the author/writer omit anything?

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Is there any bias? -Why is there bias? How is it neutral?

Reply 2

OP

Oooh also, if you're interested in giving a helping hand in this forum maybe trying helping some people out who have unanswered threads. [url="https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?sortby=date+desc&filter[type]=thread&filter[replyCount]=0&filter[date]=[NOW-168HOUR%20TO%20*]&filter[forumid]=141"]Click here to give it a go and be a helpful human. :ahee:

Reply 3

CinnamonSmol

20

ooooh I love that Washington quote, its my second favourite quote after William Shakespeare saying 'those who stay up on twitter instead of revising is guaranteed to have a 10/10 dope life' :biggrin:

--definitely following this thread!!

Study Level: A-Level
Subjects studying: Stuart Britain, 1603-1702 + Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918 - 1945
Favourite period of history: I quite like the Ancient worlds, Greek, Rome + Egypt, as well as the Medieval times as its just so interesting to see contrasts to modern day times, yet also the discovery of such fundamental things that are still present in our society today :smile:

What do you like about history? I love learning about the past and just general knowledge tbh, its fascinating yet kind of depressing how history repeats itself in different forms, as well as learning a lot about civilisation based on different conditions
How are your studies going so far? hmm, its a hard one. year 12 I had 7 teachers so I did have a rocky start, I just recieved a C overall in my mocks though, so I do think that progress is being made slowly but surely....lets just hope I master the technique of essay writing before the exams so I can get that B (or even A!) --I love the content, the actual essay writing though....hmmm idk

Reply 4

username2851718

Study Level:
AQA A-Level
Subjects studying:
1C Tudors and 2K-International Relations (Causes of WW1 and WW2)
Hi! If anybody wants to plan essays together if we're doing either 1 or both the same topics and/or exchange notes, feel free to drop a pm and do so because I'm down for that! x

Reply 5

4Morg2Revise

1

Study Level: AS
Exam Board: WJEC (anyone else?!)
Subjects Studying: Politics, People & Progress 1880-1980 , France In Revolution 1774-1815
Currently: Mainly getting B/A grades - need to do more work on analysing source questions

Reply 6

massive32

8

Anyone studying the New Edexcel A level in History (Democracies and Change)? If anyone wants to share resources and revision tips that would be brilliant!

Reply 7

ele9924

3

Study level: A level
Exam Board: AQA
Subjects studying: 1C The Tudors and 2L Italy and Fascism
Coursework is The Holocaust.

Struggling with structure for exam questions, getting about 14/15 on both essays and source questions

Reply 8

Charlotte LG

11

Hello, I am Charlotte,
I’m doing AQA A-Level history and doing The Tudors, The American Dream and anti-semitism in Nazi Germany as my coursework. I’m enjoying history so far but I am struggling to get my head round some of the key words in The Tudors

Reply 9

melusi1

3

I really need good resources within fascist Italy

Reply 10

greenapples2

20

Study level: GCSE (wjec)
Areas studied: USA 1920s, Medicine through time. War, Depression and Recovery, Coursework is 19th century London + Jack the Ripper
Favourite era: end of ww2 which led to the cold war and other conflicts. Also learning about ancient civilisations
Why I love history: not really sure, it's just such an enjoyable subject and I love my teacher. Definetly like to look at everything with benefit of hindsight
How my studies are going: Quite well, although I'm overwhelmed with the amount of content. Coursework went well with full marks on first piece

Reply 11

OP

Original post by melusi1

I really need good resources within fascist Italy

Have you tried the library? :smile:

Reply 12

melusi1

3

I have thanks for the help I guess

Reply 13

K.I.M

21

Im studying Ed excel history for alevel we are focusing on communism in rUSSIA AND THEN CHINA

Reply 14

OP

Original post by KimNoel

Im studying Ed excel history for alevel we are focusing on communism in rUSSIA AND THEN CHINA

Ah cool. Despite it being a really popular topic for lots of schools mine never did it, so I'm doing communist Russia now for the first time, and I'm a second year undergraduate. :rofl:

Original post by KimNoel

Im studying Ed excel history for alevel we are focusing on communism in rUSSIA AND THEN CHINA

Eeeeeee. My area of expertise ( if you can call it that ) happy to be tagged in whenever you have a question about either of these topics! :smile:

Reply 16

dreaming_spires

Hi!
Level of study: AS
Exam Board: AQA...? (probably I'm like 99.8% sure)
Topics: Wars of the Roses and Tsarist/Communist Russia

I honestly love history so much, I have had such good teachers all the way through secondary school and have had my WotR teacher every year since year 8 so really comfortable with her. Just had mocks (this week) so very nervous about how they've gone.
Definitely need to work more on sources as they were my sticking point at GCSE.

Reply 17

Leia studies

16

Hi
Long story short I haven't done ANY revision for my History A level - well not much compared to my other 2 subjects.

I haven't done any notes or exam Q's etc.

Is there ANY point in me making notes when the exam is in May 2019 (4 months!)

What are the best ways to revise for History at A level?
Is it worth it to make notes!?
I was thinking of going through the textbook & revision guide quickly and simply making the summarised notes (all of them) asap and then focusing on nailing down the actual content / knowledge??

What would you do if you were in my situation?

If not notes then what should I do?
- watch videos?
- make mind maps?
- answer exam Q's?

Topics:
- Britain politics
- America & conformity
- British Warfare
- coursework (doing now)

What should I do??????

Thank you

Reply 18

brownanya122

Level of study- A-Level (AQA)
Topics: Stuart Britain 1603-1702 and France in Revolution 1774-1815
Coursework: Bourbon monarchy 1610-1715 :confused:

Fave part of the course is the French Revolution :smile:

Reply 19

brownanya122