AS History Edexcel May 2013 thread

Is anyone else sitting this, Unit 1 on the 14th and Unit 2 on the 22nd?

im doing for unit 1- option D Russia in revolution and Stalin's Russia e.g Russia 1881-1953

and for unit 2 option E - Britain in the 20th Century Consensus an Conflict e.g Britain 1945-1990

Hey guys!

Lol I did the Russian paper, got a C at first but after resitting I got an A (56/60)
First time round I only like made notes from the text book, didn't really do past questions except for some we did in class. Second time round I re-learned everything in detail and then planned past paper questions then did loads and got a few marked. I would say the key things would be to have specific knowledge and examples - also be extremely familiar with the exam questions (many themes are reoccurring throughout the papers) and essay structure is really important. The paper usually has like 2 broad questions and 2 specific questions (If I remember correctly)
If anyone wants more specific help on this paper, feel free to ask

I completely agree. Understanding the topics clearly and what the key factors/ information is KEY to getting an A. For Stalin's Russia/ Mao's China, I split the course into five topics on each side. Rather than re-writing the textbook, I force myself to only make a page of notes on each. As long as you understand the course, keeping it organised by topic (so you know what the examiner is looking for) and make revision notes based on examples rather than everything about the course you should do fine!

Word of advice as well, from my perspective, to those sitting Unit 1:

To get 100 UMS I pretty much did every past paper there was!! After a few years worth of material you'll realise that the same topics come up all the time, just asked differently! When answering the question make sure you PRIORITISE points and answer the question at the start. Don't just lazily make points as you go along; I've always found that answering the question in the first line of the introduction is the best way, as every paragraph thereafter is tailored exactly to answering the question!

Nice to see we were thinking along the same lines! Even though we did make different conclusions... I didn't write much about French influence, I had a major panic because I thought I shouldn't be writing about it too much for an events question... it just all went too quickly. Fastest 80 minutes I've experienced in a while

Same! I actually normally like Church questions :L
Honestly I can't quite remember! But I think I made a point that it was significant due to the events (Kingdom of Italy) it led to, that it was only significant in combination with the peace treaty (and alliances although they were prior to the given dates) and a point about how it was only significant in the expansion of Piedmont but other events (Garibaldi & the Thousand in Naples and Sicily) were required to unify Italy as a whole and not just the North. I the concluded it was a significant, pivotal, event but only in combination with other factors. I barely mentioned the events of 1866 and 1870 so I feel like my argument may not have effectively covered the dates given :/
What points did you make?

I did the industry question, I enjoyed this question because I used lots of figures and statistics.


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The exam is finished :P

Haha, I just noticed! How did it go?!

I was hoping for a question on exactly those two topics. I went with Cultural Revolution because I thought it would be more enjoyable to write about. Sucks when I thought I had 20 minutes left, when in actual fact it was 5. Totally getting that A

Hey, is anyone sitting the Edexcel AS Unit 2 Option D1 Britain and Ireland, 1867- 1922?
It's on the 22nd May, and I have no idea, on what is most likely to come up, nor what to focus my revision on:/
If anyone else is sitting this, do you have any predictions at all?

seems edexcel chose to be nice on this series? hope they dont choose to raise the grade boundaries too high...this could happen on the most popular questions of each topic

Did about MLK And BP, didn't know that much about BP but I messed up big style, still hoping that my Russia will push my grade up
Wrote about 5 paragraphs
1st) A brief intro about what i was going to put
2nd) How Malcom X methods where extreme and abit of background knowledge (why he was extreme,brought up in a rough society)
3rd) Wrote about MLK's speeches which lead to a lot of media attention and how MLK Was non-extreme so therfore he took the moral high ground which proved vital as whites where made out to be savages
4th)Said how their aims where quite similar how they wanted equality and segregation (how i messed up)
5th) Conclusion to where i Cross referenced methods and which one i thought helped more for blacks and why

Then did about russia and PG
Wrote 6 paragraphs here
1)A brief intro on what i was going to put
2) Social and economic problems, how 85% of the population where starving and how inflation rose by over 200%
3) Ruso-Japanese war and how it was humiliating and 100'000's people where taken prisoner which lead to wide spread anger
4) Talked about the rationing of bread been the final straw and how this meant opponants to the PG could take advantage of it as the Bolsheviks (mainly Lenin)and went on and talked about his speech where he promised bread and land
5) 1917 Revolution and boycotts in the army
6)Conclusion saying which i thought was the most important reason and i really liked my final sentence "Russia was like a bottle of pop been shaken up for many years and the 1917 revolution caused the cap to explode and anger spread out"

Off course i went much further into depth and wrote about 3 pages on each essay.

Good call! I tried to focus on French involvement through events (Austro Prussian war and France's secret negotiations with the two sides, France preventing Garibaldi from taking Rome in the Battle of Mentana and France only leaving Rome when Italy declared its capital as Turin). Hopefully it came out alright. Pretty annoyed that there were no questions on events prior to Austria's defeat, I knew that stuff so much better! Do you know the sort of raw marks required to get an A (out of 60)?

I talked about how it was significant because pre-1859 Austria had consistently defeated revolutionaries and nationalists and that it was the first time they had been defeated. But then I said Austria still had influence (Villafranca - Venetia) therefore it wasn't really the most significant. I talked about North and south unification (Garibaldi) and claimed that this was the most significant because before this it didn't seem very likely (Cavour didn't want to unify north and south). In order to get balance I then countered this by saying Garibaldi participated in the war vs Austria so it was likely to have given him a morale boost and may have influenced his decision to take Naples and Sicily. The other major event I talked about was when Italy finally took Rome in 1870 and said it was significant as it was the final geographic stage of unification (if you don't count Nice and Savoy). Rome was Italy's former glory during the time of the Roman Empire so it was significant. But again I countered this by saying regardless, if Austria hadn't been weakened in 1859 they may have suppressed the efforts of Italy to take Rome. My overall conclusion stated that yes, the Austrian defeat was significant but ultimately the most significant event was Garibaldi's liberation of the south.

You know how you talked about the Russo-jap war, didn't that take place in 1904 so that affected the tsars downfall and not the provisional gov since they took power in 1917


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