Example A Level History Essays?

Yeah, sorry. :P It's just because it's AS Level there is no A* grade.

Okay. [I told you I was slow]. Well done on that!

No problem, I didn't exactly make it clear.
And yeah I have no idea how I managed it... I thought I rushed it!
By some freak of nature I got 196/200 on the History AS, so if you want any help, feel free to send me a PM.
I'm applying for English at uni, but I was so close to choosing History!

Wow, well done. Again. Thanks! I'm going to have to work so hard this year, but thankfully I really like history.

Wow, well done. Again. Thanks! I'm going to have to work so hard this year, but thankfully I really like history.

It's not too bad. Just keep on top of everything and recap what you've done in the week each weekend, and what you did in the term every halfterm. I find typing out sort of revision guides helps, but that's just me.
As for essay skills, try and find your own technique, but keep answering the question, referring back with mini conclusions, particularly in an exam.
And when it comes to the actual revision time, work hard, and really know your stuff!.

Whats your russia cwk on ? I might have my old one that got 88/90 if your interested

Here is one I did my A2 year on Stalin so its the sort of thing you would be expected to write if you happen to do a module on this. Do you know which topics you will be doing yet and we can see if any of ours match up.

To what extent was Stalin's personal paranoia the main reason for the purges?

There is no single explanation for the Purges. Historians fail to agree on the extent to which Stalin was personally responsible and whether, if Stalin did have a large personal role in the Purges, the extent to which this was down to paranoia. Some Historians, look to the psyche of Stalin and point to his suspicious and distrustful nature as to the cause, others say they were a rational economic decision made by Stalin. These views focus of Stalin as the cause and form the intentionalist argument, led by historians such as Robert Conquest. Their argument is that Stalin was a totalitarian dictator who was the main planner and architect behind the purges. The structuralist school on the other hand believe that the situation was a consequence of Bolshevik theory. This school includes historians such as J. Arch. Getty and argues that Stalin’s personality is not sufficient to explain the scale and form of the purges. One key piece of evidence in favour of this is the Pravda article “dizzy with success” which suggests that the purges spiralled out of Stalin’s control.

The Purges thrust the whole of Russia into a state of fear of what would happen to them. It affected all sectors of society and even a seemingly insignificant act could result in arrest. For example one woman was arrested for saying that Tukhachevsky, a high ranking military officer, was handsome after he was arrested.
One key reason other than Stalin’s personal paranoia for the Purges was to cleanse the party of careerists, yet dissidents and doubters were also at risk. The purges have their origins in the situation in the communist party immediately after collectivisation. Many party members and leaders were critical of the violence and mass murders of the peasants during the collectivisation, and of Stalin’s leadership and brutal methods. Some believed that Sergei Kirov, party boss of Leningrad, would make a better leader. There was a whispering campaign against Stalin and thus not all of Stalin’s feeling that the party was moving against him was down to paranoia. Stalin’s leadership was only attained through his own political manoeuvres and this is why he had to revert to such methods, to get rid of any alternatives. In this sense, the purges can be seen as a logical political manoeuvre to strengthen Stalin’s position within the party, however it is possible that Stalin’s feelings that he needed to strengthen his position was brought on by paranoia. Stalin exaggerated isolated threats, turning them into a continual attack by others on himself and Bolshevism.
The Purges can also be seen as logical in another sense, not that they follow on from the logic of Bolshevism, but that Stalin picked particular people for death as scapegoats for his own economic failures. It is possible that the Purges and economic failures linked. In the last show trial, the accused were blamed of sabotage and causing all the errors and malpractices of the Soviet economy. The sabotage included attempts to use the wrong types of crop rotation, provide bad seed and throw glass into butter. Although logical to find people to blame for the purges, a flaw in this supposedly logical argument is that there would be no need for so many scapegoats and they would simply be needed as an example, not to be killed or subjected to such excruciating tortures as they were. Talented economists, politicians, members of the military, young fit men etc were all used as scapegoats in the purges at a time when the country was meant to be in a revolution and preparing for war.
There were many reasons that one was risking arrest and execution; being involved in economics was simply one of them, along with being in contact with anyone foreign, posing any possible threats to Stalin’s power and to know too much about Lenin and his testament that denounced Stalin. If Stalin did possess an economic motive in relation to who was killed in the Purges then it was not his main reason, he did not begin the Purges because of his economic failings, at least not directly. His initial reason was surely the threat he felt from possible alternatives to his leadership, as the assassination of Kirov shows. He may have felt this threat because of his economic failures however and this indirectly caused the Purges. It seems more likely that once the Purges began; controlling them was like directing a bull to the china shop’s exit: it may get there in the end, but at its own pace and direction, wreaking havoc in the meantime.
Stalin can be alleviated of the weight of some of his crimes to an extent, because he did not have absolute power over the entire Purges. Although Stalin had set the wheels in motion he would never have assumed that the country would be so thoroughly purged. The nature of Leninism and Bolshevism did not logically lead to the Purges, but to the situation in which the Purges could happen, if radical, paranoid attitudes entered the party. The Purges most likely grew out calls from the radicals in the party for more extreme measures of implementing Socialism, Yezhovschina thus most likely was a further natural progression from such policies. The Yezhovschina was the time in which Yezhov was head of the secret police, the N.K.V.D. It is believed by some that Stalin knew nothing of what was going on at the time and that party members like Yezhov should take more of the responsibility, it is certainly true that when Yezhov himself was purged and Beria took over his role, the terror eased somewhat. Stalin clearly did not choose everyone who was arrested, denouncing was often done to settle a score and people had to denounce for fear of being denounced themselves. J. Arch Getty believes that Yezhov was pursuing his own agenda and resistance came in the form of more accusations. The N.K.V.D. then had to act or else they may be purged; it was the most vicious of circles. It was logical that Yezhovschina would stem from the Purges, yet none could have foreseen the level the Purges reached before they began. After Kirov’s murder the Purges increased in pace and atrocity and Stalin is not to blame for this, except indirectly, as he set the ball rolling.
A number of those who knew Stalin personally look to his persona to explain the Purges. With the example of Trotsky this could well be due to a grudge he held against Stalin for having him exiled. Other highly famous critics of Stalin’s mental health were Khrushchev and Lenin. Khrushchev described Stalin as “sickly suspicious”, and that he saw “enemies”, “two-facers” and “spies” everywhere. Lenin recognised that the Purges, or something similar could occur before Stalin was in power, Stalin feared people letting this secret slip. Had someone capitalised on this vulnerable situation of Stalin’s, the Purges may never have occurred as Lenin warned people in his Testament that Stalin may not be able to use the power with “sufficient caution” and in a postscript a few days later Lenin suggested Stalin’s removal from the General Secretary position.
There are differing opinions even on the mental health that Stalin suffered as Alan Bullock describes him not as paranoid but narcissistic. This is a psychological state in which the victim is so absorbed with themselves that nothing else is real by comparison. Bullock implies that deaths that Stalin ordered did not seem as serious to him as to other people. This has some weight behind it as Stalin would casually sign thousands of people to their death in an instant. Stalin did to some extent admit that his state of mind was not level and that his attitude towards other human beings was one of huge indifference. After his second wife, Ekaterina Svanidze died he was believed to have said “This creature softened my stony heart. She is dead and with her died my last warm feeling for all human beings.”
It is certain that Stalin was suspicious and showed signs of paranoia. The Purges then became almost inevitable as a man of Stalin’s nature assumed power, as he distrusted almost everyone and genuinely feared a plot against him. However, once the Purges had begun, the effect was like a rolling snowball, as each person feared for their own lives, they tried to save themselves by denouncing others. Just as Stalin’s nature led to the Purges, growing from Bolshevism, Yezhov’s nature led to the Yezhovschina growing from the Purges. Stalin did not initiate the Purges because of a desire to make economic scapegoats or unify the country in foreign policy opinion, but whilst the Purge occurred he seized these opportunities. Had it not been for Stalin’s paranoia the Purges would never have occurred.

I'll try to dig out my 87% (A) coursework on the British Empire for you. Hopefully I've still got it... You'll just have to excuse the bad grammar etc as I'm dyslexic....

Thanks!

I have no choice but to look over stuff, really. I need to look over AS Tudors to be able to get by in A2 Tudors... And I look over my work when doing the work from missed lessons. Six clashes = fun.

I have should have some Tudors AS/A2 essays if you want them. My others are a bit obscure (medieval Europe/Reformation/Counter-Reformation) so I have my doubts as to how useful they'd be. The same applies to my coursework (the Templars.) The essays are fine (A grade) but as I said, the content may or may not have any relevance or interest to you at all...

PMed...I wouldn't worry too much about the history course content itself. I know the course has changed but I have less than 6,000 words worth of notes that covered pretty most of the old curriculum for my particular module choices which could easily be learned in under a fortnight (I took all of my AS and A2 Modules together due to an oddity of my school) so I wouldn't get too under the weather. I only did about 6-7 marked essays in 2 years anyways. As long as you have the generic skill of being able to write history essays at A level, which isn't really that high a level of written skill anyways, it's fine.

That's actually the easy bit. Generic 'how to write an A level properly' skills are much harder to teach.

I hope so, but my reading list just keeps growing! However, I don't mind putting in the hours to get my essay skills up to scratch and, obviously, to learn the stuff to actually put in the essay. I'm just lucky that I love the subject, I guess, so the work doesn't really seem like work.