Edexcel AS History exam tips to get an A?

I have my history exams in May on Russia in Revolution, 1881–1924: From Autocracy to Dictatorship , Stalin's Russia 1924-53 and Mass Media....I was wondering whether anyone could give me some tips for revision and exam techniques....I really want an A . I tried going through papers but I can't seem to remember all the statistics and information . So, at the moment I'm just going through the textbooks and making mind maps and then I'm going to try and memorise it all...but there is so much to memorise :eek:

Is all the information necessary or are there just certain topics that I should focus on more that I'm likely to be tested on?

Reply 1

enya227

I sat this exam last year and got a high B - I resat it to try and get an A and ended up with a U!

So, content is incredibly important for this exam. Mindmaps are great but they don't really test you on analysis too extensively - try practise essays and quizzes!
Getrevising.com is a great site and that has loads on it, my greatest help was plastering my room with mindmaps and watching loads of Russia documentaries :smile:

There are also some really funny things on youtube too which'll help you get more of an interest therefore remember more facts! The Russian Tetris Song for example, it's fantastic!

Remember to learn tricky vocab too, the word 'totalitarian' came up on my resit exam and that's what completely through me, my mind went completely blank. Knowing how iffily the questions can be worded and being able to translate that into what the examiner wants to see is a huge help!

Best of luck :smile:

Reply 2

Changing Skies

Original post by Cookies&Cream:)

Is all the information necessary or are there just certain topics that I should focus on more that I'm likely to be tested on?

I'm also doing Russia in Revolution, 1881–1924: From Autocracy to Dictatorship and Stalin's Russia 1924-53 and I'm so worried, I really want an A too. What I think is difficult is the sheer amount of content and the amount of time you get in the exam, 1 hour 20 doesn't seem enough haha! :eek:

Reply 3

The Wild Youth

I'm on a different exam board but I feel your pain with history! My board comprises of 2 exams at AS and I got an A in both of them-

The way I revised was to go through the text book, writing notes on everything I thought was relevant or useful (statistics, the lot) and ended up with about 100 pages of notes. (ugh, I know)... Then I condensed them down by half to maybe 50 pages by going through, copying out the relevant information etc

Did the same, halved my notes again

Then I wrote the headings of all the chapters at the top of individual pages and basically summarised the chapter on that page.

It works because you can look at a phrase in your summarised notes and your mind goes back through all the information you'd copied out before :smile:

I know it sounds like it takes ages and it does but for one of the exams I crammed like a mother f***** and did all those hundreds of pages of notes in 2 weeks.

I'm intending to do the same technique for my A2 exam in June :smile:

(without the cramming :biggrin:

)

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 4

R_94

Original post by Cookies&Cream:)

Is all the information necessary or are there just certain topics that I should focus on more that I'm likely to be tested on?

I did the Russian paper - First time round I got a C, after resitting got an A (56/60) :biggrin:

Yeah I would suggest learning everything before doing the papers. There is a lot to memorise but before revising be familiar with all the past questions and you'll realise that a lot of the questions ask the same thing in a different way so just break the books down into key themes and structure your revision around that. Work chronologically so learn everything up to the provisional govt for example then answer questions based on that time period, then do the next period of time and so on and so forth. Doing exam questions is a really good way of learning and remembering stuff.

In regards to the necessary information bit you asked about - yes - some is kind of unnecessary. Let me give you an example. One chapter in the first text book is about the 1905 revolution which is what I would classify as a key theme. Now I don't think you need to know extensively, what happened as it is unlikely they will ask you to note the events of the revolution. Their main question would be either what caused the revolution or what caused its failure. So in order to answer the question "what caused it" you would need to know enough about the Russo-Japanese war, Reformist groups (which are both separate chapters I believe) social and economic problems, and Bloody Sunday. So some chapters can really be merged with another - you will know how to do this after understanding what kinds of questions they ask you in the exams.

If you'd like me to clarify or give more info, feel free to ask :smile:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 5

supastyla

Original post by R_94

I did the Russian paper - First time round I got a C, after resitting got an A (56/60) :biggrin:

hi, can you explain what revision methods you used to revise the knowledge i.e. did you take notes or just read etc? What did you find the best way to memorize the key facts?
thanks!

Reply 6

Student-95

When I did it we were given a booklet which had all the different questions that would likely come up and notes on each factor you could discuss for that question. By this stage we'd done so many practice essays that we knew the layout like the back of our hands so it was just a case of learning / memorizing a few factors for each question.

My revision consisted of reading through 40 pages of text until I could recite 5 factors for each question. It was long and boring but I ended up getting 98%.

Reply 7

supastyla

Original post by Student-95

Oh cool but what structure did you use for your essays? i really struggle with these :frown:

Btw would you still have that booklet available?

Reply 8

R_94

Original post by supastyla

hi, can you explain what revision methods you used to revise the knowledge i.e. did you take notes or just read etc? What did you find the best way to memorize the key facts?
thanks!

I used A3 sheets of paper for each key event and wrote everything i needed to know about it on that one sheet. (eg. Everything about 1905 rev) then stuck it on my wall. It was very colourful. Also i made essay plans for all the questions which included noting down the factors to be disbursed and i highlighted the main factor and wrote up a conclusion so my line of argument was clear in my head. Then i did lots of practice essays. My memorizing just came with doing lots of essay because i was repeating a lot of the facts when i would do second drafts and stuff.

Reply 9

C178Y

I sat the Russia exam along with Civil Rights last year and got an E. I now have 5 weeks until the resit and I still don't understand Russia at all. What would be the best and easiest way to understand the whole topic? I'm so scared because I need BBC to get into uni and I just don't think I'll get the grades even though I've been working incredibly hard.