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History paper choices - help!

Hi, I hold an unconditional offer for History and have recently received an email outlining the papers available for study.

One of the options is a choice between two sections of "Approaches to History" or a foreign text. I'd very much like to choose the latter (Tocqueville's L'ancien Regime et la Revolution) but my grasp of French is rudimentary.

To my relief, the notes received state that "no translation will be required" for the text, but later states that those "with a good/decent GCSE pass in the relevent language" should consider the foreign text option.

This may seem like a silly question but the wording threw my a little and I'm concerned that I'll get into the exam and be faced with an extract in French which I can't understand!

Any help from former/current History students or from fellow freshers would be greatly appreciated.
Original post by IllOmens
Hi, I hold an unconditional offer for History and have recently received an email outlining the papers available for study.

One of the options is a choice between two sections of "Approaches to History" or a foreign text. I'd very much like to choose the latter (Tocqueville's L'ancien Regime et la Revolution) but my grasp of French is rudimentary.

To my relief, the notes received state that "no translation will be required" for the text, but later states that those "with a good/decent GCSE pass in the relevent language" should consider the foreign text option.

This may seem like a silly question but the wording threw my a little and I'm concerned that I'll get into the exam and be faced with an extract in French which I can't understand!

Any help from former/current History students or from fellow freshers would be greatly appreciated.


Its called a gobbet.

You read a passage in French and you answer questions and write answers in English.
Original post by IllOmens
Hi, I hold an unconditional offer for History and have recently received an email outlining the papers available for study.

One of the options is a choice between two sections of "Approaches to History" or a foreign text. I'd very much like to choose the latter (Tocqueville's L'ancien Regime et la Revolution) but my grasp of French is rudimentary.

To my relief, the notes received state that "no translation will be required" for the text, but later states that those "with a good/decent GCSE pass in the relevent language" should consider the foreign text option.

This may seem like a silly question but the wording threw my a little and I'm concerned that I'll get into the exam and be faced with an extract in French which I can't understand!

Any help from former/current History students or from fellow freshers would be greatly appreciated.


I'm doing History at Oxford so I may be able to help. A friend of mine is doing Tocqueville and although it says you only need GCSE, she went in with A* French at A-Level and still found it tricky. Although you are not required to translate the text in its entirety, you have to quote the French and be able to understand the nuances of his argument. Don't be put off if you think you'd enjoy it: all the papers are difficult and there is no easy option. I'm doing historiography as my college doesn't allow me to do Approaches - even though I'd have liked to. Approaches is fairly self explanatory to be honest so I won't go on about that.
Reply 3
Avatar for shoshin
shoshin
10
Don't forget that you can brush up your French at the Language Centre if needed. I did the special subject option on the Popular Front, which was also a gobbet paper with all source texts in the original language. So I took the French For Historians course at the Language Centre to make sure I was up to speed.

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