The Student Room Group

AQA history exam technique

I don't know how useful thisll be to everyone as teachers probably covered it, but i thought i would write out all the different types of questions and what your supposed to say since so much of history is exam technique, also, this way i dont feel guilty about not revising! Yay!

1.Idiot Marks
e.g."What does Source A tell us about the membership of the League of Nations"
Worth 3-5 marks
These are really easy questions, essentially for these questions you do not need to know anything about history, you just have to analyse what the source say, you don't even have to explain it. For instance you could say "this source shows that italy joined in 1919 and left the league in 1937, the USA was never in the league, and the only two major powers who remained in the league throughout it's history were Britain and France", there i have made three analytical points which equals 3 marks

2.Description of events
e.g."Describe the events following Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 which led to Italy leaving the league of nations in 1937"
Worth 6-8 marks
These questions are relatively easy as long as you know your stuff. To answer these questions you need to know a sequence of events
For the example question for full marks, you would need to put in several points about the Abyssinia crisis, for example, The league protesting but doing nothing, the hoare-laval pact showing weakening and details of the attack, for example pretending the abyssinians had attacked their well.
It should be noted that dates are NOT needed to answer these questions, at the most, an understanding of the timeline that led up to the event is needed, though obviously dates can help if u want to revise them.

3.Accuracy Questions
e.g."How accurate is the view given in Source B of the aims of Britain and France at Munich? Use Source B and your own knowledge to answer"
Worth 6-8 Marks
These are also quite easy to answer and to get high marks in. What you have to do here is scrutinize the source. You have to look at it and remember what you were taught about it in class. If it is a soviet or nazi writing the source then it is likely to be propaganda if it is meant for the public or if it is a politician, it is likely that he may lie to try and convince people on his views. You mention this in the answer and also mention whether the facts it gives are the proper detail of events, whether they have been skewed slightly for propaganda purposes or whether they are utter lies. If you want full marks in these questions then you have to also use a bit of your own knowledge, for example that the Russians didnt think of this as propaganda, but the truth as Stalin felt that the reason he was not invited to the meeting was because they were plotting against him.

4. Utility Questions
e.g. "How useful is Source G to an historian studying D-Day?"
Worth 6-8 Marks
I personally loathe these questions because i always miss too many things but there is a way to do them.
For these questions, you have to once again scutinize the source and refer everything in it to your own knowledge. For example source C is a picture of the D-Day landings, you would say that it is quite useful as a source because you can see the various different vehicles used in the background, such as the landing craft and the amphibious tanks which help to get a clearer view of the situation, it shows similar conditions to many of the beachheads, with men having o run through muddy sand towards german guns. But it is not entiely useful as since this is a picture it is very unlikely to be in one of the first or second waves as it would be a waste of precious space and time and be far too dangerous so it doesn't span a large enough amount of time to give a perfect view of what the D-Day landings were like. At the end of every utility question, you ALWAYS need to ensure you say that "though it is useful in some respects, it does not give a full picture AND MUST BE COMPARED WITH OTHER SOURCES"

5.Comparing Events
e.g. Which was the bigger threat to European peace in the 1930s:The re-militarisation of the rhine-land 1936, The Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact 1939?
Worth 8-10 Marks
These questions are very hard to get write. What you need to make sure you dont do in the first line is say which one you think was the most important and then talk about just that one. What you need to do here is to talk about each one, why they happened, what were other countries' reactions and what the long and short-term implications of it were. For example, you would need to say that re-militarizing the rhine-lands gave hitler confidence that he could attack other countries and get away with it, and it gave him back a sound defence for the war rather than having to defend on open flatlands for example. Britain and Frnce didnt do anything at the time as it was in the middle of the Abbysinian crisis and they didnt want a second world war. You would say the the Non-aggression pact lead to the start of the 2nd World war as it gave Hitler the oppurtunity to go to war without having to fight on two fronts and that it allowed him to plow through poland with almost no repercussions in the short-term.

6.Comparing Sources and explanation
e.g "In what ways is the content of Sources C and D different? Explain possible reasons why"
6-8 Marks for the first part
8-10 marks for the second
These are pretty easy to do, as all you need to do for the first part is look for both similarites and differences, once again they are essentailly idiot marks as you can state the obvious like "they both agree that...." and "they both disagree that....".
The second part of these questions however is quite hard as they are often a lot of marks and you may not have that many points, if this happens, it is probably because you need to explain it in detail, for this question, it says use the sources, but really, this is all about what you have learnt, for example, one of the sources may be different because it was meant for propaganda use to keep the public in toe.

7.Explanation Questions
e.g. In January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Explain Why This Happened.
These questions may seem beastly and all being worth 15 marks but essentially, as long as you have enough time and you know your stuff, they're quite easy to do. The thing you have to remember though is that it is not asking how it happened, its asking you for WHY it happened. So for this question you would put explanations such as the Great Depression led to more desperate people in Germany, wanting solutions and scapegoats, so they turned to extremism such as the Nazis, and those who turned to communism scared the rich businessmen towards the Nazis as well as they promised to protect them. You would mention proportional representation, and the fact that no one party ever had a large enough majority to pass laws without forming a coalition and how this lead to hitler's placement as a "puppet" chancellor for the sole reason that his party had the largest numbers of seats.

For the first paper, you do two options. The first option you have to answer two of three questions and for the second option, you have to answer the whole of the question that goes with it.
For the second paper, you have two sections, A and B
Remember IF YOU ANSWER A QUESTION ON GERMANY IN SECTION A, YOU HAVE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION ON RUSSIA IN SECTION B.
Because of this, you should definitely read all the questions in A and B because if you do a really easy question about Germany in A and then you find out the USSR question in B is really hard, then you're pretty much screwed:eek: The times for the first paper is roughly 1 Hour on the first option, and then 45 minutes on the second, for the second, it is roughly 1hr on A and 45 minutes on B, thouh some of A's time should be taken reading all your questions.

Hope this has been useful, and sorry if it hasnt and was as boring as i think it is!:biggrin:
Post any other questions u think ppl should know about or any changes i should make to wot i've written. Bye!:ciao:
Reply 1
thanks for that!
Reply 2
Thank you very much.

The thing is i do medicine through time and american west for my course.
I am bit lost planning for medicine through time.

Do anyone have any ideas ?
Reply 3
Sorry, i got know ideas on Medicine in time, but i just found a really good website that expands on what i wrote even further:http://www.johndclare.net/
If you go to http://www.johndclare.net/Questions.htm it gives you a low-down on what the examiners want for some of the questions.
Reply 4
I'll bump this for those doing History paper 2 tomorrow, it helped me do paper 1 so it's worth sharing :smile: