Help with AQA history?!

I only have until around May to prepare for my history exams, but the thing is I'm still getting C's in mocks and practice tests 😩
I'm not bad with the contextual knowledge; I can remember facts and events. My weakness is exam technique, I often misinterpret sources or use irrelevant CK.
Any help would be appreciated!

Reply 1

charlottelouise3

I did my GCSEs last year, and my mocks were around the time you had them. I got a C in my mocks and a B in my exam. I used to cry because I couldn't do history and I hated it. My best advice is to just keep doing the exam questions, because that's one of the best ways you can prepare for an exam. I would used irrelevant knowledge too, so I asked my teacher for help and it worked. So my advice is to practice loads of questions and as your teacher because that's what they're there for! Good luck 👏🏻

Reply 2

pearlgrey

At my school the teachers are running exam technique sessions at lunch times for history to help you with answering the questions correctly. You could ask your teacher if they could do something similar for you, or you could answer some practise questions at home to time and ask your teacher to go through your answers with you so you can see where you're going wrong. They should be happy that you are so motivated to improve your grades. Then focus on your weakest areas in the run up to exams until you're confident with the technique.

For sources remember to look at the source as a whole as well as the smaller details. Use the 5Ws to help you to think about all aspects of the provenance- who made it, when was it made, what is it (poster/ report etc), why was it made (creator's intentions). It may be helpful to make a (brief) plan for source questions on usefulness- content useful/ not useful, provenance useful/ not useful, and then make your overall conclusion.

As for using irrelevant information in questions, try linking events together on spider diagrams so that you can see how different causes/ effects are connected. Create timelines of events so you can see the chronological progression of the topic you are studying and what changes occur (structuring your answers with this in mind may help you to gain higher marks). Always read the question carefully to make sure that you don't talk about any events that happened outside the years that the question is asking about. Good luck!

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 3

thatthat

Original post by MoonlightBoo

If it's sources you're struggling with then you're not alone (I do too :s-smilie:

). The only thing I can suggest is to try and answer loads of sources, like loadsss. What I do (and this has helped) is google the topic (say 'league of nations' )along with source. It will come up with hundreds of results, and all you have to do is go through the different sources and try and pick different bits of information out of.

Yes it does sound horrible but it has helped me so much. Hope this is useful :smile:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 4

AliceGeorgia

to help your exam technique id say look at past examiners reports or mark schemes, you can find them online easily because history is a lot about saying what the examiner wants you to say in the way they want. also on your essay questions make sure you always link to the question and link your paragraphs together because if not you only reach level 2 (D\C grade)