A-Level History Help!

As a part of my AQA History course, I am studying the making of modern Britain and Tsarist Russia.

Hey - I do AQA A-Level history and have applied for history at Cambridge, and I got an A at AS last year so I can try and give some advice

The way my college has taught us to structure our essays is in 3 parts - so agree/disagree and a third paragraph that furthers your point. Each of the 3 paragraphs would have 3 points and 3 pieces of evidence.
There is also an introduction and conclusion, the introduction should aim to explain what you are arguing so that your argument is clear throughout the essay (don't sit on the fence!!!). The conclusion is where analysis is made of everything you have discussed (not just repeating what's already been said), and explaining why your argument is correct rather than alternate ones. An important thing to remember to get A and A* marks is that you need analysis throughout the essay, don't just list things, make sure it is clear as to why you have included everything you mention and evaluate and link as much as you can between points and to the question.

With sources make sure you analyse provenance and tone, and how this impacts the value, e.g. if Hitler is your source then is what he is saying what you would expect of him? If it is it would lose some value, but if he is criticising the Nazis for example then that would increase value as it is more likely that he is being honest (this is very basic but hopefully you get the point). In terms of tone, think along the lines of emotions etc. if they seem angry or passionate then this will have an impact on what they are saying and impact value (if a person is talking about the Nazis passionately in 1931 this may be valuable in showing how successful Nazi propaganda was and showing how they gained support, but it may mean that they are over-exaggerating things "Everybody loves Hitler!" is an example of this), be careful not to say any source is completely lacking value, but instead use terms such as "limited in value" and "gains value". Another thing to look at is dates - if a source is written before an event, then you shouldn't really include it in discussion, as it didn't have an impact on them writing it (you can't say Hitler was anti-Semitic in 1931 because of the Holocaust 10 years later). Also if there is a source from a few years after an event, think about how events after it might have impacted the value of what they are saying (writing about Nazism of 1932 in the 1960's would be influenced by the denunciation of Nazism after 1945 and would have hindsight knowledge of the subsequent Nazi horrors)

Hope some of this help, obviously the examples aren't relevant to your topic but hopefully they demonstrate the point to some extent.

Hey - I do AQA A-Level history and have applied for history at Cambridge, and I got an A at AS last year so I can try and give some advice



Hope some of this help, obviously the examples aren't relevant to your topic but hopefully they demonstrate the point to some extent.