A Level History Edexcel - Germany and West Germany 1918-89

What was the question exactly do you remember?

Reply 25

The question was 'to what extent did extremism pose a significant threat to effective government 1919-30' or at least something along those lines. This is in contrast to the question last year that was 'to what extent was political opposition the largest threat facing the government 1918-33' (or similar to that). Because of that, I took the approach that Demesne7 did but I know a lot of people who did it the other way too. Hopefully they'll credit both approaches.

Reply 26

Isabella1804

5

Original post by StevetheIcecube

The question was 'to what extent did extremism pose a significant threat to effective government 1919-30' or at least something along those lines. This is in contrast to the question last year that was 'to what extent was political opposition the largest threat facing the government 1918-33' (or similar to that). Because of that, I took the approach that Demesne7 did but I know a lot of people who did it the other way too. Hopefully they'll credit both approaches.

yeah so you would talk about how far political extremism was a threat to effective government but then say however the threat was limited because the government itself had weaknesses such as lack of support and the constant failure of coalition governments. Also i talked about the great depression and how it actually contributed to the collapse of the government and gave way for support of extremist parties such as the Nazis, proving to be a significant threat.

Reply 27

Does everyone here have the Italy paper next Wednesday? How are people feeling for that?

Reply 28

howeverhence

7

Original post by Phatty_Magoo

Does everyone here have the Italy paper next Wednesday? How are people feeling for that?

feeling really unprepared actually. Do you know how we are supposed to structure the 20 mark source? :redface:

Reply 29

clarrm

1

Q1 you should have focused nearly entirely on political extremism. The question was focusing on the significance of extremism, it was NOT asking whether extremism was the most importance factor or not. If you wrote a generic instability of Weimar essay with extremism, economy, ToV etc. you have not grasped the focus of the question so theoretically your marks will be limited. I split up 'effective government' into the 3 different themes of political problems, the economy and ability to uphold the constitution and then analysed how extremism affected each independently, before coming to a conclusion on the significance of extremism overall. Also it was 1919-30, so if you're talking about the Nazis as a main factor I'm not sure what you can say tbh. The Pustch was a fiasco and it was only in 1930 they achieved a significant vote share of 18%, so they basically had zero effect on preventing effective government from 1919-30.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 30

Jodie533

6

Original post by howeverhence

feeling really unprepared actually. Do you know how we are supposed to structure the 20 mark source? :redface:

Same here haha👋🏻
I structure my sources like this:

Intro- (briefly explain both sources and sort of hint at how they could be classed as weak/strong- so is it an unreliable author? When did they write it?)

First para- 1st source- explain context and argument of source. Discuss strengths of the sources.
Second para- 2nd source- same here. (Will usually offer didn’t point of view to first source)

Third para- Compare both sources together. Why is one better than the other? Point out weaknesses of both + how one’s strengths outweigh the other (you can come to a conclusion on which source you think is the most useful)

That isn’t the best structure but something that I’d closely follow, if that’s any help :smile:

What does everyone think will come up? Hoping for the liberal state because I find it the easiest bit🤞🏻

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 31

Original post by howeverhence

feeling really unprepared actually. Do you know how we are supposed to structure the 20 mark source? :redface:

I structure mine as:
Intro - brief summary of the views of the sources in context
First paragraph - how the sources agree or reinforce with each other in terms of the question
Second paragraph - how they disagree with each other/contradict
Third - all on provenance
Conclusion - some up the value of both sources together

Reply 32

Original post by Jodie533

Same here haha👋🏻
I structure my sources like this:

Intro- (briefly explain both sources and sort of hint at how they could be classed as weak/strong- so is it an unreliable author? When did they write it?)

First para- 1st source- explain context and argument of source. Discuss strengths of the sources.
Second para- 2nd source- same here. (Will usually offer didn’t point of view to first source)

Third para- Compare both sources together. Why is one better than the other? Point out weaknesses of both + how one’s strengths outweigh the other (you can come to a conclusion on which source you think is the most useful)

That isn’t the best structure but something that I’d closely follow, if that’s any help :smile:

What does everyone think will come up? Hoping for the liberal state because I find it the easiest bit🤞🏻

My teacher says she has an inkling it'll be one on the Church (although she isn't a good teacher ngl)

Reply 33

Original post by clarrm

Q1 you should have focused nearly entirely on political extremism. The question was focusing on the significance of extremism, it was NOT asking whether extremism was the most importance factor or not. If you wrote a generic instability of Weimar essay with extremism, economy, ToV etc. you have not grasped the focus of the question so theoretically your marks will be limited. I split up 'effective government' into the 3 different themes of political problems, the economy and ability to uphold the constitution and then analysed how extremism affected each independently, before coming to a conclusion on the significance of extremism overall. Also it was 1919-30, so if you're talking about the Nazis as a main factor I'm not sure what you can say tbh. The Pustch was a fiasco and it was only in 1930 they achieved a significant vote share of 18%, so they basically had zero effect on preventing effective government from 1919-30.

That's a really interesting way of approaching it! I looked at different kinds of political extremism (left wing, right wing, and then did a para for the Nazis) and whether they challenged effective government (basically concluded that communist challenge and the Kapp Putsch challenged to an extent in 1919-23 but it died down after that while the Nazis barely posed a challenge at all, but as politics began to polarise post-1929 due to crisis, the government increasingly lost control due to violence). I mentioned the economy very briefly as being linked to the ability of political extremists to challenge the government.

Reading what you wrote, I'm sort of worried that I still had the wrong end of the stick and focused on the wrong thing!!

Reply 34

thetaleofmine2

6

Original post by bethanymayhew99

Me and my teacher went over Nazi economic policies just before the exam started, so it was nice to see that come up although I'm certain I messed up somehow. Source question was decent, but ran out of time to conclude :/
I'm hoping my coursework and the other 2 exams will push me to an A. Fingers crossed!

Hey! I didn't finish my conclusion either, but I think I did ok in the other two essays? Do you think it's possible to get an A in the paper?? I'm super worried - because I feel like if you don't finish concluding the most you can get is a 15 (I think I got around 13-15) but idk just need some reassurance I guess. :frown:

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Reply 35

Demesne7

15

omg i didnt finish my conclusion either for section C :/ aha im not alone

Reply 36

Original post by thetaleofmine2

Hey! I didn't finish my conclusion either, but I think I did ok in the other two essays? Do you think it's possible to get an A in the paper?? I'm super worried - because I feel like if you don't finish concluding the most you can get is a 15 (I think I got around 13-15) but idk just need some reassurance I guess. :frown:

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Grades aren't given by paper, they're given by options taken + coursework, with the number of marks combined (the whole course is out of 200) and then the grade resulting from that. For example, I do Germany, Italian Fascism, and Rebellion under the Tudors, and last year the grade boundary for those three papers (plus coursework) was 154 marks total for an A. That means you need a combination of 15s and 16s as an overall average to get an A - slightly less if your coursework was good, slightly more if not.

Reply 37

Original post by StevetheIcecube

Grades aren't given by paper, they're given by options taken + coursework, with the number of marks combined (the whole course is out of 200) and then the grade resulting from that. For example, I do Germany, Italian Fascism, and Rebellion under the Tudors, and last year the grade boundary for those three papers (plus coursework) was 154 marks total for an A. That means you need a combination of 15s and 16s as an overall average to get an A - slightly less if your coursework was good, slightly more if not.

Although there are component grade boundaries as well! The link for them is under the normal grade boundaries on the edexcel website - they have marks for each paper :smile:

think it was 45/60 for an A last year in Paper 1

Reply 38