Should I take GCSE History

Please share your experiences of GCSE History: I am about to choose my GCSE options soon. Thanks

Depends on the courses but mostly it’s incredibly interesting. There’s way too much content (in fact a lot of teachers have been complaining and in a recent survey 34% of teachers said there’s too much content for history which was the highest % for any subject).

That being said, it’s a good essay based subject that is liked by sixth forms but can be incredibly challenging and demanding.

The exams I know of are out of 40 marks. You get an hour.

For the ones I do, 8 marker, 8 marker, 8 marker, 16 marker. All need essays and you should aim to spend 12 mins max on 8 markers and 20 mins max on 16 markers. Hope this helps!

Please share your experiences of GCSE History: I am about to choose my GCSE options soon. Thanks

for me, gcse history is a really enjoyable experience, and is my favourite option. experiences will depend on the course you are taking, but if you are good at writing essays quickly and if you are good at memorising the content, then do choose it. as well as this, look at the areas of history that your school has chosen - if you enjoy learning about these, then you should be able to cope pretty well

Thanks for the advice! Do you actually need to be good at English to do gcse history or not really?

So if you are interested in History then will it be easier to memorise the content? Whenever I memorise the history content it sticks in my head right away.

the short answer is yes, because history is an essay based subject, and for that, having good english skills are important when answering questions in history and when writing essays. history essays look for concise responses that sums up the question effectively without a lot of rambling, because when answers are being marked, the marker does not read the paper in depth - rather, they choose to skim over the responses to get a general gist of the understanding that you have of the topic in order to judge what sort of mark you are deserving of. therefore, you would want your response to be thorough, clear but not a huge chunk of waffling, which is where good english skills are helpful. in a lot of courses, including the one i am taking, an extra 4 marks are awarded for having good SPaG, so that is another point. good luck in choosing your options! although this is not related to your question, please carefully consider your options, and choose what you enjoy, because naturally, you will be better at learning what you enjoy rather than choosing what your friends are taking or what your family is recommending. you probably would've heard this a lot before, but this is very important when choosing.

for me, gcse history is a really enjoyable experience, and is my favourite option. experiences will depend on the course you are taking, but if you are good at writing essays quickly and if you are good at memorising the content, then do choose it. as well as this, look at the areas of history that your school has chosen - if you enjoy learning about these, then you should be able to cope pretty well

What course did you do?

Please share your experiences of GCSE History: I am about to choose my GCSE options soon. Thanks