A level ancient history 30 mark essays

I've really been struggling with the 30 mark essays for OCR A level Ancient history, especially with how to use and analyse the ancient sources within the essays. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this?
Any help would be really appreciated😊

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

MarkJewson

Focus really a lot on how directly you can link quotes from the sources to:

a) The event (e.g., Xerxes' invasion 480BC, or the Peace of Nicias 421BC)
b) The debate topics (why did the Persians lose? What caused the Peloponnesian war? Why did Athens lose?)

Focus on what is relevant, not what is easy to remember. I'm using examples for Greek relations because that's the unit I do :smile:

Honestly though, ask your teachers. Plan some essays, write some exemplar paragraphs to really nail the horrible OCR-style technique.

Reply 2

Lucy G H

Original post by MarkJewson

Focus really a lot on how directly you can link quotes from the sources to:
a) The event (e.g., Xerxes' invasion 480BC, or the Peace of Nicias 421BC)
b) The debate topics (why did the Persians lose? What caused the Peloponnesian war? Why did Athens lose?)
Focus on what is relevant, not what is easy to remember. I'm using examples for Greek relations because that's the unit I do :smile:

Honestly though, ask your teachers. Plan some essays, write some exemplar paragraphs to really nail the horrible OCR-style technique.

Thank you very much for your response, I will definitely start doing more practice questions from now on.
The biggest problem for me is that I have self taught ancient history so don't have a teacher! It was fine for learning the content but more difficult when trying to get the exam technique.
But your advice seems really good and I'll give it a go 🙂