Old post got deleted, but may as well leave the good parts here, copy pasted:
Heya, I did MH the 2012 year and did quite well if I may say so myself
What I focused on:
WWI/Source analysis:
I cannot stress enough to PRACTISE SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS. Make sure you generally know enough of the WWI content [not really dense] but go straight into source analysis practise. I'm not sure what your teacher provided but I know of two really good source books we used. Practise being concise (fitting all your answers in the given space), practise using PRU + DAMMIT (Perspective Reliability Usefulness, incorporating Date, Author, Motive, Medium, Intention, Tone)
Germany and Final module [conflict in the pacific?]
Two part study:
1. Syllabus notes. Download/put your syllabus into a word doc. The only purpose the textbook should serve is to roughly fill in the blanks (generally the textbooks suck, they're summaries, but good if you have 0 idea what's going on) and focus on other notes your teacher gave you and your own study as well. Make sure every dotpoint has notes and you UNDERSTAND all of it. It's a trek I know. The other part of the notes is in finding historiography for most of the questions. This is so crucial as well- one main part of the course is how well you use historiography, and implementing it into your essay properly (i.e. propose an argument YOURSELF, and then back it up with a historian's point of view, e.g. bla bla, as support by Kershaw (2000) who argues that etc.)
2. Practise/draft/sample Essays for EVERY dot point. This is of course, hopeful and probably not achievable if you haven't started. I wrote essays for every dot point and this took up 70% of my study time (only 20% to writing notes). I recommend not writing a full essay in so much as writing an essay plan i.e. full structure: Intro- 3 theses, Paragraph 1- argument 1, written out in dot points so I could fill it in with content that I knew off by heart already during the exam. This is takes lots of familiarity so make sure you do this right.
Speer
Arguably the easiest of the four.
First question is usually ALWAYS the same. Thus have a pre-written essay generally about Speer's life or know it well enough (look at past exam q's) and just shape the focus of the essay/remove irrelevant chunks on the exam day, so you'll be set for any question. Should be short, concise and straight to the point.
Second question is not as predictable, usually based on a quote. Two things you should focus on: be REALLY, REALLY familiar with AT LEAST FOUR historian's point of views on Speer. Don't have to memorise quotes but make sure you know each historians view points and their arguments extremely well. The second focus is how to write the essay around the quote. I recommend practising on past questions, learn how to shape the whole essay towards individual components of the quote and generally arguing a direction of thought you have planned. The point of the historiography is that the question will always be 'biased' in a way that historiography will always be ... debatable but you will have to make a judgment whether or not you agree and say why, and then efficiently use the historians arguments well.
+ SLEEP HEAPS so important
tl;dr:
- Make syllabus notes but focus on yourself understanding/familiarity.
- Go through notes every now and then so you don't forget stuff
- Start writing essay plans for every dotpoint you go past
- Practise practise practise past papers and questions
As with all subjects, start studying with the HSC and trials already in mind. This is probably the main mistake I did. Make sure that everything you do now is 'snowballing' towards the final exam etc. and don't stress out.
Gl friends you'll be fine
PS. I tutor MH still and my top 2 predictions not that the other thread doesn't cover it well enough are GER: Totalitarianism and Racial Policy; CiP: Course of War and Strategies/Abomb
Heya, I did MH the 2012 year and did quite well if I may say so myself
What I focused on:
WWI/Source analysis:
I cannot stress enough to PRACTISE SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS. Make sure you generally know enough of the WWI content [not really dense] but go straight into source analysis practise. I'm not sure what your teacher provided but I know of two really good source books we used. Practise being concise (fitting all your answers in the given space), practise using PRU + DAMMIT (Perspective Reliability Usefulness, incorporating Date, Author, Motive, Medium, Intention, Tone)
Germany and Final module [conflict in the pacific?]
Two part study:
1. Syllabus notes. Download/put your syllabus into a word doc. The only purpose the textbook should serve is to roughly fill in the blanks (generally the textbooks suck, they're summaries, but good if you have 0 idea what's going on) and focus on other notes your teacher gave you and your own study as well. Make sure every dotpoint has notes and you UNDERSTAND all of it. It's a trek I know. The other part of the notes is in finding historiography for most of the questions. This is so crucial as well- one main part of the course is how well you use historiography, and implementing it into your essay properly (i.e. propose an argument YOURSELF, and then back it up with a historian's point of view, e.g. bla bla, as support by Kershaw (2000) who argues that etc.)
2. Practise/draft/sample Essays for EVERY dot point. This is of course, hopeful and probably not achievable if you haven't started. I wrote essays for every dot point and this took up 70% of my study time (only 20% to writing notes). I recommend not writing a full essay in so much as writing an essay plan i.e. full structure: Intro- 3 theses, Paragraph 1- argument 1, written out in dot points so I could fill it in with content that I knew off by heart already during the exam. This is takes lots of familiarity so make sure you do this right.
Speer
Arguably the easiest of the four.
First question is usually ALWAYS the same. Thus have a pre-written essay generally about Speer's life or know it well enough (look at past exam q's) and just shape the focus of the essay/remove irrelevant chunks on the exam day, so you'll be set for any question. Should be short, concise and straight to the point.
Second question is not as predictable, usually based on a quote. Two things you should focus on: be REALLY, REALLY familiar with AT LEAST FOUR historian's point of views on Speer. Don't have to memorise quotes but make sure you know each historians view points and their arguments extremely well. The second focus is how to write the essay around the quote. I recommend practising on past questions, learn how to shape the whole essay towards individual components of the quote and generally arguing a direction of thought you have planned. The point of the historiography is that the question will always be 'biased' in a way that historiography will always be ... debatable but you will have to make a judgment whether or not you agree and say why, and then efficiently use the historians arguments well.
+ SLEEP HEAPS so important
tl;dr:
- Make syllabus notes but focus on yourself understanding/familiarity.
- Go through notes every now and then so you don't forget stuff
- Start writing essay plans for every dotpoint you go past
- Practise practise practise past papers and questions
As with all subjects, start studying with the HSC and trials already in mind. This is probably the main mistake I did. Make sure that everything you do now is 'snowballing' towards the final exam etc. and don't stress out.
Gl friends you'll be fine
PS. I tutor MH still and my top 2 predictions not that the other thread doesn't cover it well enough are GER: Totalitarianism and Racial Policy; CiP: Course of War and Strategies/Abomb
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