Your thoughts on the exam (1 Viewer)

[hotChoklat]

Athens in the Time of Pericles: was not so bad. I thought the Polis question was stupid.

ditto... that polis thing wasn't worth 2 marks.
But i reckon that was so far the best exam...although anything is good when you compare it to english

 

[Krit 100]

hey guys !!!!
how many marks do u rekon i get for writing one and a half sentences on Seti I!!
like i really hope it at least 15 marks!!!!!!

 

[gracerawl88]

How did alexander become king??
I didnt really have much to talk about for 10 marks here.
Just how his father was murdered and possible suspects... then Philips other wife and son. And problems in the empire he inherited.
Thats all i had....

Anything else?

i wrote about his preparation for the throne, eg tutored by aristotle, military training n such. how his dad was king so he just successed him.. how he was bascialyl born to be king, so olympia ensured it and such.. him thinking he was a god like achilles..

 

[undotwa]

you had to mention the stages and you also had to mention all that crap about loyalty etc

and there are 6 stages,0-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-23, 24-30, 30+

you left out the 24-30

I doubt you had to talk about all that. The question asked for the role of the agoge. SO the emphasis IMHO had to be placed upon its role in nurturing a sense of obedience and patriotism in Spartan boys. By outlining the different stages, you are not describing its role, but simply outlining.

Also, since the questioned asked specifically about boys, I thought it was irrelevant to speak about every single stage. Why talk about for instance anything above the age of 18? You are no longer a Spartan boy, therefore, those stages have little relevance to the boy's education. It's like asking a question on "Explain the significance of schooling in Australian society on the education of boys" and then start talking about post-secondary education.

 

[Nerdasaurus]

Man, I had to stop myself from either giggling when I read the questions, or punching the air and doing a victory lap.

Pompeii/Herculaneum: I didn't find the food question hard at all. I talked about the food places opening straight on to the street and the Modesta Bakery, and how they have found braziers in homes that might be for re/heating food. (I was bored at the end and was going to get another booklet for the forum and technology questions, but decided against it.)

Minoans: I found this was SORT of easy since before the exam I'd done the whole "try to show up the other person with information" thing where we start rambling on about areas of expertise and making connections, so I'd talked about their religion and burial before I walked in. Not sure on the technology question, or the religious places question, though. As long as I didn't lie in the exam and make something up, I should be ok.

Agrippina: Ace. Got 9 pages - would have had more, but the question was about her death and her marriages without her background stuff. I got full marks for her in the trial, so I hope I do well this time. So glad I looked over my assignment and saw her husbands' names.

Augustus: I obviously chose the settlement questions as hmm, I did that question as an extra piece of classwork a few weeks ago! My teacher taught us both the Julio-Claudians and, since she was betting that there would be a year of the four emperor question, after the trials taught us Augustus. Had I not learnt about Augustus, I would have chosen Claudius as my policy guy. I got 8 pages out of it and probably could have written more, but my wrist was hurting (I've had four exams in a row).

 

[fallen-angel]

Well unlike the majority of you guys i HATED THE EXAM....


pompeii and herc was ok but ARGH personality xerxes was bad....10 marks about HOW he became king was a push.

The persian wars question was EVIL......

bah not happy....i know i won't get a band 6 now....

 

[blindside4325]

Pompeii and Herculaneum: carve that shit up mate, the bloody easiest area of the paper. Although I am pissed off about how much work I put into it, when the questions were so general.

Augustus: I did the first question and man it was easy. Did anyone else quote the historian Judge ( Probably the most important historian on the topic).

Agrippina: A little bit fustrated with the second question but the first one was pretty easy. Needed more quotes. I quoted, Donna Hurley, A.A. Barrett, Tacitus and Cassius Dio.

Old Kingdom Egypt: This area pissed me off a bit. The first couple of question were pretty generic, but the last one ( 10 marker) caught me a little off guard, however I still managed to mention the evidence of the Osirian Legend, the creation mound of Atum and the cult of Re and also a quote from Callender.

 

[Declaration]

I thought i completely fucked the last essay question on The greek world 500-440BC untill i got home and checked who i was writing about haha. It asked to talk about Leonidas and Miltiades and i had studied Leonidas alot but didn't know anything about Miltiades so i just made up a story about him being from the Battle of Marathon and wrote about 2 pages on that, turns out i was right! What a fucking guess HA!

 

[rvietze]

Pompeii SOOOO EASY
Sparta a breeze especially the question about the women aced that SCORE!!
Greece 500-440 really liked the choice of questions i went 4 the persian wars
Agrippina gud gud didnt like the last quest

OH WELL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE!!!!!

 

[blyss]

Pompeii + Herc and Sparta were all pretty decent, the Tiberius Gracchus questions were good too although i wrote about two pages more then i needed to for both of them. Did anyone else do political revolution in rome from 133-78BC? i had no idea what i was writing about Sulla so just crapped on bout him undermining his own legislation..andd made up a couple of quotes n said they were by plutarch lol

 

[kimsquared]

Pompeii + Herc = easy I think, took me maybe 30 mins, pissed off nothing on conservation

NK Egypt = good awesome.. LOVED IT!

Ramesses II = average, only 6 pages - worst section for me, but dropped so many historians names lol

Greek World 500-440 BC = HOORAY!! entire booklet filled!!

haha, i was stressing ALOT about this exam, but I think the questions were mostly good, so yay no more ancient for me...!!

 

[Triangulum]

Cities of Vesuvius: pretty good. Food I didn't know much about, but I aced the forum (why did they call it 'the Eumachia'? It's the Building of Eumachia - it's named after a person, for god's sake) and to a lesser extent the Lady of Oplontis (thank god for Sara Bisel and Estelle Lazer's bone analyses).

Sparta: pretty damn good. I agree that you didn't have to go through every single stage of the agoge in detail. I talked about it in general terms about toughening soldiers, respect for the command structure, encouraging self-reliance. Kings was good, talked about how they were more religious and military figureheads (possibly regarded as demi-gods) than political ones. Women was pretty good, I used Kyniska as an example and talked about the way they exercised for child-bearing purposes and their religious roles. I might have wandered a bit off the question, though.

Julius Caesar: reforms I had no clue about, because being the idiot that I am I didn't study the actual domestic events of his dictatorship - just his wars overseas against the Pompeians. All I had was the Lex Iulia Municipalis and the increase in the size of the Senate. Gallic Wars was easy - increased his wealth, his popularity, showed his strength to the Senate, built a loyal and strong army. Concluded by saying it's hard to imagine that Caesar could have done what he eventually did without his time in Gaul.

Fall of the Republic: I spent 10 minutes on the Civil War before deciding I really didn't have enough material and switching to Pompey's extraordinary military commands. I was rushing a bit so I think it was a bit simplistically written, but it covered all the main points, did the assessment as required and included some material from Scullard and Plutarch, so I'd be hoping for a decent mark. Again, I said that it's hard to see how Pompey would have achieved anything like what he did (absolute preeminence in Rome in the 60s and 50s) without his commands in Spain and Asia and on the Med.

 

[~FeLiCiTy~]

hey, just wondering...if a majority of us thought the exam was pretty cinch...what exactly would that mean?? harder chance of getting band 6? paranoia is setting in

 

[ryan2k6]

Overall the exam was simple except wtf is with the first pomp/herc question...ok after identifying it was an eruption..what effect does this have on the people?
OK THEY DIED? UMMMMM

Agrippina II was simple
Julio-claudians was easy as...very surprised there was no themes question and there was a year of the 4 emperors question?
I chose the reforms and policies question..i took a gamble and did all my study on Claudius' reign and nothing else which paid off, fitted that question perfectly..most happy

 

[s-p-a-c-e-d]

Overall the exam was simple except wtf is with the first pomp/herc question...ok after identifying it was an eruption..what effect does this have on the people?
OK THEY DIED? UMMMMM

Agrippina II was simple
Julio-claudians was easy as...very surprised there was no themes question and there was a year of the 4 emperors question?
I chose the reforms and policies question..i took a gamble and did all my study on Claudius' reign and nothing else which paid off, fitted that question perfectly..most happy

This has been stated before, but you needed to refer to the actual source for that question, like, say they were weeping and invoking death or something like that.

I dunno, they might decide to give marks for that

 

[daniel.graham]

Holy bollocks that was simple. Whipped through the Pompeii section in 20 minutes; although I don't know why people are complaining about the one about the thermopolium: and I was expecting much more from the last question, like conservation or something.

Ramesside Egypt: easyeasyeasy. Good thing that the only thing I've ever been assessed on for Egypt (over two assessments; a speech and trial) was tombs. Broad topic focus there. (Oh, and because hardly anyone at my school got it, a shadouf is one of those funky crane things they use to lift water from the Nile into the field for irrigation.)

Cleopatra: Also quite simply. Had to sit a bit and think about how to make the evaluation question less about Rome and more about her. But I didn't, but I think it turned out well.

Coolio-Claudians: I so wasn't expecting something on the Year of the Four Emperors. But then, I only started studying for them yesterday, so. Combined some bollocks about Tiberius foreign and provincial policies (the dot point I'd studied for) and his relationships to the army and Senate (also studied for) and just said that he wanted to be like Augustus, but pretty much failed.

Is it just me, or is this whole HSC thing severely overrated? I mean, the two English's, then this. Next thing I know, they'll be giving us translations for Latin.

 

[Triangulum]

hey, just wondering...if a majority of us thought the exam was pretty cinch...what exactly would that mean?? harder chance of getting band 6? paranoia is setting in

There's no preset number of people who get into each band. The band divisions are based entirely on how well you meet the performance descriptors for the course.

So it's entirely possible for everyone in the state to get Band 6, or everyone in the state to get Band 1. Other people's performances aren't going to affect your exam mark.

Is it just me, or is this whole HSC thing severely overrated? I mean, the two English's, then this. Next thing I know, they'll be giving us translations for Latin.

I seem to think I'm going a lot worse than I actually am, mainly because I'm a perfectionist and tend to obsess over details after the exam. I think I went badly in Ancient because I had some problems with the last section, but I rationally know that I actually went pretty well across the entire thing.

But I think the HSC is overrated, yes. It's challenging, but it's not mind-blowingly awful.

 

[moekalsoon]

it was toooo easy, thank god, i was so stressed, i think i aced it. P +H easy, Sparta easier, Xerxes loving it abd greek world 500-440 bc a cinch.

i wrote 42 pages and still had more to say but got tired.'

 

[Triangulum]

42 pages

You what now?

 

[katie-loo]

ARE YOU GUYS INSANE?!?!!!!!!!!!

omg.... i thought it was sooooo stupid. granted, our teacher isnt the best there is.. but it all just seemed so.... FOREIGN!

there was about 50 of us sitting the exam. half walked out before 10:30 and when i left at 11:30 coz i was sick there was only about 5 people left! our whole year thought it was hard. there were some easy bits like pompeii and herculaneum but the rest of it was so hard.

we didnt get to the last section in class so i got my own info on the greek world 550 - 440 or whenever it was and i had NO idea who the first two people were and only vaguely knew the delian league and wrote bout half a page for a TWENTY FIVE MARK QUESTION!

im screwed... our whole year is screwed. do you think theres a band zero???