How to remember it all... (1 Viewer)

[Fake-Name]

Hey, we are soon about to sit 'practice HSC exams' in my modern and ancient history classes. This is where we come in for three hours and do an entire HSC paper for the first time (our trials only contained two sections).

However, looking back on my notes I'm not sure how I'm supposed to remember it all.
In ancient history, for example, I have roughly 12 essays for both the period and personality (24 essays total). Each one contains roughly 10-15 quotes/sources/evidence and probably 5-7 contemporary historians.

This is again doubled for the modern course, so I have roughly 48 different essays, each with 10-15 quotes/sources and 5-7 historians. (This doesn't include the modern history period and ancient society which we are just starting now). Other subjects such as English (adv and ext) and History ext are quite similar.

I know people always say: remember the points not whole essays, but how am I supposed to remember quotes/evidence/historians for each point in each subject? It seems like an almost impossible job. Can anyone explain to me a way to remember everything?

 

[taeyang]

You cheat.

 

[slyhunter]

You're not the only one.

 

[Aykay]

You've definitely over-prepared with 48 essays. For each subject, just remember points and quote which are central, and move into specifics later. So when preparing extended responses, it's a good idea to use similar themes and quotes throughout them if you can. If you want to remember things for, say, history, I think making tables are a good idea, as they help condensing information. There's really no way to have 48 pages of information, you have to learn to condense information.

 

[FCB]

You cheat.

If i did any of those 'humanity' subjects then that's what i would definitely do

 

[Fake-Name]

You've definitely over-prepared with 48 essays. For each subject, just remember points and quote which are central, and move into specifics later. So when preparing extended responses, it's a good idea to use similar themes and quotes throughout them if you can. If you want to remember things for, say, history, I think making tables are a good idea, as they help condensing information. There's really no way to have 48 pages of information, you have to learn to condense information.

It's because there is so many different topics in each section. For period for instance, I have to know about:
* The origins of the Persian Empire.
* Kingship of the Persian kings.
* The successes of Each Persian king.
* Administration.
* Army
* Expansion / military.
etc.

This is again necessary in the personality and the period. And again, this is doubled for the modern course.

I will definitely try to combine quotes/sources for multiple topics, but still I think it may require a continuous study-effort from now until the HSC to get through it all.

 

[Aykay]

It's because there is so many different topics in each section. For period for instance, I have to know about:
* The origins of the Persian Empire.
* Kingship of the Persian kings.
* The successes of Each Persian king.
* Administration.
* Army
* Expansion / military.
etc.

This is again necessary in the personality and the period. And again, this is doubled for the modern course.

I will definitely try to combine quotes/sources for multiple topics, but still I think it may require a continuous study-effort from now until the HSC to get through it all.

I dropped modern last year, but surely it can't be expected of you to learn ALL of that in the detail that you're talking about. Are you sure you need to know every date, every name, every quote and every action of each topic?

 

[Fake-Name]

I dropped modern last year, but surely it can't be expected of you to learn ALL of that in the detail that you're talking about. Are you sure you need to know every date, every name, every quote and every action of each topic?

Ofcourse we're not expected to know every detail of all the topics. However we are expected to include some quotes/dates/historians in any topic we are given.
Eg. if I spent time studying the rise of Hitler and learn quotes and historians regarding his accession to power, and the HSC question is on the fall of Hitler and the collapse of Nazism, then my essay would contain no quotes/historians/very little detail - and would receive a poor mark.

I like Aykay's idea of combining quotes and historians for each topic, this would certainly reduce the load to remember.

 

[tambam]

Going in with a memorised essay for history is a terrible idea, and quite unecessary. Edit: Except today my ancient teacher was talking about how in modern, the first personality question is super predictable and basically asking for a memorised essay? So that would be an exception.

I don't know about your topics,
But for personality & period, there are obviously some main historians who have something to say about almost every topic. Know these guys and their individual points of view well. Like for my personalities topic, everything comes predominantly from one historian. Also, know the IDEAS which they propose, not direct quotes.

And i'm not sure if it works like this for your period, but i did the Augustan Age, and a lot of the past hsc questions can actually be approached from many different angles- eg. you can make different points, give different examples from completely different topics- it all comes down to how well your argue your point. For Augustus, this is mainly around his many reforms- political, religious, social. So my plan would be to learn these really well, and basically all of the questions can be answered from these.
Whereas there are areas of the syllabus that are quite irrelevant and hard to ask a 25 mark question on, ie. how Augustus died. So you can pretty much just skim over these while studying

 

[slyhunter]

The first personality question will always ask for a recount of their life.

 

[Skyzor]

Going in with a memorised essay for history is a terrible idea, and quite unecessary. Edit: Except today my ancient teacher was talking about how in modern, the first personality question is super predictable and basically asking for a memorised essay? So that would be an exception.

I don't know about your topics,
But for personality & period, there are obviously some main historians who have something to say about almost every topic. Know these guys and their individual points of view well. Like for my personalities topic, everything comes predominantly from one historian. Also, know the IDEAS which they propose, not direct quotes.

And i'm not sure if it works like this for your period, but i did the Augustan Age, and a lot of the past hsc questions can actually be approached from many different angles- eg. you can make different points, give different examples from completely different topics- it all comes down to how well your argue your point. For Augustus, this is mainly around his many reforms- political, religious, social. So my plan would be to learn these really well, and basically all of the questions can be answered from these.
Whereas there are areas of the syllabus that are quite irrelevant and hard to ask a 25 mark question on, ie. how Augustus died. So you can pretty much just skim over these while studying

The first personality question will always ask for a recount of their life.

I got an inclass ancient history exam tomorrow. Its personality based and we were given the questions beforehand so in this instance its a pretty good idea to write up an essay before hand and memorise it. NOT for the HSC though...

RANT: I hate the fact i got an assessment worth 20% after the trials zzzz

 

[enoilgam]

In modern you should NEVER memorise essays. Even memorising part one of the personality question is risky, because they can ask something like "describe the persons rise to prominence". For modern what I did was write notes, learn them, then write practice essays from past papers.

 

[Weasel406]

Read over your main ideas that you can shape to the question, once you feel that you have a fair knowledge of that memorise as many quotes as possible (you must be able to expand on these)

I find it helps when I get others to quiz me.