What's Modern History Like? (1 Viewer)

[saschy]

lol my skl is totally weird we did the hsc over two years, so this year the only subjects i have done are adv english, ancient history and business studies (via OTEN) coz we do prelim for like 1st term and hsc 4 the next 2 terms so i sit three hsc subjects this year and three hsc next year.
im wondering if anyone can tell me what you do in modern history coz i have signed up for it (via OTEN) but im not sure what you do in it and i have looked at papers and stuff, but im still majorly confused...and is legal studies hard?? im gonna do that online as well......
lol ne1 with ne info would be heaps appreciated

Thanks
saschy!!!!!!

 

[goldenboot]

Well I do both, in modern history you do WWI, Weimar Germany, Nazi Germany, a 20th century personality such as Speer and the Cold War. Modern is easy if you do practise essays, not necessarily papers.

Legal studies is relatively easy, all you have to do is have a sound knowledge of the content and then all you do throughout all assessments pretty much is assess or evaluate the effectiveness of the law in a certain area. For example:
Legal Aid is...
Legal Aid provides...
Legal Aid is therefore somewhat effective...
However Legal Aid...

Or something along those lines

 

[Kujah]

The topics we're doing in HSC Modern include:

- Core Study: WWI
- Germany 1919-1941
- Either Conflict in Europe or Pacific
- Albert Speer

 

[Born2baplacebo]

It's great, it's more useful than ancient to me.

 

[Triangulum]

The prelim course in modern has a core study of the world up to 1914, focusing on colonialism, nationalism and that sort of thing as contributors to the explosion of violence in Europe in 1914. There's also two country/period studies which are chosen by your school (mine were Russia from the mid-18th century to the revolution and China up to the revolution of 1911), and you have to do an individual research project of something like 1500 words.

The HSC course has a core topic of WWI. Then there are three options: one is a war/conflict (I did WW2 in Europe: others include the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Cold War, WW2 in the Pacific and the Vietnam War), one is a country (most popular by far is Germany between the wars: others include China from the 1920s to 1949, which I did, as well as the USA, post-WW2 Australia and various others) and the last is a personality (don't know which is the most popular: I did Zhu De, a relatively obscure Chinese communist, others include Sun Yat-Sen, Khrushchev and God knows who else).

Assessment in the HSC course is the usual, really: there's a research component, a verbal presentation, in-class essays and some other stuff. It's a very writing-heavy subject. The final HSC exam includes two major essays and a 10/15 split question (as well as a shorter-response section), and some of the questions are quite intricate. It's a rigorous course, I think, and it's pretty interesting. (If you do the right options, that is.)

 

[yosemite sam]

modern is a really content based course, like triangulum said. we did russia for our country, trotsky for our personality and indochina for our war/peace module. if your teacher is clever, like mine, your study can be a lot easier by doing a country and personality that relate (russia and trotsky).
having said that, the only real way to succeed in subjects like modern and ancient is to know your stuff. so be prepared for heavy note taking, revision, and a shit load of writing. the exams are short answers, source based responses and then three essays, all over 3 hours. so if youre the sort of student that can handle a lot of revision and writing in order to do well, go modern.

 

[Kujah]

Oh yeah, can someone help me with a question on how to structure a Personality essay?

If we were given a quote eg- ""Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them", and we had to assess your personality's role in light of this statement, how would I structure myy essay layout?

 

[tanjin]

Modern History Rules . You're best off to find out about which topics you will be studying and from there have a look at the syllabus - see if it interests you. Don't do modern unless you truly appreciate history because at times it can get boring

At my school, we studied

WWI (Core topic)
Russia & the USSR
Trotsky (Personality Study)
The Cold War (Personally i found this to be quite a boring topic)

 

[zangetsu.xo]

kyaaa NO NO NO NO DON'T DO MODERN OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

 

[Ademir]

^ Don't listen to this obviously deranged lunatic

Modern is the best subject ever. It is quite a bit harder than ancient, but if you find it interesting, you won't regret it.

My school did:

WW1 - core topic
Conflict in Europe, WW2 - studies in conflict
trotsky - personality (this is really interesting)
russia 1920something to 1940something - national study

It's different from ancient almost entirely, so don't feel like you're overloading yourself with samey subjects. The emphasis on sources isn't as strict, but discussion of historians and differing viewpoints is far more prominent. It's also very intricate as one poster said - generalised statements can get you through ancient but probably won't for modern. You need to have a true mastery of "how to answer the question" because with the exception of 5 one mark questions for the core topic, you'll be writing 3 ten mark essays, a 15 mark essay, and 2 twenty-five mark essays for the HSC. Be prepared for alot of essay-planning and writing. But if you're into that sort of thing like me, then you won't mind.

As for legals, it's not too difficult as a subject. the core topics of law in society, human rights and crime are easy as. Just learn the content and know how to answer short answer questions in the HSC. you might need to follow 1 or 2 case studies in depth but that's not difficult. for the two elective topics you do, you'll need to be able to answer 25 mark essays but most of them follow a predictable pattern. theres isnt a huge amount of variety they can ask for them; it pretty much always revolves around effectiveness of law.

if youre at all interested in law, you'll like legal studies.

good luck with your choices, and i hope you choose modern

 

[47sniper]

just keep in mind, there's SO SO SO MUCH to remember

 

[tanjin]

just keep in mind, there's SO SO SO MUCH to remember

Rather than memorising the content, it's best to understand the work. That way when you sit for the exam, you're not regurgitating information and you're marks will be higher because you would be able to understand what the questions are asking. However i do agree with 47sniper - there is a lot of content to study, but this shouldn't be much of a problem if you revise your work often and maintain a good study pattern.

 

[47sniper]

yes obviously you have to understand it, i'm just saying there's alot to remember but if you're interested it won't be too hard

 

[tanjin]

yes obviously you have to understand it, i'm just saying there's alot to remember but if you're interested it won't be too hard

Yes, but many people simply memorise the information with no understanding at all about what they're reading. As you said, if you enjoy history the work won't be of much difficulty.

 

[FridayEvening]

I found Modern History to be a very interesting course - the truth bettering even the greatest fiction and all that.

However, I always felt like WWI was almost an overly simple "obstruction" to the more interesting parts of the course. Perhaps it's just the nature of that part of the syllabus; source based questions and such.

*shrug*

 

[bassguy]

Modern is all hard-like. There's a loooot of stuff to learn.

 

[zangetsu.xo]

ok so clearly the people who wrote before this post [with of course with the exception of my previous, extremely relevant post] are crazy.
modern has soooooooooooo much content.
if you MUST do it [and i advise you think very very VERY hard about your decision] it would be best to learn how to write history essays.
i have found out the hard way that it is really quite different to english essays [which im not too unfortunate at] and ALL my essays have been craphouse.
so learn the art of essaywriting.
GOD SPEED.

 

[Ademir]

ok so clearly the people who wrote before this post [with of course with the exception of my previous, extremely relevant post] are crazy.
modern has soooooooooooo much content.
if you MUST do it [and i advise you think very very VERY hard about your decision] it would be best to learn how to write history essays.
i have found out the hard way that it is really quite different to english essays [which im not too unfortunate at] and ALL my essays have been craphouse.
so learn the art of essaywriting.
GOD SPEED.

but the person asking has obviously done other essay-ey subjects, like ancient. They obviously like that sort of thing too.

Modern is probably harder than all the subjects theyre already doing, but its not godzilla difficulty. its still possible to do with just a bit of effort, and if you enjoy it, you'll breeze through it.

every subject has alot of content if youre trying to get a band 6 anyway

 

[northofnorth]

Do Modern if you like History and have an interest in it. Its great learning about all the different topics but there is a large amount information to learn but you will be surprised how much you take on!

 

[-pari-]

if you enjoy that kinda stuff, you'll find the course interesting. but it is a very heavy course. it's one of the heaviest subjects i've got, without a doubt.