History essays - HELP!!!

hatrickpatrick

I've just had my Christmas history test today, and feeling fairly confident about it, I didn't really study it all that much (We had maths in the morning and I concentrated a lot more on that). I'n only just realising how screwed I am though.

We had 2:45 for the exam, with 1 documents question and 3 essays to do. Our teacher has told us that essays need to be at least 4 A4 pages long - but I dcouldn't even get CLOSE. I had all the information I needed to answer the questions, but there simply wasn't enough time to get it all written down

How do you do this? I have a feeling I wrote way too much on the documents which was why I was so pushed for time on the others (spent around 40-45 on the documents and wrote about a page for each part, without realising that I'd done too much until it was too late) - any advice for time management in this subject? I like history and I know the course FAIRLY well, but how do you get it all out in that amount of time???

Woop_01

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I've just had my Christmas history test today, and feeling fairly confident about it, I didn't really study it all that much (We had maths in the morning and I concentrated a lot more on that). I'n only just realising how screwed I am though.

We had 2:45 for the exam, with 1 documents question and 3 essays to do. Our teacher has told us that essays need to be at least 4 A4 pages long - but I dcouldn't even get CLOSE. I had all the information I needed to answer the questions, but there simply wasn't enough time to get it all written down

How do you do this? I have a feeling I wrote way too much on the documents which was why I was so pushed for time on the others (spent around 40-45 on the documents and wrote about a page for each part, without realising that I'd done too much until it was too late) - any advice for time management in this subject? I like history and I know the course FAIRLY well, but how do you get it all out in that amount of time???

** what year are you in ???
** The level your doing ??

hatrickpatrick

6th year, doing higher level

regob

all i can say is practice practice practice, the more essays ya write the quicker ya get.

Kurtosis

The way our teacher told us to time it when I was doing the LC was to aim for 38 minutes for each of the essay questions and about 45 minutes on the document. Since all the essays and the document are worth the same marks, you spend an equal amount of time on each of them, but since there is reading involved in the document it's best to give it an extra few minutes.

So on the day of the exam you'll have 2hr 50min total.
38min*3 = 114min
45min*1 = 45min

This is about 160 minutes of the 170 you'll have for the exam. That leaves 5 minutes at the start to decide what question you'll answer and 5 minutes at the end to look over what you've done (or finish off the last paragraph!)

I wouldn't worry too much about your teacher saying the essay has to be at least 4 pages long. Obviously some people have smaller or larger writing than others but also the more important point is that it's the amount of relevant, accurate information in the essay that will get you your marks, not how many pages it takes up. Remember that any information which is not relevant to the question or takes place outside the dates in title will get you no marks, unless it's included in the introductory or concluding paragraphs.
When planning an essay, I tried to divide it up into an introduction, a conclusion, and 5-7 sections in the middle, each dealing with a different point/aspect/topic. Then 4/5 minutes spent on each of these usually ended up around the 40 minute mark.
If you're really running out of time for an essay, just try and get the important information you know down on the paper, even if it's not structured properly or you have to resort to bullet points. If you're out of time for a question, leave it and start the next one, that way you might have a chance to come back and finish it off at the end. If you don't, you might have one question that gets full marks and not get another one half done.

As for the document question, it sounds like you're spending the right sort of time on it, but remember that the last section of the document question (on contextualisation) is worth twice the marks of any of the other questions. This section lets you show everything you know about the context of the document and so you should give it more time than the others and maybe be aiming to write twice as much as the other sections (when I answered the document questions, it usually turned out at about 2 pages for the first 3 sections and 1.5-2 for the contextualisation).
For the first 3 sections, you're using the information which has been given to you in the document(s). The answers can be more concise and you can refer to or quote the document directly. The information is there for you so try to use it to the fullest extent.


Ah procrastination is a wonderful thing, I should have been studying myself! Hope this helps you. If you've any queries, feel free to drop me a PM.

Fuascailt

Alas, the dilemna of history. Its AWFUL!! Two students of exactly the same ability, the one with the ability to write faster will get the better mark.

45 minutes on the doc qu is about right. keep your answers to qu's 1-3 short. 17 minutes on the contextualisation qu. Roughly two pages for that, don't get too complicated, they dont need as much detail as a long essay.

I've found that it does get easier with practise. Does your teacher mark your essays in the exam style? Keep an eye on your content mark, you should aim to get as close to 60 as possible, that'll let you know how you're doing.

kkumk

42.5 mins on each essay. I'm totally hopeless at writing fast too, but we now have weekly tests in my school and I'm able to write up to 6 pages in about 45 mins, so I think that practice really helps.

Also, don't try to make your writing look neat at the start, just start off with the lovely scrawl you normally end up finishing with I've found that helps!

Our teacher told us to write at least 5 pages... but she's kinda crazy so I dunno

Killaqueen!!!

I'm a fast writer but I can't finish one essay in 40minutes (well,38minutes its supposed to be). There's just too much information to write in 40minutes! I seriously have to work on leaving out some of the points. I wrote 4 A4 pages in a little over 40minutes in one class essay (I kept writing til after the bell had rung and I still didn't finish). There's no way I'm going to be able to do that 3 times in the real thing plus a document q. And it's a shame because I love history and I'm going to work really hard for the LC and I think I write good essays, but because of the way the sh1tty exam is constructed many people do a lot worse than they actually have the ability for.

That said, I got 83% in my Christmas exam but we only had to do 2 essay questions and there was a choice of 5 different questions for each, and they were fairly easy choices.

As Fuascalt said, the student that is faster at writing will do better in the exam, not the 'smarter' student.

Stev_o

Killaqueen!!! wrote: »

I'm a fast writer but I can't finish one essay in 40minutes (well,38minutes its supposed to be). There's just too much information to write in 40minutes! I seriously have to work on leaving out some of the points. I wrote 4 A4 pages in a little over 40minutes in one class essay (I kept writing til after the bell had rung and I still didn't finish). There's no way I'm going to be able to do that 3 times in the real thing plus a document q. And it's a shame because I love history and I'm going to work really hard for the LC and I think I write good essays, but because of the way the sh1tty exam is constructed many people do a lot worse than they actually have the ability for.

That said, I got 83% in my Christmas exam but we only had to do 2 essay questions and there was a choice of 5 different questions for each, and they were fairly easy choices.

As Fuascalt said, the student that is faster at writing will do better in the exam, not the 'smarter' student.

Are you writing the facts relevant to the questions or just facts for the sake of having them? Again practice makes perfect and also management does to. Before writing the essay make sure you know exactly what you are going to talk about rather then making it up as you go along and trying to remember facts.

Can you give us a idea of what would consist in your essay?