Thoughts on History?

orriray59

What do you think of History? I'm in fifth year and finding remembering all the dregs and mounds of information to be quite difficult.

I mean, there's such an impossible wealth of information. :pac: Our teach has just finished chapter seven, Ireland Option 2.

It's not that the material is overtly confusing, it's just the sheer amount of content that we're required to know.

The LC really is a bunch of bull, don't you think? Rote learning things simply to regurgitate it in an exam. Surely there has to be a more productive way to gear us up for the Leaving that doesn't involve such a monumental amount of pressure?

What's your opinion?

orriray59

Bump. Would like to hear opinions.

LostBoy101

I'm in 6th year at the moment and I find the History course extremely long and sometimes boring. I love history to bits but the L.C History just ruins it for me.

rugrats

I don't really understand how History can be anything but rote learning. It's about learning stuff events that happened in the past. You can't just make it up. The only thing the department can do is make you "analyse" a topic instead of just telling you to tell them all you know about it. It'll be interesting if you like it.

I don't think you're really required to know that much. There's a lot of choice as regards topics for History. You could leave out nearly all of Ireland from 1916 to 1921 and then leave out 1939-1994 because it is almost guaranteed that there is going to be a question on Cumann na nGaedheal of Fianna Fáil from 1922-1939. Same goes for Northern Ireland and Europe as well...things are handy enough if you think about it.

If you can write a good essay on important topics that are likely to come up, and then have a general knowledge of the rest for you own benefit, won't that be grand... There's huge choice on the exam paper anyway.

orriray59

rugrats wrote: »

I don't really understand how History can be anything but rote learning. It's about learning stuff events that happened in the past. You can't just make it up. The only thing the department can do is make you "analyse" a topic instead of just telling you to tell them all you know about it. It'll be interesting if you like it.

I don't think you're really required to know that much. There's a lot of choice as regards topics for History. You could leave out nearly all of Ireland from 1916 to 1921 and then leave out 1939-1994 because it is almost guaranteed that there is going to be a question on Cumann na nGaedheal of Fianna Fáil from 1922-1939. Same goes for Northern Ireland and Europe as well...things are handy enough if you think about it.

If you can write a good essay on important topics that are likely to come up, and then have a general knowledge of the rest for you own benefit, won't that be grand... There's huge choice on the exam paper anyway.

Oh, yes, I totally agree. History is all rote learning, no doubt about it. There's still a helluva lot to learn, though.

SureYWouldntYa

I went into my Leaving Cert with about 15 essays learnt off. Came out with an A2 that would have been an A1 time permitting. You can "leave out" so much of the course. I could tell you everything about the Eucharistic Congress, but very little about the rise of Cumann na nGaedhael.

You can get by with just the case studies, and the parts surrounding them, but its very chancy with the higher ups wanting to take out predictability. But you can still narrow it down to even half of a topic.

The 3 Perspectives, Society and economy, Politics and administration, Culture, religion and science, at least 2 of these must come up so you can leave out the one you find least interesting if you want

orriray59

SureYWouldntYa wrote: »

I went into my Leaving Cert with about 15 essays learnt off. Came out with an A2 that would have been an A1 time permitting. You can "leave out" so much of the course. I could tell you everything about the Eucharistic Congress, but very little about the rise of Cumann na nGaedhael.

You can get by with just the case studies, and the parts surrounding them, but its very chancy with the higher ups wanting to take out predictability. But you can still narrow it down to even half of a topic.

The 3 Perspectives, Society and economy, Politics and administration, Culture, religion and science, at least 2 of these must come up so you can leave out the one you find least interesting if you want

Culture, religion and science are the easiest by far to me. Ireland Option 2 is pretty tedious, though. Just wrote 7 pages worth of notes there, took me four hours. :pac:
Our teach gives us guidelines to write notes on each chapter. Must say it's a great help, now I can just look over the notes later on.

SureYWouldntYa

orriray59 wrote: »

Culture, religion and science are the easiest by far to me. Ireland Option 2 is pretty tedious, though. Just wrote 7 pages worth of notes there, took me four hours. :pac:
Our teach gives us guidelines to write notes on each chapter. Must say it's a great help, now I can just look over the notes later on.

It will seem tedious now but that will stand to you so much around the time of the mocks and nearer the Leaving Cert. Topic 2 is the worst by far, Home Rule, Parnell etc is the most boring on the course i done.

The key thing for history is to have your notes accessible and easy to read come exam time. Its a lot easier to make sure your notes are readable now than weeks before the LC :pac:

kilfeather94

lol, I know how you feel, I've been there. Did my leaving cert history back in June. I thought I was doomed when I realised how much there was to learn. Rote learning works for some, but It's near impossible to cram everything in. There's just far too much information. What I did before the Leaving was I looked through past exam papers, and read through the question on whatever topics we were studying and just writing out sample essays to keep and look over. Believe me it's a lot easier to do that than to just open up a text book or notes and just read through an entire topic and try and remember. You just really need to make sure that the points are relevant to what the question's actually asking. You're only in 5th year, so there's still plenty of time.

full_irish

orriray59 wrote: »

What do you think of History?

ah its nothing but old news....

ba-dum-tish :pac: