LC students 2007; History Students

myth800

Congratulations to all history students ….. I was wondering regarding what is the most excellent and consequences conducts to get immense marks in the leaving cert in higher level history does anyone have any advice on how to do consequence study in leaving cert history … yes I’m doing it next year the leaving cert . And what did you get in it . I’m sure everyone done great !!.

Shane,

JC 2K3

Consequence study?? You mean the Research Study?

I got a B1, exceeded my expectations. It was going to be my 6th subject to count(I had 5 other solid subjects I expected As in), but I amazingly got an A2 in English. I only expected low Bs in both.

Insect Overlord

I got a C1, but I know the reason for that was plain old laziness on my part. The guys in my class who got the A grade were writing essays non-stop from September of 6th year. Our teacher was fairly laid back so I never felt under enough pressure to put in the effort, but the top marks were earned by guys who answered a LOT of sample questions throughout the year. I tried my best in the last month before the exam and it was no-where near enough.

Highlight all the most important pieces of information in the book, write them out in your own words, summarise these notes into bullet-points and then try to write an essay style question based on that particular section.

For the exam itself: *Get your timing right. I spent far too long on the documents question, too long again on the first essay and then had to throw down a pair of poor answers in the last half hour.
*Answer the question you are asked, ie stay within the date parameters stated in the question. Also, do not try to bluff or throw in irrelevant material. To quote a teacher: "Examiners are born with a built-in bullsh!t detector".
*Write at least 8 good paragraphs, including an intro and a concluding paragraph. A good conclusion can be the difference between a good grade and a bad one. Each paragraph should be close to half a page in length. Include all the key terms and phrases from your revision notes, and once again avoid the bullsh!t.

That is all from me, good luck next year!

Enemy Of Fate

JC 2K3 wrote:

I only expected low Bs in both.

Haha.Me too!I only expected C1s from History and English....and I somehow got B2s in both...and I was like O.O.

Anyways I just crammed the entire course into the month before the exams started....and it seemed to work grand for me!

Oh and buy the less stress more success history book.Its worth its weight in gold.Now you'll need to spend 1 or 2 hours going through it and your ''real'' books adding important dates and stuff into the LSMS book (for seem reason the LSMS book seems to think dates aren't important in history), but after that you may as well ****ing bin the other books.Its what I did.

Enemy Of Fate

An Fhile wrote:

*Answer the question you are asked, ie stay within the date parameters stated in the question. Also, do not try to bluff or throw in irrelevant material. To quote a teacher: "Examiners are born with a built-in bullsh!t detector".!

Have to disagree with this.As long as its still relevant, you can earn up to 24 marks (2 full paragraphs) by talking about things outside of the date limits BUT ONLY IF ITS RELEVANT.

Haven't a Clue

I got a C1 in history and am delighted with it as I got a D2 in the mocks. Here'd be a few of my tips:

* You seriously have to work your ass off with the studying for this. Get the Less Stress More Success books as they wittle down topics into main points, however, you will still need the information from the books to get a better understanding of the topic.

* Get the research topic done nice and early, like before the mocks. This takes away the pressure that lingers over you if you haven't got it done with a few weeks until the deadline. Don't try and take shortcuts around your actual research either as your Outline Plan and stuff like that mightn't seem as convincing then.

* Get yer timing sorted about how long it takes for you to write and 8/9 paragraph essay before you go into the exam, and with the case studies.

JC 2K3

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

Have to disagree with this.As long as its still relevant, you can earn up to 24 marks (2 full paragraphs) by talking about things outside of the date limits BUT ONLY IF ITS RELEVANT.

Yeah, I was going to say this.

My advice would be to write a "general intro" and a "real intro", and at the end a "real conclusion" and a "general conclusion".

The "real" intros and conclusions are just that - relevent to the subject of the essay. However, the "general" ones you stick at the start and end of every essay and shove in ANYTHING that might be associated with or affected by the events in your essay. You could also make your own arguments as to how some event(s) MIGHT be connected with the events in your essay.

For example, the first paragraph on my essay on Patrick Pearse in the LC wasn't about his birthplace or childhood, ity was about Parnell and the wave of Irish nationalism that preceeded Patrick Pearse's era. The conclusion wasn't about him being executed in 1916, it was about the impact of 1916 on the rest of Irish history.

IMO this is vital info that for some reason we missed and didn't discuss on this board this year. I only realised you could do this about a week or two before the exam, and it only dawned on me to do it in the exam on the day when I saw the topics and knew I wasn't as prepared as I'd have liked to have been.


On a side note, I didn't bother with any extra revision books like LSMS and don't think they're very necessary at all.

mise19

hey! i got an A1 in history! i'm delighted! lol. got an A1 in the mocks as well. if you work from the start, it shouldn't be too bad. I did my research topic on Harry Boland.

My advice is to choose a topic that interests YOU and not the teacher. If you have no interest in the topic, you won't want to work at it.
Also, it is very important to limit the timeframe, i.e. the title of my topic was Harry Boland's life while in prison in england BETWEEN 1916 and 1917.
Examiners like this, as it is easier to mark and also shows good research and editorial skills.

Apart from the research topic, essays are extremely important.
If you write good essays from the start, you will be able to use them to revise your history, instead of using the book.
Make sure your teacher marks your essays and if you're not happy with your grade, improve it.

History is a subject which requires good writing skills, and make sure you structure your essays properly.

Good luck!

Haven't a Clue

Yeah, I'd advise you go for something obscure, but you would still have a good interest in it. For example, you obviously wouldn't do a research topic on Hitler, but maybe something about that plot to assasinate him that isn't that widly known would be good.

mise19

Haven't a Clue wrote:

Yeah, I'd advise you go for something obscure, but you would still have a good interest in it. For example, you obviously wouldn't do a research topic on Hitler, but maybe something about that plot to assasinate him that isn't that widly known would be good.

exactly.

Don't do it on someone like Michael Collins - examiners will not want to mark it.

Choose an aspect of someone's life which interests you and is not widely known.

Personally I think it's easier to do the topic on a person rather than a war or a historical event.

But then again, it's all personal

JC 2K3

I did it on the Actions of the American Government during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It was nice since it only lasted 13 days and it was something that was easy to go in depth with and express my own opinions on it.

Mars Bar

I did Rasputin...not too sure it went down too well but my paper was horrific...

Enemy Of Fate

mise19 wrote:

Personally I think it's easier to do the topic on a person rather than a war or a historical event.

But then again, it's all personal

Nah i'd say you should go with an event.I mean i'd find it EXTREMELY hard to write 1500 words on anybody's life, without it becoming boring and stale.Events are much easier to write about, and provide you with MUCH more scope for detail.For instance my essay title was ''The Manhatten Project and the resulting destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki''....and I think I wrote like 1700 words across 15 paragraphs!And I could easily have written another 200.It was so easy to get information on and theres so much you can write, especially if you focus on 2 intertwined events like I did (ie the project itself and the bombings).

christophicus

History was the only subject I failed. Ironically , that and music were the only subjects I passed in the pre.

myth800

JC 2K3 wrote:

Consequence study?? You mean the Research Study?

I got a B1, exceeded my expectations. It was going to be my 6th subject to count(I had 5 other solid subjects I expected As in), but I amazingly got an A2 in English. I only expected low Bs in both.

Consequence study = what I meant my Consequence study was getting effected study out of what I studied in that time . I'm so happy for you

myth800

I’m so astonished about everyone is happy with there great grade’s it has been a amazing success for each person . in school we do a essay every week I usually I obtain B1 - B3 . But some boys say the teacher I have does mark essay and homework harshly. But I was speculating about does this occur in the leaving cert and the monks . …. Does all history teachers do test every week ???? Oh in the Christmas test and summer test we only get two essays to right about . But he done it in class … but we don’t know which one it is . Did this happen in your school. ???? , oh yeah its usually 10 - 12 essays we completed from Christmas to summer .

Ones again Congratulations everyone with your leaving cert results .and thanks for the help it was more than useful Best of luck in the future

Shane,

Corruptedmorals

I got a B3, fuming. Expected an A2/A1, I loved that paper. My reseacrh topic was on the geisha of Japan, but in fairness, I did make it historically relevenat, and it is now open to do anything you want with it. Appealing.

TheInvisibleFie

I got a B1 in History. For my Research Topic, I had been reading up on it and had one version handed up in fifth year. I was really interested in the topic. Also, before you start doing it properly, make sure you have three decent sources and one of them a book by a historian. Be careful with internet sources and don't use Wikipedia (someone in my class did and our teacher asked the chief examiner person at an in-service day who said it wan't allowed because you don't know who is writing it). Do have a specific title before you start writing as it is only 1300 words (plus 200 review).

If you end up being stuck for time learn sections rather than chapters (as in all of economy not just Fianna Fail economy and Cumann na nGaedhal Anglo0Irish relations). Practise actually writing up the essays in the time. I know that I gave loads of rubbish which cost me but I couldn't bear to go back and cut out some of those paragraphs during the exam.

JC 2K3

One of my sources was extracts from/reviews of a book that I got online, I just said I had the actual book

Naikon

JC 2K3 wrote:

One of my sources was extracts from/reviews of a book that I got online, I just said I had the actual book

I assumed that I was the only one:eek::D

Agri_trust

Naikon wrote:

I assumed that I was the only one:eek::D

Hahah I did that to, came out with a B2. Which is great seeing as I only wrote a page for the last essay and I got a C3 in the mocks.

WildCardDoW

I should have a list of possible questions that will help you prepare, I'll try and find them and scan them up to help you.

ixoy

What do you mean by consequence study? I got 100% in my Leaving Cert history exam - beat everyone in the subject that year, the losers
I didn't do anything particularly special rather than memorize two hefty tomes, have a good command of the English language (enabling me to articulate my point), and have a well-researched "special topic".

TheInvisibleFie

JC 2K3 wrote:

One of my sources was extracts from/reviews of a book that I got online, I just said I had the actual book

Cheaters! That's not fair.There I was going off and actually buying the book... I do intend to read the rest of it someday. I love indexes...

JC 2K3

It's not really cheating. Everything I refferred to was in the book, I just didn't have a physical copy of it.