History: Dates in the Question

MightyMandarin

I'm wondering how important are the dates mentioned in the questions asked? A question in '07 was for the Détente essay, but specified 1973-89. However some of the material in the essay such as SALTI's framework which occurred in 1969 and Nixon's visit to China in1972, occurs outside the dates. Does this mean that examiners will discount/mark down for using this material? Or do the dates not matter much?

PaleMoonlight

My teacher has told us we are allowed to give some background info like maybe a paragraph or two just as long as the main body of the essay is within the dates.

Anonymagician

You can (and should) give context in the before dates but in the main you have to talk about the events of those dates. Then in the closing you can give the consequences and mention dates after.

MightyMandarin

So for the purposes of the detente essay, I couldn't talk about Nixon's visit to China, only in the introduction? If I was to play dumb and not mention it happening in 1972, would I definitely lose marks?

Anonymagician

You could talk about how the visit influenced further events or whatever but yes, probably not a good idea to play dumb with it and write two pages on it or anything. You wouldn't lose marks, but there's only a certain amount they can give you for it I presume.

MightyMandarin

Anonymagician wrote: »

You could talk about how the visit influenced further events or whatever but yes, probably not a good idea to play dumb with it and write two pages on it or anything. You wouldn't lose marks, but there's only a certain amount they can give you for it I presume.

Ah it'd only be mentioned in a paragraph, the visit itself wasn't really important, moreso Nixon's tactics of isolating Russia to persuade them to sign SALT2