Ika Lob Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Which questions did you do and how did you find the paper?I studied a lot for Italian unification and it just so happened that it was the first time in the history of the IB when a question on Italian unification required the knowledge of German unification also. When I read it, I was already thinking of how I would retake the exam in November.However, luckily, there were a few very open-ended question that I took advantage of. At the end, all 5 of my essays were on Hitler I did:1. The impact of Wold War I on the domestic affairs one country (Germany)2. The effects of The Great Depression on one country (Germany)3. Evaluating the domestic policies of Hitler between 1933-1939.All went well, expect that I only had 25-30 minutes for the last question but that was fine also. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
000 Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 So it has been 24 hours, what did people think of it? Personally, i think it was the hardest paper that has ever been released by the IBO. I spent a lot of time looking at past papers and this was without a doubt that most difficult one that i have seen. But i know that people study different topics so maybe it was just me with my topics that found it hard. How did everyone find it? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konni93 Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 There wasnt a thread on this yet... has anyone ever seen a paper 2/3 combination amongst past papers on which there was (apart from the absurd left-wing-influence-on-art thing) not a single question you could answer on Lenin, and only one on foreign policy? Also, NOTHING on the usual post-war/effects of war which you could twist to the WWs; NOTHING about WWII in paper 3; nothing whatsoever about Spain; and an absurd amount of Germany/Italy pre-WWI. And incredibly little on Russia in general, no Khrushchev, Brezhnev, no Tsars.Is it common for schools to focus so much on the French revolution or what it is stuff, or German unification, or Bismarck? Cuz our teacher almost entirely skipped that (she's utterly incompetent in actually teaching stuff, but I thought she still knew WHAT to teach). Would love to hear some other experiences/whether anyone else was freaked by the question combination in relation to past papers. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
000 Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 There wasnt a thread on this yet... has anyone ever seen a paper 2/3 combination amongst past papers on which there was (apart from the absurd left-wing-influence-on-art thing) not a single question you could answer on Lenin, and only one on foreign policy? Also, NOTHING on the usual post-war/effects of war which you could twist to the WWs; NOTHING about WWII in paper 3; nothing whatsoever about Spain; and an absurd amount of Germany/Italy pre-WWI. And incredibly little on Russia in general, no Khrushchev, Brezhnev, no Tsars.Is it common for schools to focus so much on the French revolution or what it is stuff, or German unification, or Bismarck? Cuz our teacher almost entirely skipped that (she's utterly incompetent in actually teaching stuff, but I thought she still knew WHAT to teach). Would love to hear some other experiences/whether anyone else was freaked by the question combination in relation to past papers.i completely agree. i was utterly freaked by it especially as ive been studying all the past papers; november and may, since 2002 and the questions were so different. there was nothing on spanish civil war, nothing on mussolini and nothing on the tsars which were 3 out of the 4 topics i studied. i struggled to find 3 questions to do and ive never had that problem before. it was a horrific paper. i'm so angry because of the amount of studying that needs to go into a subject like history, and the board could be generous enough to give students a question that they could answer. some people will be fine if they studied alot about the microchip, or about the lebanese wars, but for someone who studied mussolini, the spanish civil wars and the tsars in great detail, it was a horrible horrible paper. it was extremely disheartening 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polo Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 (edited) In my opinion paper 3 was poorly done by IBO from two reasons:1) You could write 3 questions solely basing on Weimar Republic and Hitler.2) The question about provisional government was a joke. Did you notice how it was formulated? I believe it was something like: "Two revolutions were the effect of failures of provisional government" To what extent do you agree with this statement. As far as I know provisional governent didn't exist before February revolution, so what was I suppose to write about ? I know that some people managed to deal with this question but come on! I don't know what was IBO aiming for when planning this paper... Edited May 14, 2011 by Polo Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGBellamy Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manstein Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Which questions did you do and how did you find the paper?I studied a lot for Italian unification and it just so happened that it was the first time in the history of the IB when a question on Italian unification required the knowledge of German unification also. When I read it, I was already thinking of how I would retake the exam in November.However, luckily, there were a few very open-ended question that I took advantage of. At the end, all 5 of my essays were on Hitler I did:1. The impact of Wold War I on the domestic affairs one country (Germany)2. The effects of The Great Depression on one country (Germany)3. Evaluating the domestic policies of Hitler between 1933-1939.All went well, expect that I only had 25-30 minutes for the last question but that was fine also.Did your one and two. Also the question on the weakness of the Provisional Government Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlarson Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 I took History of the Americas. So...the night before the exam, I took preparing completely into my own hands and, despite the fact that my teacher prepped us to write on Peron/Castro and the Cuban Revolution/Cold War, I decided I didn't want to write on Cold War because I felt my grasp wasn't deep enough. So, without ever learning about it before, I took my textbook and learned the Mexican Revolution. I expected a question on Latin American leaders, a question on Castro, and a question on the Mexican Revolution (each of the ten previous exams I looked at confirmed this). Well...I'm incredibly ecstatic I did that, because they combined the Peron/Castro questions into one, and there were two questions on the Mexican Revolution that I knew how to answer. Personally, I enjoyed the exam. The last internet question was very popular with my class as well. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
slizzie Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 oh my goodness, the questions were awful. We only did three topics (the IB's minimum) and no others. There's supposed to be 2 questions on each topic, therefore in theory 6 questions I could have answer, but no! There was a lovely Truman question, I loved that! But the other one was about domestic policy of Canada which my teacher basically ignored so I couldn't answer, we had one lesson which was concluded in nothing really happened. Though usually there are two nice US domestic theory questions. We ignored latin america because my teacher said it doesn't usually come up - there was about 6 latin america questions!! Civil rights I studied to death and did change from pr-50's to 50's and then change in 60's and I got a Black panthars question, which wasn't what I wanted, but ok.. And I never really focused on presidents foreign policy isolated from the Cold War (I had to do it like a paper 2 cold war thaw question for eisenhower's foriegn policy...) ack sooo worried!! I need a six to get into university, I don't think I got it. Paper two was awful, I could have cried! I studied rise to power and maintaining power to death until I could recite them and they either named the wrong dictator or asked for two right wing when I did two left wing and one right wing!! I ended up waffling on about the policy affecting arts for mao and stalin, concluding stalin's industrialisation successes were shown heavily in arts to the illiterate population in order to indocrintrinate them and dsaying Mao's cultural reviolution destroyed art with the five-antis... fail.If I got a 7 on my coursework and 5 in paper 2 and 3 and maybe a six on paper 1 can I still get a six?!So worried!!!! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manstein Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War.Probably needed a bunch of stuff on Austria for question 2. I did a similar question for my exam in IB1, and got a low mark for not going into details on Austrian problems (Hungarians, Serbs and all that good stuff) Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGBellamy Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War.Probably needed a bunch of stuff on Austria for question 2. I did a similar question for my exam in IB1, and got a low mark for not going into details on Austrian problems (Hungarians, Serbs and all that good stuff)GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! I didn't cover that!I basically did how Prussia was strong and how she wasn't!!! I never talked about Austria! I AM SO SCREWED!!! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Soiboist Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Just out of curiosity, can anyone recall how the Italian-German unification question was posed exactly? I'm learning it right now in school so it could be interesting. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGBellamy Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Just out of curiosity, can anyone recall how the Italian-German unification question was posed exactly? I'm learning it right now in school so it could be interesting. Compare and contrast Italian and German unification in the nineteenth century. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manstein Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War.Probably needed a bunch of stuff on Austria for question 2. I did a similar question for my exam in IB1, and got a low mark for not going into details on Austrian problems (Hungarians, Serbs and all that good stuff)GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! I didn't cover that!I basically did how Prussia was strong and how she wasn't!!! I never talked about Austria! I AM SO SCREWED!!!Well, let's think about it this way.1. My teacher was always a hard-ass, giving rather low grades (or so he loved to tell us), and I still got a 5.2. It's only 1 out 3, or even 5 essays. Hence you could afford one not-so-good.3. What is done is done. Doesn't help nobody to worry and be anxious about it. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGBellamy Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War.Probably needed a bunch of stuff on Austria for question 2. I did a similar question for my exam in IB1, and got a low mark for not going into details on Austrian problems (Hungarians, Serbs and all that good stuff)GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! I didn't cover that!I basically did how Prussia was strong and how she wasn't!!! I never talked about Austria! I AM SO SCREWED!!!Well, let's think about it this way.1. My teacher was always a hard-ass, giving rather low grades (or so he loved to tell us), and I still got a 5.2. It's only 1 out 3, or even 5 essays. Hence you could afford one not-so-good.3. What is done is done. Doesn't help nobody to worry and be anxious about it.That does make me feel a little better... And so is Serbia Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Soiboist Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Just out of curiosity, can anyone recall how the Italian-German unification question was posed exactly? I'm learning it right now in school so it could be interesting. Compare and contrast Italian and German unification in the nineteenth century.Woh, that's pretty harsh indeed. My spontaneous reaction is that one would have to contrast a lot. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manstein Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War.Probably needed a bunch of stuff on Austria for question 2. I did a similar question for my exam in IB1, and got a low mark for not going into details on Austrian problems (Hungarians, Serbs and all that good stuff)GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! I didn't cover that!I basically did how Prussia was strong and how she wasn't!!! I never talked about Austria! I AM SO SCREWED!!!Well, let's think about it this way.1. My teacher was always a hard-ass, giving rather low grades (or so he loved to tell us), and I still got a 5.2. It's only 1 out 3, or even 5 essays. Hence you could afford one not-so-good.3. What is done is done. Doesn't help nobody to worry and be anxious about it.That does make me feel a little better... And so is Serbia Serbia? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
000 Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 In my opinion paper 3 was poorly done by IBO from two reasons:1) You could write 3 questions solely basing on Weimar Republic and Hitler.2) The question about provisional government was a joke. Did you notice how it was formulated? I believe it was something like: "Two revolutions were the effect of failures of provisional government" To what extent do you agree with this statement. As far as I know provisional governent didn't exist before February revolution, so what was I suppose to write about ? I know that some people managed to deal with this question but come on! I don't know what was IBO aiming for when planning this paper...I agree, also the provisional government failed in 1917 therefore all you could do was base it on short term causes in terms of the PG. it was a horrible question!! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGBellamy Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My first thought when I saw the paper was "TEACHER FAIL!!!" because we didn't go beyond 1950 when doing the Cold War, hence we didn't know anything about glasnost or perestroika (lol at the autocorrect when I typed perestroika wrong). I did:1. The one about Italian and German Unification2. The one about Prussia, just BSing about how it was rich in natural resources and all that3. The one about the First World War.Probably needed a bunch of stuff on Austria for question 2. I did a similar question for my exam in IB1, and got a low mark for not going into details on Austrian problems (Hungarians, Serbs and all that good stuff)GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! I didn't cover that!I basically did how Prussia was strong and how she wasn't!!! I never talked about Austria! I AM SO SCREWED!!!Well, let's think about it this way.1. My teacher was always a hard-ass, giving rather low grades (or so he loved to tell us), and I still got a 5.2. It's only 1 out 3, or even 5 essays. Hence you could afford one not-so-good.3. What is done is done. Doesn't help nobody to worry and be anxious about it.That does make me feel a little better... And so is Serbia Serbia?Eurovision Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
slizzie Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 aww you beat me to it! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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