Exam Revision

[Samster]

I have my mock exams in just over a week and I was wondering whether anyone had any good tips for revision?

Right now I feel like I don't know much (I know key dates and that's about it).

Are there learning objectives for History?

[xXRainbowDashXx]

Read through all of your notes as many times as you possibly can, that is probably most benefitial (oh and read essays on the subjects)

[flinquinnster]

Well, you probably have more experience than me but this is what I did for my exams:

Paper 1: I got my hands on one of the OSC-IB study revision guides for my prescribed subject (I presume you do Route 2 20th century world history). Then, I just read it and highlighted it. I made short half-page summaries for each bullet point in the syllabus (I think there are 7-8) and hoped for the best. Pithy statistics are good. And so are dates! Also, memorising some historians and their background is good for OPVL (alas, I learnt this to my cost). I also have a bit of a strategy to tackle with each of the four types of questions, but I think it's quite similar to what has already been posted on these forums.

Paper 2: Ha, please don't do what I did. I started writing my notes for Topic 4 the weekend before (but we were only assessed on half of the topic, so it wasn't too bad) - but at least it was fresh in my mind for the Monday afternoon exam! I already made summary tables for Topic 1 (CPE of war) and each war we were studying, so it was a good way to revise some dates, statistics and one or two historian names - names are usually better than vague statements like "French orthodox historians have disclaimed this interpretation of Algerian nationalism..." . I have to admit I did not practise writing essays or even planning them, so that is probably a good thing to do - practising writing essays on time, legibly and with a decent structure.

If you feel as though you need more depth than dates, I would suggest that you probably need to go back and do some extra reading to consolidate your knowledge and make your own summary notes that make sense to you - like conceptual mind maps etc. However, perhaps it is just best to focus on re-reading textbook and intently examining any study guides/revision material you may have, and preparing essays on a broad variety of the syllabus points - you generally can't go wrong there (okay, that's too optimistic).

Learning objectives are in the syllabus as well, but they're quite vague, like "synthesise material...", so looking at the marking criteria for Paper 2 (and I'm presuming Paper 3?) essays would probably be better than trying to look at the learning objectives. For Paper 1, maybe look at the mark schemes the IB produces.

Anyway, good luck for the history papers

[Arrowhead]

Just read the textbook a good 5/6 times for the topics you're preparing. That will be enough.