History Paper 2 Disaster

[A_Dying_Wren]

Hi guys,

I'm just wondering if any other schools out there are in the same predicament that we were in. My school only taught us a very limited range of the syllabus in the topic of wars. Specifically we looked at WWI/WWII/Russo-Japanese war causes and effects NOT practices and nothing about women. So yea, none of us higher or standard could answer an entire essay with anything we studied in class. Incidentally, I wasted large amounts of time studying those few wars in depth when I could've done some chem.

I ended up giving much assumptions and speculation and otherwise trying to get something together which I had no knowledge of for a whole essay.

Anyone elses' schools also teach such a limited syllabus?

[McCaffeine]

I felt like I was actually in the opposite predicament. Our teacher tried to teach us a really wide syllabus, including a lot more stuff on early Canadian and early Latin American history than was really relevant to our courses. I also felt like he focused a disproportionate amount on the actual materials for our option, or was trying to teach us every topic available for Paper 2, and I felt like we would have benefited from more in-depth knowledge of a few topics. We had 11 history textbooks for the school year, though, and some of us were able to find the syllabus online and spread around the outline of what we needed to know for the different papers, so most of us were able to brush up on the appropriate areas in time for the papers. The essays I answered, actually, ended up being something we had never discussed in class, though some of the information I used for one had been in assigned reading.

It sounds like it's just a general problem with paper 2, maybe. I know with paper 3, regional history is, theoretically, so ingrained from previous history classes that it's really not necessary to study for that; maybe for paper 1, since it's a "prescribed topic," teachers get really concerned with how to teach for that, and are not sure how to address paper 2? I felt like that was the situation for my class, anyway. I think a balance between your teacher's approach and my teacher's approach would work well- in-depth knowledge on a few, not all or just one, topics. I'm not sure what it's like at other schools.

I'm really sorry about your paper 2 issues; hopefully the IA/other papers will make up for it. :]

[soadquake981]

Well, I was certainly not in the predicament that you were in, but more along the lines of the opposite. We had learned a lot of extra stuff. You're only supposed to choose 3 topics from your paper 2 route, but we did a full 3 plus stuff from all over the other ones.

Either way, teachers should make sure that they refer to the IB syllabus when they teach. That's exactly what my IB Chemistry teacher did (in fact, he taught almost directly off the syllabus), and it worked our great on the exam. Now if only my IB Bio HL teacher did that...

[IBdem522]

What our teacher did was teach us just 2 of the topics (Causes, Practices, and Effects of War and The Cold War). WE didn't cover absolutely everything for these two topics but we covered just the right amount of stuff.

For Topic 1 we covered:

- WWI (in the US, Europe, and Canada)

- WWII (in the US, Europe, and Canada)

- Spanish Civil War and Algerian War of Independence (as examples of guerrilla warfare)

- Falklands/Malvinas War (as an example of limited war)

- Home Fronts in Europe and the US for both world wars

For Topic 5 we covered:

- The entirety of the Cold War from 1945 through 1991

- The home front of the US

- US & Canadian policies

- Gorbachev's policies

- The death of Stalin

- Khrushchev and Stalin

- Vietnam and Korea as examples of proxy wars

- detente

We were fully prepared for the exam and able to answer at least 2 of the essays well. Our teacher did a good job of finding the middle ground between covering too much and not enough.

[intothesea]

I didn't like ANY of my Paper 2 questions.

Especially topic 1, it was like women and airplanes. hahaha.

[A_Dying_Wren]

Thats a lot you guys covered. We only got 3 "textbooks" in total of which only one textbook on wars which was still O/GCSE/Grade 10 level. Idk what we did the whole of grade 11.

@soadquake aren't you just supposed to do 2 topics for paper 2? seems a bit overkill what you've done. And yea, I do wish I actually looked at the syllabus before the exam. Not that it would've done a whole lot of good though if the department didn't teach it.

@McCaffeine Thanks. My IA wasn't the greatest so I'm really counting on my other paper 2 essay and paper 1

@IBdem Lucky you If only my history department was like your's. I also don't think its necessary to cover EVERYTHING in the topic but my history dept left a gaping whole just waiting for us to screw us up.

@intothesea But have you actually studied the subject matter for those questions in class?

I did the math and there was just a 1.5% chance that we could not have answered any of the six questions which is still 1.5% too high. Do you guys think the IB can do anything for us? I know my school has written to the IB.

Edited May 14, 2010 by A_Dying_Wren

[IBdem522]

Thats a lot you guys covered. We only got 3 "textbooks" in total of which only one textbook on wars which was still O/GCSE/Grade 10 level. Idk what we did the whole of grade 11.

@soadquake aren't you just supposed to do 2 topics for paper 2? seems a bit overkill what you've done. And yea, I do wish I actually looked at the syllabus before the exam. Not that it would've done a whole lot of good though if the department didn't teach it.

@McCaffeine Thanks. My IA wasn't the greatest so I'm really counting on my other paper 2 essay and paper 1

@IBdem Lucky you If only my history department was like your's. I also don't think its necessary to cover EVERYTHING in the topic but my history dept left a gaping whole just waiting for us to screw us up.

@intothesea But have you actually studied the subject matter for those questions in class?

I did the math and there was just a 1.5% chance that we could not have answered any of the six questions which is still 1.5% too high. Do you guys think the IB can do anything for us? I know my school has written to the IB.

Our history dept was good but many of our others weren't especially the sciences omg, so I guess we're all in the same boat here and there