Extension History - General thoughts (2 Viewers)

[illmatic]

Note - previous post was my friend using my account



Easiest paper iv seen in a while. source for Q1 was a piece of piss and easy to adapt to. pretty much an aims and purposes of history question. i just tore apart the source and then analysed it while using other sources such as Bede, Herodotus, Thucydides, Ranke, Abraham, Elton, Carr. Wrote about how each historian through the ages has had to change the style that history is written to adapt to 'who history is for'. i then went into how its not just the target audience that dictates what history is but what effects the historians as well like context and purpose. like for eg i talked about national histories by ranke and abraham that were being used to promote national pride while historians such as Bede was like a propaganda for the church in the writing of his 'christian history', writing 'god work'. Wrote 12 pages overall...bout 9-10 words a line.

Q2 was a challenging one but was pretty decent overall. it should seperate those that know what they're doin and those that are gettin an easy internal mark free ride. basically i adapted how historians use the sources available to them and how it effects the history they write and ultimatly creates the debates that come from their histories. I did appeasement so it was pretty easy to adapt to the debates on hitler and the significance of the agreement at munich between Taylor and Watt. Wrote 11 pages


Overall pretty happy with how it went and just glad the hsc is finally over

people like you seriously annoy me. I don't understand how you can think this was "the easiest paper by far". no it wasn't. it was normal, standard, and slightly more challenging than previous questions.

 

[fleepbasding]

Question 1 - The only way to answer this question, to my mind, was to break away from writing essays that focus upon schools of thought and really come to grips with the source's argument. You have to adress the issues that he raises about the practice of history, in particular the problems inherent with history that attempts to address present needs of society and the distortions that this can cause. You must focus on this and integrate "sources" as in comments by other critics similar to Jenkins that discuss similar issues of history.
Pointlessly talking about annals, marxism etc will serve no purpose. These can be used to make a specific point, but the focus needs to be upon the source and its comments on history.

I pretty much agree that this question really required the student to engage closely with the source. Usually the source is just a launching pad for a prepared answer but this question was actaully about the source. I spent the whole essay evaluating it, using Carr and Elton to back me up. I was very selective with the source though, I just ignored certain things Jenkin's said, because I couldn't think of quotes to back me up... ahhh. I really don't think one could say this question was easier than previous years, it required much more evaluation than usual and for you to formulate your own position on relatavism and stuff. Although I can imagine that Maxist/Annales could be used, though if it wasn't in the purpose of evaluating the source then yeah, it wouldn't be terribly relevant.

 

[c_james]

I pretty much agree that this question really required the student to engage closely with the source. Usually the source is just a launching pad for a prepared answer but this question was actaully about the source. I spent the whole essay evaluating it, using Carr and Elton to back me up. I was very selective with the source though, I just ignored certain things Jenkin's said, because I couldn't think of quotes to back me up... ahhh. I really don't think one could say this question was easier than previous years, it required much more evaluation than usual and for you to formulate your own position on relatavism and stuff. Although I can imagine that Maxist/Annales could be used, though if it wasn't in the purpose of evaluating the source then yeah, it wouldn't be terribly relevant.

Yes, the best answers to this question would be spontaneous. My teacher, a senior HSC marker, says continuous engagement with the source is required, so ideally you would have to keep linking your argument to it. Oh, and it said "evaluate" Jenkins' view, so you also would've need to pass judgement on it.

 

[gorgo31]

Yes, the best answers to this question would be spontaneous. My teacher, a senior HSC marker, says continuous engagement with the source is required, so ideally you would have to keep linking your argument to it. Oh, and it said "evaluate" Jenkins' view, so you also would've need to pass judgement on it.

Hahahahaha. I can't imagine how many times I referred to Jenkins. Indeed, my whole essay was Jenkins. I started every paragraph and ended it with Jenkins. I was so paranoid about this, along with the buckets of evaluative statements. Oh, and I just remembered, someone in my class HAD PREPARED BLOODY JENKINS AS ONE OF THEIR HISTORIANS!

Yeah, reiterating what you said - this was an exceptionally spontaneous response because it gave you no direction apart from the source. To be honest, I was almost expecting it, simply because the Examiner's Reports from 2001-2004 continuously state how annoyed they are at people pre-preparing answers. They did the same thing with those bastardly stimulus quotes in English Extension 1 (and Markers had rambled the same in the Examiner's Reports) so I thought it was a possibility.

Comparatively, HSC 2005 has been pretty harsh on its Extension students

 

[bonniejjj]

I don't understand how anyone could come into an extension history exam with prepared responses. The demands of the course require that you engage with the question. One of the things I really love about extension history is the fact that in the exam we're all on a level playing field, not like in english when people can write out lengthy prepared answers and still answer the question (that said I did do some semi-prepared responses for english.)
I used Marx to expand on Jenkins' point "some to provide tactics and strategies for revolution" and I used the Annales (or rather, what has sprung up as a result of the Annales, such as the disabled peoples history project in the UK, and biographies of animals, etc.) to talk about "who is history for?" challenging the typically white male eurocentric perspective and offering history from below. Thats how it was relevent, in response to the person who said "Pointlessly talking about annals, marxism etc will serve no purpose." That said I totally agree; the focus must always be on the source and its comments on history. I always use the source to map out my essay, whilst also, of course, critically engaging with the material.

 

[wrong_turn]

this one was really challenging in section 1 i will have to agree. the sources kept rambling on....i hope that jenkins was a post-modernist...

well i just used ranke, herodotus, thucydides and snippets of carr and elton to debate my issues. i thought main issues of the source was the debate on misinterpretation and misrepresentation of different groups to different issues in history. that was my thesis. i wrote about 10.5 pages

for section 2 i wrote about 15 pages for jfk..i used the debates of private and public man, cuban missile crisis. i stuffed this question real bad. quantity is no matter...it is quality...im so screwed.

 

[gorgo31]

I don't understand how anyone could come into an extension history exam with prepared responses. The demands of the course require that you engage with the question. One of the things I really love about extension history is the fact that in the exam we're all on a level playing field, not like in english when people can write out lengthy prepared answers and still answer the question (that said I did do some semi-prepared responses for english.)
I used Marx to expand on Jenkins' point "some to provide tactics and strategies for revolution" and I used the Annales (or rather, what has sprung up as a result of the Annales, such as the disabled peoples history project in the UK, and biographies of animals, etc.) to talk about "who is history for?" challenging the typically white male eurocentric perspective and offering history from below. Thats how it was relevent, in response to the person who said "Pointlessly talking about annals, marxism etc will serve no purpose." That said I totally agree; the focus must always be on the source and its comments on history. I always use the source to map out my essay, whilst also, of course, critically engaging with the material.

I used Marx for exactly the same thing

 

[c_james]

this one was really challenging in section 1 i will have to agree. the sources kept rambling on....i hope that jenkins was a post-modernist...

well i just used ranke, herodotus, thucydides and snippets of carr and elton to debate my issues. i thought main issues of the source was the debate on misinterpretation and misrepresentation of different groups to different issues in history. that was my thesis. i wrote about 10.5 pages

for section 2 i wrote about 15 pages for jfk..i used the debates of private and public man, cuban missile crisis. i stuffed this question real bad. quantity is no matter...it is quality...im so screwed.

Yes, Jenkins is a postmodernist to the core.

I picked up on his point about revolutionary history by talking about what Jean-Francois Lyotard refers to as the contemporary "incredulity towards metanarratives" - the fall of totalising, overarching schools of thought such as Marxism and feminism has given way to local narratives.

That was also the perfect source to use to juxtapose Carr and Elton. Simply perfect.

 

[wrong_turn]

i used that in a fault of misinterpretation as it could be misinterpreted due to translations. i used wie es eigentlich gewen as a prime example of this.

 

[some girl]

I thought this year's section 1 was kind of hard to understand. I had to keep reading it over again and again because I just couldn't understand what it was asking. Bleh stupid Jenkins, I wrote his name and comments so many times that I just got sick of it lol -__-
Section 2 was alright nothing too difficult. Wrote 8 pages for Elizabeth but I could have written more if there was enough time hehehe

 

[lucyb29]

mmm i thought it was a bit tricky ... i'm hopeless at the source questions!! but i studied Jenkins as one of my historians!!! so i suppose that helped a bit to understand the source ... i used herodotus, bede, marc bloch and windshuttle .... i was really clueless on how to incorporate the historians though. was comparing and contrasting not really enough??? what else could you do??

i didn't do too well in the jfk question ... actually i didn't do well in either of them!!! oh well ... it's over now .. we can all relax

 

[Neo^^]

Anyone have a copy of the exam to scan and post?

/google Keith Jenkins Rethinking-History so who is history for

it's the first page

 

[littlebinzy]

I hated it. I don't think I answered wither question right. I wrote a fair bit (probably like 26 pages all up) but I think they'll just be like "great, you showed no understanding of the question, band2!"

Oh well...

 

[*Ya_So_CuTe*]

I liked question 1. I thought there was a lot in the source to provide a stimulus to a wide variety of arguements. It helped knowing Jenkins was a post-modernist to compare/contrast other perspectives though. Question 2 was a bit weird but i think i'll do ok hopefully! Although i enjoyed our convict women case study i'm glad its over!

 

[missyc]

i thought both questions were good i did 10 pages each question1 was good cause all the lame ppl with prepared essays couldnt really use them...question 2 was sweet i do british coming to aus in 1788-1840 was totally perfect for the quote and source stuff and so easy

 

[boringhousewife]

extension exam

Source
Can we not see that the way to answer the question of 'what is history?' in ways that are realistic is to substitute the word 'who' for 'what', and add 'for' to the end of the phrase; thus, the question becomes not 'what is history?' but 'who is history for?'. If we do this then we can see that history is bound to be problematic because it is a contested term/discourse, meaning different things to different groups. For some groups want a sanitised history where conflict and distress are absent;...some want history to embody rugged individualism, some to provide strategies and tactics for revolution...and so on. It is easy to see how history for a revolutionary is bound to be different from that desired by a conservative...

I have just argued that history in the main is what historians make. So why the fuss; isn't this what history is? In a way it is, but obviously not quite. What historians do in a narrow working sense is fairly easy to describe; we can draw up a job description. the problem, however, comes when this activity gets inserted, as it must, back into the power relations within any social formation out of which it comes; when different people(s), groups and classes ask: 'What does history mean for me/us, and how can it be used or abused?' It is here, in usages and meanings, that history becomes so problematic; when the question 'What is history?' becomes, as I have explained, 'Who is history for?'

Keith Jenkins, Re-thinking History, 1991

end source

Evaluate Jenkins' perspectives with reference to at least two other sources you have studied.


Question 2

'There are two histories:...The first is absolute and unchanged - it was what it was whatever we do or say about it: the second is relative, always changing in response to the increase or refinement of knowledge.'
Carl Becker, Everyman his own Historian, 1931

With reference to the above quotation and using your chosen case study, assess the ways in which historians use sources, and evidence gathered from those sources, to change debates in history.
Identify your case study at the beginning of your answer.

 

[boringhousewife]

extension exam

And I didn't do well. Question 1 sucked and I misinterpreted question 2

 

[niteshade1312]

I really liked question 1. It allowed me to use all my prepared historians really well, and I twisted the source to fit what I wanted to say. I used Herodotus, Bede, Ranke, French Annales, Marc Bloch, Jim Sharpe and Peter Burke!! Yeaheayaehe

 

[Don Mackey]

That exam sucked absolute wang. The first question wasn't that bad but it was annoyingly postmodern.
The second question however sucked absolute balls. Due to the fact it was completely irrelevant to our case study. Asking about source interpretation, in our case study Tacitus it is not known who or what his sources were. All we could say what that he was a source for modern scholarship.
Shitest exam in the history of the world. ahhhh

 

[eric__white]

I agree!

Again, the second question does not fit Tacitus. Maybe if they didn't make it a general question for all case studies (which is supposedly supposed to create consistency) everyone could have an equial chance of actually answering question.

All this talk about "sources" and "evidence"... Tacitus IS the dam source!