I don't understand why people think history is boring like it's the only
class where you're literally just learning stories.
Hello and welcome back to Ivy Lilia!
Because there's so much content for history it's all about
studying smarter and not harder if you go down in my description you'll see a
very long URL that'll take you to my blog where I have posted my very own
guide to the history I a and guide to incorporating perspectives into your
history essays I'm pretty proud of how those turned out and I definitely think
it would have helped me if I had had those resources doing the ia and
learning how to incorporate perspective into my paper two and paper three essays
my first tip is memorize as much as you can but remember that what they're
really looking for is historical analysis if you can't use those
descriptive facts towards an argument and analyze and evaluate that history
you're not going to score well. So the importance of critical thought analysis
and analyzing the historical context is more important than those facts. For me
having a really big database in my memory to pull from on the essay helped
me feel really confident in my analysis because I had so many facts and years
and laws to back it up so memorize as much as you can but do it smartly. Don't
memorize five distinct evidence points if you can memorize three and use some
in overlapping cases. It's really easy to think I need to memorize everything. You
don't. Memorize what sticks with you what you think is interesting and what you
can easily analyze. Going along with your ability to overlap evidence is my second
tip read the syllabus. The syllabus helps with everything it tells you exactly
what content they can ask about and what they will never ask about. Reading the
syllabus is so important for paper one because you'll have two possible case
studies because I had studied history of the Americas one of our units with civil
rights and we chose the rights and protest topic for paper one so we had
already learned about civil rights right all we had to learn about was apartheid
so I was so prepared for apartheid I knew every year every legislation I
could talk about my own knowledge and criticize any document and the paper one
wasn't about apartheid it would have been so useful to have read the syllabus
and know exactly what they could have asked and I'm sure my paper one didn't
score as well as my practices where I was really prepared to talk about the
topics along with some advice about paper one the paper one compared to
other IB exams is so short it's only an hour so you really have to know how you
time yourself and how you can get that paper one done in an hour two more tips
about the paper one just while we're on the topic keep in mind what the question
is asking when it's like in reference to origin and purpose discuss value in
limitation it's easy to just go ham and talk about anything that's a value or
limit of that document but that's not what they're asking they're asking you
to discuss it in terms of something else it's value to historians studying blank
so you need to remember that when you're answering the question because you
otherwise don't have a very focused response and it's not what they're
looking for and for the final question where it's in reference to your own
knowledge and the sources a great way to discuss your own knowledge is to use
legislation that was passed in the years before and following whatever era the
documents are from tip number three perfect your ia the ia is great practice
for your externally assessed essays because you kind of get to see how to
structure a really sound historical analysis and you have a lot of time to
do it in the essay you really just have to go but in the ia you have time to
plan and structure and restructure so it's really great practice for your
externally assessed exams but remember that it is not a description of a
historical period it is an analysis everything about history you are not
describing history you are analyzing history and that is
so important to remember number four take notes and do it throughout the
semester making little study guides there is so much content so if you don't
organize your notes at the end of every unit or at the end of every semester you
are wrecked by the time you have to get into exams I created an entire document
where I had answered every aspect of the syllabus but I waited to do that until
the week before exams and it took me easily ten hours to complete and ten
hours that I could have been studying so make these study guides beforehand
but it is the best way to prepare to have every part of every syllabus mapped
out what you would say because they're never gonna ask you anything that's off
the syllabus so just go ham on the syllabus number five no the command
terms may be a part of the rubric is that you answer the demands of the
question so a lot of teachers stressed the importance of knowing the command
terms I really didn't think it was worth my memory space I thought I was better
off just knowing how to write a strong essay if you are discussing the topic in
analytical and the value t'v terms and you're bringing in perspective and
you're addressing a counter-argument it doesn't matter what that command term
said I think focusing on providing a really strong essay will ensure you'll
score well moreso than just memorizing all of the possible command terms number
five perspective this is so important perspective is the easiest way to ensure
that you're not capped at a low mark band if you are evaluating how different
people or different groups may have seen a historical event that is perfect
analysis in the highest level of the mark band it says there is evaluation of
different perspectives and this evaluation is integrated effectively
into the answer if you're not sure how to evaluate perspectives or you just
want a little more guidance go ahead and see that guide I made make sure you're
introducing it clearly if you say another perspective perfect it seems
heavy-handed but that's gonna make it easier for the grader to see that you
actually incorporated perspective on the rubric evaluation is integrated
effectively throughout the answer don't leave
all of your analysis to the end make sure you are analyzing throughout the
entire essay after every point I would tie it back to the prompt and why this
evidence and analysis helped me answer my question and provided evidence for my
claim if you have questions about structuring your historical analysis
like your essays for paper - and paper three are going to be really similar to
the structure of your ia so go ahead and take a look at my ia guide in the
section structuring your ia that structure is going to be the same
structure you'll use in your essays if you have any other questions make sure
to let me know I love hearing from you guys and I love making content that you
guys want to see even if these videos only help one person I'm happy so yeah
make sure to subscribe and I'll see you later