AS Students - Examiners Resources

One of the best ways to ensure you have prepared your material properly is to look at the exam board's Examiners' Report. If you go to this page, you will find links to both the Chinese and British papers' reports from January.

In the case of the British course I have also added a link to the January paper (in pdf format).

The British report is much fuller, giving detailed general comments and two very detailed analyses of the actual questions - essential reading for your source preparation.

The Chinese paper did not yield specific reports on the January China questions, but the general comments are nonetheless revealing - I have underlined key points on the report itself.

Finally, we are covering Cultural Revolution late tomorrow afternoon (see below) for those who wish to come along, and if there is demand for it I will do a Deng session as well - perhaps the last Saturday of half term. Let me know if one is needed.

AS-level - China Questions

The Cultural Revolution is the topic for a revision session planned for tomorrow (Wednesday) after school - between 4 and 5 pm. Unlike the previous revision session, this will be a more straightforward run through of what the Cultural Revolution was, and an assessment of its impact. I have had a look through both the published exam questions that you have (specimen questions and the actual January exam) and compared them against the 'Key Issues' on the specification, and it strikes me that a likely Cultural Revolution Question could be based on the Key Issue - "Assess the origins and consequences of the Cultural Revolution" - so we will use that as the basis for our run-through.

GCSE Revision Sessions

I cannot do the planned revision day with Year 11 on Thursday, as I am out at a meeting all day. However, Mr. Shergold is running revision sessions which members of all Y11 sets are welcome to attend if they wish. The schedule from Thursday is as follows:

Thurs 21st May - Periods 6 and 7 - Cold War (Paper 1)

Friday 5th June - Period 3 - Weimar

Tuesday 9th June - Periods 4 and 5 (* see below) - USA 1919-39

Wednesday 10th June - Periods 6 and 7 (** see below) - The Nazi State

* - The timing of this on the Tuesday will allow those with a Geography exam on the morning of the 9th to attend if they wish

** - I have managed to fit this session into a Wednesday afternoon slot – you all have a 45mins Physics exam on the 10th starting at 1.30pm – you are welcome to attend if you want to.

GCSE History exam times and dates:

Paper 1 – Wednesday 3rd June 2009 9.00am

Paper 2 – Thursday 11th June 2009 1.30pm

All revision sessions will take place in Room 46

These sessions are completely optional – however, please note that if you arte coming into school for theses sessions you MUST WEAR SCHOOL UNIFORM!

Mr Shergold

Berlin Blockade Anniversary

It is the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Berlin Blockade today. On 12th. May 1949 Stalin tacitly admitted defeat, after a year of trying to stop the western powers supplying West Berlin with essential food and fuel. It was arguably the first conflict of the Cold War, and veterans from the time recall their experiences to the BBC here. BBC Bitesize has this short revision page as well.

Eastern Europe - Link for A2 students

Use the link from this post to access the various articles on Eastern Europe, which you will find helpful for note-taking and forming an overview of how the Eastern Europe countries evolved during the century.

GCSE Revision

I will run a GCSE Revision Day on Thursday May 21st., organised as follows:

9.30 - 11 - Aspects of Paper 1 Section A (International Relations 1919 - 1963)

11.30 - 12.30 - Paper 1 Section B (Britain in World War 2/focus on answering source based questions)

2 - 3pm - Paper 2 - Answering Questions on Germany

3 - 4pm - Paper 2 - Answering Questions on the USA.

The format will be to consider key content, and apply it to sample question styles. It would be helpful to know roughly how many, if any, students are intending to come along, in order to prepare the appropriate quantities of material. Please indicate using the comment section of the blog.

AS Level Revision Sessions

These will run as follows:

Thursday May 14th.
9 - 10 am - Early Years (1911 to 1930s)/focusing on the Nationalists
10.15 - 11.15 am - Reasons for and assessment of the Communist victory by 1949
11.45 am - 12.45 pm - Mao and the CCP 1949 - 1966

Wednesday May 20th.
4 - c.5pm - The Cultural Revolution

My apologies if these times are not wholly suitable - the difficulty has been fitting these revision sessions around AS exams, and the demands of holding AS politics and GCSE sessions as well. However, please remember tha if you wish to go through a revision essay, or check any other aspects of the course during revision, please just contact me by email or phone to arrange a time.

It would be helpful to know roughly how many students, if any, are planning to attend, in order to prepare appropriate quantities of material. Please use the comments section of the blog to say whether you are coming. Thanks.

Politics sessions are posted on the politics blog.

Revision Classes

A timetable for the various exam revision classes will be published on this blog shortly, with sessions beginning on Wednesday (I am unfortunately away from school tomorrow - Tuesday). Similar politics timetable will go up on the politics blog for AS students.