hello and thank you for checking out this audio revision guide from Mr oloph his.com you can visit my website to download free history revision podcasts on this topic and a whole load of others in this podcast I'll be specifically focusing on Part B questions for paper two of the Cambridge International examinations as level in history that syllabus code 9389 for information on other as questions check out my website for more podcasts what I'm about to say is based upon notes from the examiner's report combined with my own practical tips and tricks for using your Knowledge and Skills in the right ways to gain the maximum number of marks that you deserve the examiner's report is a document written by the chief examiner that's the person who sets the exam and therefore that's also the person person who wrote The Mark scheme and in the report they explain what students have done well in a previous exam and what needs to be improved it's therefore a really handy way to find out the things you should include that examiners like to see and to avoid the mistakes that could lower your grade Part B questions are worth 20 marks or two3 of the total marks available for each topic based on the timing formula that I discussed in my previous podcast you should therefore look to spend no more than 30 minutes answering each part B question now Part B questions are analytical and many of them are worded in a way that asks you how far you agree with something however even if they don't use that specific wording the technique to answer the question is the same you have to present a balanced answer in which you address both sides of the argument and support your point with detailed evidence you'll be familiar with this type of question if you studied GCSE or igc history but at as level the approach is obviously more advanced previously you may have taken a very formulaic approach in which you argued one side of the argument then argued the other and then presented your conclusion now that approach will work at as level and will score you at least a level three that's 10 marks out of the possible 20 and it could even score you level four that's up to 15 marks out of 20 since the mark scheme says that this level is awarded for answers that develop a balanced argument however the maximum 20 marks are only awarded for those responses that in the words of the mark scheme develop a sustained judgment it's the word sustained that is important here now your judgment is is your overall conclusion and so to sustain this judgment means that you must constantly refer to your overall opinion throughout the essay writing a balanced but formulaic answer does not sustain your judgment as you would be dedicating about half your essay to just one side of the argument what you need to do instead is to create a running analysis or a series of smaller balanced arguments that run throughout your essay this is where planning and organization become massively important as well as organizing your essay into evidence for and evidence against the question you must also sort it into themes you'll be used to sorting evidence into themes from your part A answers but now you're adding the balanced argument on top of it the best way for me to explain how this is going to work is to give you an analogy let's imagine that you've been asked to answer a question on France 1789 to 1804 and have been given a question in which you are asked how far Napoleon maintained the aims of the Revolution a simple approach to this question would be to present all the things Napoleon did that maintain the aims of the Revolution I.E Liberty equality and Brotherhood and then all the things he did that went against these aims and then at the end reach a balanced conclusion the problem is that this approach does not not give what we call a sustained judgment instead it presents two opposing viewpoints and then reaches a conclusion a better approach would be to assess how far the different themes of Napoleon's rule such as his different political social and economic policies maintain the aims of the Revolution almost like a series of miniature balanced essays so having written an introduction in which you outline your overall argument the main body of your essay could therefore take the following approach you could firstly write a balanced paragraph in which you discuss Napoleon social policies you would present evidence of social policies that maintain the aims of the Revolution and then evidence of those that didn't and argue whether overall his social policies maintained the aims of the Revolution you'd then move on to your next category or theme for the next paragraph such as his economic policies and present the ways in which these maintain the aims of the Revolution and the ways that they didn't and so on by constantly evaluating both sides of the argument in a structured and well-organized way you're able to present what the mark scheme refers to as a sustained judgment the examiner's report says that the most impressive responses were based on the development of consistent and balanced argu arguments explicitly focused on the requirements of the specific question leading to reasoned and well supported conclusions I think you can probably guess what weaker responses consisted of that's right they either didn't answer the question or they didn't present balanced answers or they were too narrative or descriptive that means that they told the story of the events rather than assessing them in relation to the question other answers may have been balanced but didn't include sufficiently detailed evidence so to summarize your answer needs to focus closely on the question being asked including the time frame stated present a balance thematic argument and support your points with detailed and accurate evidence now remember that in the paper 2 exam you need to answer Parts A and B from two different topics part A should take an absolute maximum of 15 minutes while Part B should be a maximum of 30 this timing however does not take into account the time involved in choosing which questions to answer the time taken to plan your responses or the time for reading and checking through your work afterwards you should therefore be aware that you actually have less than 15 and 30 minutes for each part A and Part B respectively it's vital to keep a very close eye on the clock in the exam Hall to ensure that you don't overrun now all a levels are challenging and for many people the biggest challenge with a Lev history is the timing it's a challenge to write sufficiently detailed and analytical answers in the time available but the exam is not about regurgitating everything that you know about the subject you must select the most appropriate parts of your knowledge to answer the questions that you face this is the key to keeping within the time limit you need to know the content inside out in order to be able to choose only the most relevant examples to answer each question the very fact that you've listened to this podcast shows that you're aware that there is a technique to answering these questions and so I hope that it has helped in some way toward you developing and mastering the skills needed to get the grade you deserve for more revision podcasts on exam technique and on specific subject content you can visit my website at www.m oloph his.com good luck