Anyone who studies both Ancient & Modern History? (1 Viewer)

[hsienerddd345]

Currently a student in year 10 doing subject selections and have decided to choose both modern and ancient history. Was just wondering if there are students out there who have done the two histories for their HSC and how they went/experience.

Q1: Do/Did you ever regret choosing both Modern & Ancient History?

Q2: Should I just stick to one?

Q3: Any advice on doing well?

 

[lach792]

I only chose one (modern) but I know a few people who chose both.

Of the people I know who chose two, some love it and some hate it. They are very content-heavy subjects but if you love history, you will not have a problem from what I have noticed.

However, if you are not insanely keen on history, you may end up hating every second of it. I'm currently experiencing this, I chose modern for prelim as a 'filler', something I was always going to drop, because I thought it might be interesting. But there is load and loads of content and if you don't love learning about history, you'll start to hate it pretty quick. I've noticed that most people have found this, from my class of about 20 there will be about half that next year because of this.

But as I said, if you love it I'd definitely say go for it.

 

[#RoadTo31Atar]

I chose both in Y10 but the subject lines ended up only letting me do modern, if I could go back in time I would not do both and would not recommend doing both. History can be either boring or interesting depending on the topic, even when it is interesting it's a very easy subject and most of it is just memorising and learning to write so even the interesting topics will prob feel too slow and kinda boring. Also, I think ancient scales worse but make sure to check that is actually true because I'm not 100% sure.

Advice on going well is to be able to write a lot, if you look at the top band responses they will all be very long responses. Also, remember a lot of historical terms for essays since they count as evidence but are way easier to remember than quotes. Historians' views are good at showing that you're well prepared but just 1 or 2 is enough in an essay to show that and I think that your own analysis is more important as far as answering the question.

 

[kitty15003]

I chose both! The assignments for me personally were pretty simular just the content was different and I enjoyed it although I did enjoy ancient history more. There is a lot of essay writing though so just be prepared for that,,, I'm still in year 11 though so I'm not sure how difficult it will be for year 12. But if you enjoy both subjects you will be fine. Also, it's important to have good time management skills and practise source questions!

 

[Tasfia]

No on 1 and 2. Even if they are content heavy if you have interest in both you will do well. Make your notes after every term. Even better do them everyday. Do not leave them last minute!

 

[violetcombe]

I have recently graduated having done both. I loved it, in year 10 I was on the brink of choosing geography instead of ancient for similar reasons that you express, it just didn't sound good to do two histories. It felt too narrow. but I'm really glad I did. One thing people miss in their responses to this thread is that doing both histories is not like doing lots of the same subject -- ancient and modern at this level are completely different disciplines. Ancient felt much more hands on to me, you can't just read a textbook account. Instead you're obliged to get stuck into primary sources. Because you're dealing with happenings of so long ago, everything needs to be supported by an ancient written/archaeological sources and you start piecing together your own narrative. whereas in modern, we have the facts (dates, names, places) in minute detail. So it's less dominated by primary sources, it's much more of just memorising an established narrative. So I found it less interesting, more rote-learning involved.

But it didn't get monotonous, it didn't feel like doing history on history (and I even had the same teacher for both) because they are very distinct subjects. Advice on doing well: always interpret passages/quotes that you take from a primary source, don't just present them. Draw specific insights from the evidence you bring into an essay. And you don't need to memorise heaps of quotes, marks are also awarded for paraphrasing