To some, history can appear challenging with the amount of information you're expected to know by the end of 6th year. That's what I thought at the beginning of 5th year anyway but I quickly learned that once I broke down the subject into topics and each topic into a select number of essay titles, the information required is much more manageable than it seems.
Guide
How to get a H1 in Leaving Cert History
By Vicky B. - 10 minute readVicky got a H1 in her Leaving Cert History and in this guide, she shares her advice for succeeding in this subject.
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Introduction
The research study report (RSR)
This was perhaps my favourite aspect of the entire history course because, despite one or two restrictions, you can basically do your RSR project on anything in history that suits your specific interests. Below are some tips for achieving a good grade in your research project:
Do what you love
When picking your research topic, don't choose something just because it sounds impressive. Instead, choose something that you're passionate about or have always wanted to learn more about. The RSR project is all about independent research and trust me, you will not be motivated to research a topic you couldn't care less about.
Keep it niche
The more specific your chosen topic, the better. Even if you think your topic is entirely unprecedented, chances are the examiner has seen it before. Ask your teacher for advice as they might have corrected dozens of RSRs before and will be able to steer you clear of the most commonly seen topics. Otherwise, try to approach your subject with a unique stance. This way, the corrector will appreciate a fresh take and will probably be more generous with their marks.
Keep the criteria in mind
Keep in mind the restrictions to avoid losing valuable marks. The dates of your research study must be before 1993 if your subject relates to Irish history and before 1992 if your subject relates to the history of Europe and the wider world.
Word count
The word count of your main essay will vary depending on your level but as a general rule of thumb, 600-800 words for ordinary level and 1200-1500 for higher. Also, make sure you keep track of the sources you use because you need to be able to cite them in your write-up.
Get it done early
Try to get the bulk of the project done asap, preferably in 5th year or throughout the summer break between 5th year and 6th year (when you still have some semblance of free time). The last thing you want is to leave it until the last minute. The project is usually due around the time of the mock exams and the orals and it will just be another source of stress if you procrastinate. You don't want to end up submitting a rushed project that won’t achieve the marks you deserve.
Remember
The RSR is an opportunity to guarantee 20% of your overall marks before you even sit the final exam so take advantage of it.
The written exam
The document based question (DBQ)
The document question is probably the second easiest way of gathering marks so long as you don't underestimate them. The DBQ case studies are worth 100 marks (20%) in total and will be examined in a question with the following format:
| Section | Ordinary | Higher |
| Comprehension | 40 | 20 |
| Comparison | 20 | 20 |
| Criticism | 20 | 20 |
| Contextualisation | 20 | 40 |
| Total Marks | 100 | 100 |
As you can see, they are not just a comprehension and require a lot of preparation.
Top tip
If you think a certain topic won’t appear because it came up the previous year, there are no rules explicitly stating otherwise so be prepared for all three.
Approaching this section
Here is my advice for tackling the DBQs:
Practice makes perfect
Practice document-style comprehension questions regularly as it’s imperative that you become familiar with the questions they typically ask. For example, the questions in Section 1 typically require a one-line answer that you can take directly from the text. For Section 2, learning how to compare two different documents is very important and for Section 3 you need to know key terms such as ‘bias’ and ‘secondary source’ to answer many of the questions.
Make a quick plan
For Sections 2 and 3, you’ll need to write around 2 pages to get full marks and as always when it comes to writing, you should plan anything that's longer than a page. I suggest reading the passages carefully and planning your answer in points before writing. Be sure that you know what they are asking for and highlight the sections of the document that you're planning to reference in your answer beforehand so that you can easily locate them.
Short essay question
Planning applies to the short essay in Section 4 too. I wrote a rough essay plan on the three topics with a clear bullet-point structure well in advance of the exam so that I would have something to follow on the day. The titles themselves are generally uncomplicated and do not require much time to grasp so you should be able to use your plan to fit any question.
The essays
Sections 2 and 3 of the history exam require you to write long (3.5-6 pages) essays in response to a prompt. Depending on the category of your DBQ, you will either have to write two Irish history essays and one European history essay or two European history essays and one Irish history essay. Either way, each of these essays is worth 100 marks so pay close attention. Here's some useful information and advice for preparing for your essays:
The cumulative mark
The essays are scored in a very particular way wherein you'll receive a cumulative mark (CM) out of 60 for historical content. This is usually the sum of the scores each paragraph receives. Your essay can have a minimum of five paragraphs in order to achieve the maximum of 60 but a student would rarely receive 12/12 per paragraph. The best thing to do with your essays then is to make sure you have 8-12 paragraphs (including a relevant introduction and a strong conclusion). That way, you can score as low as 5 or 6 per paragraph and still get a very high CM.
Overall evaluation
The other 40 marks go for overall evaluation (OE) which rates the quality of the answer out of 40. To get a high mark here, you have to give a detailed answer that shows the examiner that you have not only given great thought to your analysis but studied this topic in-depth. A simple way to show this is by showing off any extra research you did and including quotes in your answer (this really impresses examiners).
Know what to expect
History is a subject that you can be prepared for before you even sit the exam. I studied past exam papers to get a sense of the frequently asked topics so I knew what to focus my time on. The papers generally follow some sort of pattern so you can look out for any repeated essay questions. However, I would not over-rely on these patterns as they are not guaranteed to appear.
Study what you're interested in
After studying the past papers, I selected 4 essay titles per topic (12 in total) that interested me the most. Similar to the RSR project, there is no point in forcing yourself to learn off information that you have no interest in. I cannot remember the number of times I tried to force myself to learn the 'significant developments in US foreign policy from 1973-1989' only to forget it hours later. I eventually gave up and switched my attention to ‘race relations’, something I found more interesting and ended up learning 10 times faster. Similarly, I chose to learn anything and everything about the ‘cultural revival’ as it was the one aspect of the Irish history course that I enjoyed and found it showed up in some way or other every year without fail.
Textbook alternatives
To further prepare for the essays, I recommend doing outside reading and research. For Europe and the wider world, for example, I found there to be an abundance of documentaries and biographies that immersed me into the time period more effectively than merely studying facts from a textbook.
Remember
History may be one of the most demanding subjects out there in terms of time so stick to a plan and dedicate no more than 40 minutes to each question.
Final tips
Final Tips
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Find a study technique to suit you
Everyone studies differently. Some people find that flashcards help them retain information easily, some prefer to learn from bullet point essay plans and some like to watch historical documentaries on Netflix or YouTube. Since I am a visual learner, I took an essay and illustrated it into a graphic novel or comic book style. I typically had three cartoon images per paragraph and I wrote the key dates or statistics in bold or bubble writing throughout the comic. It may have taken slightly longer to prepare than flashcards but once I had them drawn, I could easily recall them without any issues. Perhaps if you struggle with the more familiar study methods, you could give this one a try.
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Get organised
Dedicate a separate study folder to history and split it into different topic questions. This folder will be specifically for your essays and essay plans or whatever you find easiest to study from. This way, there will be no issues when trying to locate a particular essay that you plan to revise.
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Get the preparation done early
Have all your preparations complete before Christmas break so that afterwards, it is merely a matter of grabbing the essays and revising the content.
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Practice your timing
This is vital. You could have everything else planned and prepared to perfection and still end up falling at the final hurdle if you do not consider timing. History may be one of the most demanding subjects out there about timing, having to write 3 long essays, 1 short essay and answer a comprehension all in the space of 2 hours and 50 minutes. You must know the exact length of time that it takes you to write out the content.
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Time yourself writing essays
If you find that you're going over the limit of 40 minutes, cut the essay down. Remember, this is not an English essay so there is no need for flowery prose and filler language. History essays are fact-based and you should easily be able to fit an essay into the given time.
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Bring a watch
On the day of the exam, bring a watch with you. As previously mentioned, the exam is heavily time-dependent so you do not want to be wasting precious time craning your neck and squinting your eyes to the giant clock on the wall of the exam hall.
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Keep calm and carry on
Next is to breathe and remain calm. The more stress you place upon yourself, the less you will be able to think and recall facts. Take the first 10 minutes of the exam to scan through the paper and highlight the essay titles that you're capable of doing. If there is more than one per topic, choose the question that you feel more confident in answering and which suits your particular range of knowledge.
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Plan before you start writing
One of the most important tips I have for you is to plan all three essays by the question before you even start the exam. Remember, your OE will be based on how well you answered the question so you must be aware of what the question is asking of you. You could write 100 pages on the moon landing but end up getting 0 marks if you don't accurately answer the question. I wrote out bullet points describing what each paragraph is about, followed by the key dates and statistics. This way you can easily reference the plans later on in the exam when you will likely be exhausted and less focused. This way, you will not have to worry about wasting time trying to recall a certain date mid-way through writing the essay and thus lose your train of thought.
Do not leave early
If you do happen to write all the content very quickly and find that you have extra time at the end, do not leave early. Revise the essays that you have written. Fact check and date check that everything is accurate and that you did not omit any information. You can always improve your essays or DBQ responses in the extra time.
Some final tips
for the Leaving Cert History exam.
Find a study technique to suit you
Everyone studies differently. Some people find that flashcards help them retain information easily, some prefer to learn from bullet point essay plans and some like to watch historical documentaries on Netflix or YouTube. Since I am a visual learner, I took an essay and illustrated it into a graphic novel or comic book style. I typically had three cartoon images per paragraph and I wrote the key dates or statistics in bold or bubble writing throughout the comic. It may have taken slightly longer to prepare than flashcards but once I had them drawn, I could easily recall them without any issues. Perhaps if you struggle with the more familiar study methods, you could give this one a try.
Get organised
Dedicate a separate study folder to history and split it into different topic questions. This folder will be specifically for your essays and essay plans or whatever you find easiest to study from. This way, there will be no issues when trying to locate a particular essay that you plan to revise.
Get the preparation done early
Have all your preparations complete before Christmas break so that afterwards, it is merely a matter of grabbing the essays and revising the content.
Practice your timing
This is vital. You could have everything else planned and prepared to perfection and still end up falling at the final hurdle if you do not consider timing. History may be one of the most demanding subjects out there about timing, having to write 3 long essays, 1 short essay and answer a comprehension all in the space of 2 hours and 50 minutes. You must know the exact length of time that it takes you to write out the content.
Time yourself writing essays
If you find that you're going over the limit of 40 minutes, cut the essay down. Remember, this is not an English essay so there is no need for flowery prose and filler language. History essays are fact-based and you should easily be able to fit an essay into the given time.
Bring a watch
On the day of the exam, bring a watch with you. As previously mentioned, the exam is heavily time-dependent so you do not want to be wasting precious time craning your neck and squinting your eyes to the giant clock on the wall of the exam hall.
Keep calm and carry on
Next is to breathe and remain calm. The more stress you place upon yourself, the less you will be able to think and recall facts. Take the first 10 minutes of the exam to scan through the paper and highlight the essay titles that you're capable of doing. If there is more than one per topic, choose the question that you feel more confident in answering and which suits your particular range of knowledge.
Plan before you start writing
One of the most important tips I have for you is to plan all three essays by the question before you even start the exam. Remember, your OE will be based on how well you answered the question so you must be aware of what the question is asking of you. You could write 100 pages on the moon landing but end up getting 0 marks if you don't accurately answer the question. I wrote out bullet points describing what each paragraph is about, followed by the key dates and statistics. This way you can easily reference the plans later on in the exam when you will likely be exhausted and less focused. This way, you will not have to worry about wasting time trying to recall a certain date mid-way through writing the essay and thus lose your train of thought.
Do not leave early
If you do happen to write all the content very quickly and find that you have extra time at the end, do not leave early. Revise the essays that you have written. Fact check and date check that everything is accurate and that you did not omit any information. You can always improve your essays or DBQ responses in the extra time.
Hope these help - happy studying!
Best of luck with the exam! You'll be great.
By Vicky B.