GLOBAL HISTORY:
OVERVIEW AND EXAM
UNLESS THE WORLD ENDS
SOON THE EXAM IS
COMING
HISTORY 103/103G
WHAT NOT TO DO
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GLOBAL HISTORY OVERVIEW
• Human life and experience over 500 years. TWO ways of
thinking about this period:
• 1. AS THE HISTORY OR PREHISTORY OF OUR PRESENT STATE OF
GLOBALISATION and its webs of connectedness, economic,
social, technological.
• ALSO the unprecedented global problems facing humanity:
climate change, environmental degradation, especially of
the oceans, resource depletion, species extinction,
population increase, aging populations, rising inequality,
absence of effective global government; unsecured WMD.
GLOBAL HISTORY OVERVIEW
• But of course History is more than simply humanity’s
problems. We could equally focus on life improvements
over the last 500 years, including transformations of hygiene,
medicine and public health, huge increase in life
expectancy, reduction in poverty, technological
transformation of personal comfort and opportunity.
• More importantly History is not about the present, although it
enables us to put the present in context, and get it in
perspective. Rather it is about the past, otherness and
difference.
GLOBAL HISTORY OVERVIEW
• 2. So Option 2: GLOBAL HISTORY STUDIES THE LAST 500 YEARS
OF LIFE AND EXPERIENCE BEFORE GLOBALISATION.
• IN SPACE: the nature of human connection and interaction.
Numbers; proximity and diversity; movement across space.
• IN TIME: the nature and extent of change over time.
Enlightenment and the idea of progress.
• Industrialisation and the transformation of life (not only
human). A history of unintended consequences?
EXAM PREPARATION
• IN GENERAL
• - If you have attended classes (tutorials and
lectures) regularly you are already prepared
• - But in addition print out some past exam papers
• - Familiarise yourself with the format (Parts A and B)
• Revise further for each of these
BE
PREPARED…
FINDING PAST EXAM SCRIPTS
• Go to the library website
• Click on ‘Readings & Exams’
FINDING PAST EXAM SCRIPTS
• Type your course code
i.e. HISTORY 103
• Click search (or press enter)
FINDING PAST EXAM SCRIPTS
• Click ‘View online’
FINDING PAST EXAM SCRIPTS
• Login
• You will be
taken to the
normal
logon screen
• Use the same password you use for CECIL,
email, SSO, etc.
FINDING PAST EXAM SCRIPTS
• You’ve made it! Select which past paper you want from the list on the left
hand side of the page.
SECTION A
• Broad, thematic questions
• Choose one of four questions
• Draw examples from across the course
• Make sure you construct an argument
in response to the question
• Note that this course is about
GLOBAL HISTORY
SECTION B
• More specific questions
• Focussed primarily on one aspect of the course
• Choose one question from this section
• But remember, this is still a global history course
and the question that you choose will also have
occurred in a global context
• Make sure you construct an argument in response
to the question
EXAM PREPARATION
• FOR SECTION B
• - Revisit your essay and essay notes
• - Look at previous exam questions on that topic
• - Pick out some new reading and take notes
• - Prepare another Section B topic with fresh
reading and notes
BE
PREPARED…
EXAM PREPARATION
FOR SECTION A
• Go back over your lecture notes, lecture recordings, tutorial notes, and
tutorial readings. Take new notes from the tutorial readings bearing in mind
the points that emerged from class discussion
• Go over a handful of past 103 Exam papers and look at the range and type
of questions asked in Part A.
• Go back over the Lecture Programme in your Course Guide and pick out
half a dozen large connecting themes.
• Use the Course Guide pp 4 and 17 to identify new general reading.
EXAM PREPARATION
EXAMPLES OF GENERAL THEMES:
• Empires
• Migrations and movements of people
• Environments and interaction with them
• Trade before and after Industrialisation
• Revolutions and political culture
• Wars, regional and global
ONE HOUR MEANS ONE HOUR
TWO QUESTIONS IN TWO HOURS = ONE HOUR PER QUESTION
You have to write two essays in this time.
Be harsh. Do not give one question more time.
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
ANSWER THE QUESTION
• It’s important that you answer the
question that you are asked in the exam
and don't just regurgitate pre-studied
information on the topic. You are being
marked on your ability to formulate an
analytical argument and write a
cohesive historical essay, not just on
remembering examples and themes on
their own. Get straight to the point and
make sure you stay focused on
answering the question.
SAMPLE PART A QUESTIONS (2010)
• 1. `Without Europe there would be no global history’.
Discuss.
• 2. Does a global history approach exaggerate connections
between societies and understate discontinuity and
disconnection? Support your answer with specific examples.
• 3. Compare and contrast the global impact of three of the
following developments between 1500 and 2000: empire,
religious change, war, migration, industrialisation,
nationalism.