Exam prep: your last minute guide to Ancient History

Yesterday’s history, tomorrow’s a mystery and today’s a gift that’s why you call it the present. Unless it’s the night before the Ancient exam. In that case tomorrow’s history, and you’re hoping it’s a gift not a mystery.

I might sound like I’ve lost the plot. But if you’re reading this while cramming for your Ancient trial tomorrow, you’ve probably lost it too.

Tomorrow’s a big deal, here’s how to approach it like a hero:

The Lead Up

If you’re counting down until the Ancient exam using hours not days, you should probably have a good understanding of the main concepts. In terms of content, Ancient is arguably the biggest subject, so the night before isn’t exactly a good time to try cramming everything. If Rome wasn’t built in a day, it can’t be learnt in a day either. Instead of overcommitting to everything, focus on smaller tasks like reading over your quotes and arguments.

When going over evidence don’t forget to look at pictures too. In Pompeii there’s always one multiple choice asking you to identify a photo of a building. When everything is a ruined pile of rocks, it’s hard to tell your Temple of Isis from your Guild of the Fullers. Google image: ‘Buildings in Pompeii’ - you’ll thank me tomorrow when you’re the only kid in the exam who knows what a laraarium looks like.

The most important thing with your last minute study is that it shouldn’t be too intense. If you have a war to fight tomorrow, you need to keep your weapons sharp. Instead of staying up late to madly finish practice questions, give your wrist a break and put your notes away.

Go to bed early, and get a good night’s sleep.

The Big Day

The exam is today. The time has come, the sun has risen. Unless it’s raining, in which case you better hope it isn’t a pathetic fallacy. Either way, you shouldn’t wake up too early. You don’t want to make yourself tired or give yourself more time to stress out.

Make sure to have a good breakfast, treat yourself to a bacon and egg roll or a stack of pancakes- if you think you’re on death row, you may aswell make the most of your last meal.

When you’re heading off to the exam, don’t be madly reading over your 70 page notes. In fact, it’s probably best to leave them at home. You need a clear head when you walk into the exam. Take a breath, go into the room, sit down at your desk.

Your three hours starts now.

The Exam

If you’ve done practice papers, you know what to expect. If you haven’t here’s the breakdown of the exam paper:

Section 1: Core Study - Pompeii and Herculaneum (25 marks)

• Part A – 10 marks
• Part B – 15 marks

Section 2: Ancient Society (25 marks)

• Short answer and extended response

Section 3: Personalities (25 marks)

• Part A – 10 mark extended response
• Part B – 15 mark extended response

Section 4: Historical Periods (25 marks)

• Extended response – essay

How to Do It

So now we all know what to expect- it’s huge. Remember: 300 Spartans beat 30,000 Persians – a 4 section exam is nothing. Here’s your plan of attack:

1. Allocate time

If time flies when you’re having fun, the Ancient History exam must be an absolute party. Even though 3 hours might seem pretty long, with that many sections to the exam you’ll wish you had longer.

Before you start, look at the clock and figure out what time you need to move onto the next section. Even though each section is worth 25 marks, you shouldn’t spend your time equally. For example, the multis in section 1 can be done in half the time which means you can spend longer planning and writing the essay on your historical period.

If you do end up running out of time, don’t leave any question unanswered.

2. Find your questions

The exam paper is 4 sections with each section containing different options for electives, each with different sets of questions. It ends up being about 40 pages long. Unfortunately, only about 6 are relevant to you. Not only is that an entire tree gone to waste, it’s a pain to navigate.

During reading time, flick through the paper, find the questions relevant to you and fold the edges so you can quickly come back to them. Not only will it save you time, it’ll stop you accidentally answering the wrong question if you accidentally mix up New Kingdom Egypt with the other 2 New Kingdom Egypts.

3. Don’t do the paper in order

What? I might be going against everything you’ve been taught about how to sit an exam, but there’s method to my madness.

You should still do the first section first – it’s a good warm up and generally the easiest. But instead of moving onto the Ancient society section, skip straight to the end and do the essay second. After this, do the personality before coming back and finishing with the society.

Why the essay? Even though the essay is worth the same as everything else, it’s always the hardest part. If you’re running out of time and the essay is already out of the way, giving less detail in the answers to your ancient society questions will get you a lot more marks than only writing half an essay would.

4. Use evidence

There’s no two ways around it – if you don’t use evidence, you won’t get marks.

Use as many modern, ancient and archaeological sources as you can in every section. Remember, even if you forget the exact quote, paraphrasing is just as good and in some cases even better. And if they give you a source and ask you to refer to it, make sure to use that source a few times throughout your response and underline where you’ve used it so the marker can see it and give you those marks instantly.

The End

You’ve been writing for 3 hours straight– if your wrist doesn’t give up soon, your brain will. But the time has come - ‘pens down’. You did your best and there’s nothing you can do. Be proud of what you did and don’t waste time thinking about what you should have done differently. After all, you can’t change what’s in the past- it’s Ancient History! (I had to).