H2 History (9752)

Introduction

For those interested in understanding stories of the past, History might be a subject to consider. However, when making the decision to study History in JC, it is important to note the differences between secondary school History and JC History. In JC, History is more comparative. Students need to identify trends across the different examples taught and craft them into arguments.

For some, History may seem daunting due to the amount of content involved. Nonetheless, if you are able to grasp the skills needed (especially for source-based questions) and understand the content, History is still a manageable subject. While H2 History might have been demanding, it definitely did not diminish my enjoyment of the subject. If anything, the broad range of topics covered made the subject more interesting to me. Learning about Economic History, for instance, allowed me to see the applications of theories I had learnt in H2 Economics.

Nonetheless, if you are considering a combination like BCMH, do be prepared for the demanding memory work. In schools like Hwa Chong, History and Biology papers are sometimes set on the same day. For A levels, there is also a possibility of such a situation occurring, as was the case for 2020.

Examination Structure

The A level examination splits History at the H2 level into two separate papers: Paper 1 (International History - Cold War, Global Economy, and United Nations) and Paper 2 (Southeast Asian history - Regional Conflicts and Cooperation in SEA, Economic Development in SEA, and Political Stability in SEA). Note that the Cold War and SEA Regional Conflicts and Cooperation are topics for SBQ, while the rest are for the essay component.

Paper Structure

Both papers have a similar structure. Question 1 is a source-based question with two parts: part (a) is a comparison question where you have to compare two sources, while part (b) is an evaluation question where you evaluate all six sources given to you.

The remaining questions are essay questions. For each remaining topic, there are two questions which you can choose from. In terms of the way questions are answered, there are differences in the essay. For Paper 2, there is a greater emphasis on comparisons across countries. A minimum of three countries must be used in the essay for the comparison.

Paper 1

Cold War (SBQ)

As the Cold War content is for SBQ, there is a need to focus on understanding the sequence of events in order to analyze the given sources (i.e. it’s important to have contextual knowledge such as dates of key events, so that you know in what context or situation the source was written).
The content for SBQ is quite heavy as it spans from the 1940s to 1990s and includes events that you might not have learnt in secondary school, such as the Suez Crisis.

Global Economy (Essay)

As its name suggests, this topic is focused on Economic History. You’ll learn about post-war economic reconstruction, such as the creation of the Bretton Woods System.
There is also a need to understand the contributions made by the US to the global economy and how the rise of Western Europe and Japan contributed to the growth of the global economy.
There may also be questions focused on the challenges to the growth of the global economy, such as the 1973 oil crisis and the debt crises which plagued the developing world.
Apart from questions on the global economy on a whole, there may also be questions focused on the economic development of the Asian Tigers, specifically Taiwan and South Korea. Questions on the rise of the Asian Tiger can focus on either countries or on both. For questions which focus on both countries, they tend to be comparative in nature.

United Nations (Essay)

This topic focuses on the structure of the United Nations (i.e. the various organs) and the effectiveness of each organ in achieving its aims.
You will also learn about the peacekeeping missions carried out by the UN and the factors that affect the effectiveness of these missions.
Naturally, after learning the limitations of the UN, you will also learn about the reforms carried out by the United Nations to improve its effectiveness.
This topic will definitely be interesting to those interested in politics and the role played by the UN in resolving conflicts.

Paper 2

Regional Conflicts and Cooperation (SBQ)

This topic is covered under the SBQ section and the content covered is quite broad. While a large portion of the content will focus on the role of ASEAN and some of the conflicts ASEAN took on (e.g. the South China Sea issue), there are also some bilateral conflicts that will be covered (e.g. the Sabah dispute between Malaysia and the Philippines).
Personally, I found the SBQs centred around the bilateral conflicts harder as the contextual knowledge needed could be quite specific.

Economic Development in SEA (Essay)

This topic focuses on the approach taken by SEA countries when it comes to economic development. Note that not all countries in Southeast Asia took the same approach. For instance, some were focused on export-oriented industrialisation while others were focused on import-substitution industrialisation. It is these differences and similarities across countries which create points of comparison that should be addressed in the essay.
Apart from the approaches taken by countries, the essay questions can also focus on the economic goals of each country.
The Asian Financial Crisis, which struck Southeast Asia in 1997, is also covered under this topic. To answer essay questions on the Asian Financial Crisis, one must understand the root causes of the crisis, the impacts and how different countries dealt with the crisis.
For most of my friends, questions on the Asian Financial Crisis were preferred as they tended to be more straightforward, especially if they were causation questions about the start of the crisis.

Political Stability in SEA (Essay)

I found this topic the most challenging due to its breadth. You’ll be looking into the approaches to governance in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 2000 (e.g. why SEA moved away from plural political structures and towards maximum government) and the approaches to national unity.
Keep in mind that your teacher will cover the political developments of around 5 countries and most teachers will teach you about each country separately. This means that it is usually up to the student to find similarities and differences across the countries and apply them to the essay.

Exam and Note-making Tips

For History, I think the most important thing is picking out the most relevant pieces of contextual knowledge to support our arguments. This is especially true for the essay section. Hence, when making notes for the essays sections, I would suggest segmenting your notes based on trends you notice across the different countries. For instance, you can write a broad argument about the role of extra-constitutional measures in maintaining political stability in SEA and choose the relevant examples from 2-3 countries. I found this more effective than creating a different set of notes for each SEA country as I could more easily identify the trends across the region. There was also less content for me to remember when I structured my notes in such a manner as I did not need to remember an example from every single SEA country.
When reading essay questions for Paper 2, please be careful as well! There may be certain conditions set in the question which may prevent you from using certain countries as examples. In addition, depending on how the questions are phrased, the way you write your argument will also differ.
Whether skill or content knowledge is the more salient factor in the SBQ component, varies from person to person:
For some students, they would say that there is greater emphasis on skill, because you need to be able to choose which sources to pair up and which sources to compare against each other to illustrate a point. Even if your contextual knowledge is not entirely accurate, your overall score may not be impacted significantly (though it still depends heavily on what exactly was wrong).
Other students would argue that while SBQ skills are crucial, you still need to demonstrate that you know the relevant contextual knowledge to substantiate your point, and understand why the question was asked in the first place for every paragraph that you write. Understanding contextual knowledge helps you contextualize each source, and "intelligently-picked" contextual knowledge can make your paper stand out. Differences in dates could also change entire interpretations of sources. So in some sense, contextual knowledge in SBQ is just as important as contextual knowledge in essays.
Here’s an example of how you can structure an SBCS question:
For 1(a), start off with stating a point of similarity between the two sources, then quote some relevant aspects of the two sources to substantiate this. Then start a new paragraph, explaining how you can account for the similarity between the two sources (typically it can be explained by context / time of source production). Repeat these two steps, this time to state and explain a point of difference between the two sources (for differences, the reason for divergence is typically the provenance of the source). Note however that this is just a general guideline, because in some schools (e.g. RI), while students still need to state and elaborate on a similarity and a difference, they subsequently explain how they can account for EITHER the similarity OR the difference.
For 1(b), start off with an introduction to summarise the messages of the sources that may support or challenge the hypothesis. Start a new paragraph stating which sources support the hypothesis and quote relevant material to substantiate. Then in the next paragraph, evaluate the persuasiveness of the support set (e.g by considering historical context, provenance, cross referencing etc.) Repeat these two steps for the challenge set. IMPORTANT: End off with a concluding evaluative paragraph stating which set of sources you find more persuasive, with justification.

Personal Experiences

Do you personally enjoy or regret taking H2 History?

Overall, I found History quite rewarding as I really enjoyed the content. Of course, there were times when I was frustrated as there seemed to be a never-ending amount of content for me to memorise. After all, History is a very content heavy subject, and although you might not need to memorize everything, you do have to understand fully what you memorize (how to use it, what kind of points can it illustrate).
For those who wish to take History, be prepared to spend more time on History than your other subjects. For me, a lot of time was spent not only reading through lecture notes, but consolidating the information in each topic. There was so much information to weed through that my friends and I decided to create notes together in order to spread out the workload.
Apart from consolidating notes, a large portion of my time was also spent on attempting the SBQ as I could not grasp the skills initially. Nonetheless, this doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone as some students could grasp the SBQ format relatively quickly.

Contributed by: Anonymous students from HCI and RI

Edited by Judith Ko (Credits: some extracts here were adapted from Reddit blogs and the RI WordPress Site)