AICE History Paper 1 a

Summary

Highlights

• Understanding the structure of Paper 1 is essential for success. 💡
• There are four key scoring levels, with level 3 as the passing mark. 👍
• Each question requires a deep source comparison. ⚖️
• Time is limited; use it efficiently to cover both questions. ⏳
• Following the rubric strictly ensures maximum points. ✅

Key Takeaways

• Mastering Paper 1 involves understanding its structure and requirements. 📝
• Pay close attention to the rubric and scoring levels. 📊
• Comparing sources correctly by noting similarities and differences is crucial. 🔍
• Time management is key; allocate time wisely between reading and answering. ⏰
• Provide textual evidence from both sources for every paragraph. 📑

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction The chapter provides an overview of how to tackle Ace history paper 1, with a focus on question A. It outlines what paper 1 entails, before moving on to a detailed examination of question A, including the rubric and requirements for answering it effectively.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Understanding Paper 1 The chapter titled 'Understanding Paper 1' provides formatting tips to ensure that papers meet all rubric requirements. It concludes with tips and tricks to maximize scoring. Paper 1 is defined as a source analysis paper where students are given an hour to review four sources and answer two questions on them.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Content Strands and Subtopics This chapter discusses the various content strands and subtopics that are consistent within an academic paper, specifically in history studies. It emphasizes the consistent themes such as the origins of the Civil War for American history, peace and security post-World War I for International History with a focus on the League of Nations, and liberalism and nationalism in Italy and Germany for European history. The chapter also mentions that while the main content strand remains the same, the subtopics or specific focus areas may vary over time or by tier.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Question A Breakdown This chapter titled "Question A Breakdown" discusses strategies for tackling a specific type of question (Question A) that appears in examinations related to the American Civil War. The essential strategy involves understanding that while the origin topic remains constant (the causes of the Civil War), the particular focus within that topic, such as the Missouri Compromise or the Lincoln-Douglas debates, varies annually. It highlights the importance of comparing two sources, emphasizing the need to do this effectively as part of the response.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Rubric Levels Overview The chapter titled 'Rubric Levels Overview' highlights key aspects essential for analyzing sources. It emphasizes correctly identifying and comparing the specified sources to ensure a valid response. A common mistake is analyzing incorrect sources; therefore, reading and understanding the question prompt is crucial. It's not just about comparing but addressing the specific question asked, such as how certain sources align or disagree with a particular stance (e.g., President Monroe's stance). This careful approach influences the likelihood of success on the paper.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Level 3 Details and Advice This chapter provides advice and details on preparing for a test, focusing on how to handle essay questions efficiently. It begins by emphasizing the importance of having a clear question in mind and gathering sources before delving into writing an answer. The process of tackling a question is introduced, with specific instructions to pause and examine the assessment criteria or rubric carefully. The example given discusses the potential to score between 0 to 15 points on question A, underscoring the necessity to understand what actions are required to achieve different score levels. This strategic approach is highlighted as a vital step in succeeding in that particular test section.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Level 4 Explanation The chapter focuses on explaining different levels of understanding or grading, specifically levels 3 and 4, but begins with an explanation of level 0. Level 0 is characterized by a complete lack of relevance to the sources or questions provided; this could mean not writing anything at all or writing content that is entirely unrelated. This results in a score of 0 points. The chapter hints at further details on higher levels of grading.
• 07:00 - 09:00: General Formatting Tips The chapter titled 'General Formatting Tips' focuses on the need for deeper engagement with comparison questions. It criticizes the practice of merely paraphrasing content without offering substantial comparison or analysis. The rubric suggests that superficial comparisons, such as recognizing one piece is a letter and another a speech, are inadequate. Instead, the chapter emphasizes the importance of identifying similarities and differences at a more analytical level, specifically noting this as key to achieving a level two in assessment.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Tips for Time Management The chapter discusses the importance of identifying both similarities and differences when comparing two sources. It warns that focusing solely on either similarities or differences will not suffice, indicating that a balanced approach is necessary to achieve higher marks on a particular test. The chapter emphasizes the need for a comprehensive comparison to avoid falling into a lower performance level. Additionally, the chapter highlights the significance of the word 'end' in crafting a proper comparison.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Closing Remarks In the chapter titled 'Closing Remarks', the discussion revolves around the importance of making deep and well-supported comparisons instead of shallow ones. There's a critique of superficial agreement statements that lack evidence. It also touches on assessment criteria, specifically how Level 2 can score between four to seven points. Furthermore, a personal anecdote is shared about a training session with the ACE program in January, highlighting the involvement of an individual who scored ACE history papers.

AICE History Paper 1 a Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] in this video we're going to talk about Ace history paper 1 and specifically question a we're gonna save question B for another video to start out we're gonna go in-depth on paper ones specifically what paper 1 looks like then we're going to transition into question a we're going to look at the rubric and your requirements for answering this question and also give
• 00:30 - 01:00 you some formatting tips to make sure that whenever the scores are looking over your paper that they can easily see that you have met all the rubric requirements and then finally we're going to wrap up with a few tips and tricks to make sure that you are getting the most possible points out of your paper your paper one is your source analysis paper you will have one hour to read over four sources and answer two questions on those sources now for right now though there is talk of this
• 01:00 - 01:30 changing in the future your paper one has one set manager overall a Content strand that your information will come from for instance for the American option your paper one is always going to be about the origins of the civil war for international history it's always going to be regarding peace and security following World War one typically has to do with the League of Nations and finally for European it has to do with liberalism and nationalism in Italy in Germany now it does change your tier is the subtopic that's your paper one will be about what I mean for that is for the
• 01:30 - 02:00 American option for instance you know your paper one is always going to come from the origins of the civil war however what does change is which subtopic of the causes of the Civil War will your paper want be about for instance you could have your paper be about the Missouri Compromise or the lincoln-douglas debates that changes from year to year question a asks you to compare two sources now whenever you read question a you need to do two things first number
• 02:00 - 02:30 one identify which two sources you're supposed to be analyzing if it's asking you to be compared sources B and D and you answer sources a and B you're already is set up to not pass this paper so make sure you're reading about the and answering for the correct sources secondly you need to read over the question it's not simply going to say compare these two sources it's going to ask you a question such as to what extent your sources a and B agree with President Monroe's stance on the
• 02:30 - 03:00 Missouri Compromise so once you have your question in mind and your sources down go ahead and read and tackle that question now before you actually start writing it's important to note what you actually have to do to pass this part of the test so let's go ahead and pause now and take a look at the rubric all right so let's go ahead and take a look at the rubric here as you can see you can get anywhere from 0 to 15 points on question a now if we start down at
• 03:00 - 03:30 the bottom we'll go ahead and break down each one of the levels getting more into detail with levels 3 & 4 but first we'll start with level 0 basically to get the level 0 you have to have either not written anything at all or just written garbage down on your paper that has absolutely nothing at all to do with the actual sources or anything to do with answering the question and that's really all that needs to be said with the level 0 if you do that you're getting 0 points on it a level 1 is basically you're describing what the sources are just
• 03:30 - 04:00 saying you're not really getting into the meat of the question in any kind of way basically just paraphrasing the content saying this is what the sources say and you're not really giving any kind of comparison at all although the rubric does say you might be making a comparison at the level of one is a letter and one is from a speech that's not the kind of level of comparison that we're looking for here on question a level two is where you're comparing abuse and identify similarities and/or differences that's the key thrace thing
• 04:00 - 04:30 here is similarities and/or differences if you're only right about how the two sources are similar or how the two sources are different you're not going to get passing marks on this part of the test you have to do both so once again if you only give similarities or differences you're only going to fall into a level two now if you notice here it does also have the word end here so you might give some sort of comparison
• 04:30 - 05:00 here but it's a very shallow comparison and you're not really developing it you might make a general overall statement saying that they agree on one aspect without giving any actual evidence of how the sources agree and for level two if I can give you anywhere from four to seven points and now on to level three last January I was in a training with the ACE program and had who was actually a scorer of the ACE history papers and
• 05:00 - 05:30 she was going over what the scores are looking for for each one of these papers and she let us know that level three is actually in the passing range for each one of the history rubrics so all you need to do a minimum now making sure this is bare minimum you need to be doing here is getting a level three on each one of the rubrics I highly caution against just shooting for a level three because I've heard students before that have say said threes or EES get degrees
• 05:30 - 06:00 but anybody I have known that has shot for a level the score Level II on their ace exam has inevitably always gotten a you without fail it's never happened before that I've ever had a student who said they were going to shoot for an e but I actually got an E or above please don't challenge that statement and try to be the first one but moving on so level three all you have to do here for level three is basically write two paragraphs you need to say what this is how the sources are similar in one paragraph with specific textual evidence
• 06:00 - 06:30 from both sources and also say what the differences are once also one paragraph for the differences with specific evidence from the sources now if you're doing a good job here and I'm very well developing a similarity and a difference here you only have to give one at each so you just have to say one way that these sources are alike and one way that the sources are different as long as you're providing that evidence directly from the sources and are thoroughly developing the thought and you can fall into the level three range here which is
• 06:30 - 07:00 eight to eleven points now on to level four level four is where you can get the biggest possible points here on this rubric this is where you get basically a third paragraph or making your developed comparison so our four level four you still give that one paragraph on a similarity one paragraph with a difference that are very well developed in given textual evidence and finally a third paragraph which I would say almost basically directly answers the question in the prompt usually where you're
• 07:00 - 07:30 essentially taking a stance they usually say to what extent or overall and then give you a question about to what extent to the sources agree on well go back to this example from earlier to what it said to the sources agree about President Monroe stance on the Missouri Compromise here basically you would be stating over all the sources agree with whatever's in the prompts and then give me evidence specifically stating that the sources agree more than they disagree or vice
• 07:30 - 08:00 versa giving direct evidence that the sources disagree more than they agree or that they are more different than they are similar if you do that you will get in this level four range and that is 12 to 15 possible points and that's that you well on your way for passing your ace exam overall typically your ace exam overall you need to score comfortable range would be 35 that minimum who should secure you in the e so getting anywhere from 12 to 15 points on paper one question a will set you up very nice
• 08:00 - 08:30 leads to get that passing score on your ace exam now there's no set formatting requirements for any of the ACE history papers however I'm gonna give you some ideas for each one of these videos are due on the actual writing of the papers on how you should format these and trust me on these format this way remember these are people reading these papers and they have to read hundreds of these so make sure that your paper stands out as doing exactly what you're supposed to
• 08:30 - 09:00 be doing for the rubric don't worry about standing out as being different and catching their interest that's not important what's important here is that you're following the rubric and you can actually make it very obvious you're doing that through your writing now before I go into specifics about how to format your question a here I want to just give you this one piece of advice for all of your ace history papers and that is to absolutely never write an introductory paragraph it's completely unnecessary and in fact it wastes time like I said you only have an hour for paper one and that's really not enough
• 09:00 - 09:30 time if you waste five minute three to five minutes writing an introductory paragraphs for both of these questions you've wasted way too much time so for question a your formatting then you need three paragraphs one of these paragraphs needs to be on these similarities or in other words how these two sources agree so you would state what these two sources agree on or how they are alike and then provide evidence from both sources that's very important here you
• 09:30 - 10:00 need to provide specific evidence from both of the sources your second paragraph needs to be about how these sources are different or how they disagree once again here you need to have specific evidence from both of the sources don't forget that if you don't have that specific evidence you're not truly fully evaluating and going over these sources so you might lose a couple points here or there and finally your third paragraph your third paragraph is where you I would say you
• 10:00 - 10:30 actually kind of answer the question and the prompts this is where you state overall do these sources agree or disagree or overall are they more alike or more different so here you once again I would actually open this one up with a general statement such as overall the sources agree with president Monroe stance on the Missouri Compromise then tell me why they agree more and that's giving me specific evidence once again from both of the sources so to recap the formatting here one paragraph on how the
• 10:30 - 11:00 sources are alike or how they agree with specific evidence from both sources a second paragraph with saying how they agree or I'm sorry how they disagree or how they are different and once again with evidence from both sources and your third paragraph covers over all do the sources agree or disagree with whatever the statement and prompt is and as always you have to have that specific evidence from both sources
• 11:00 - 11:30 all right and finally we're going to discuss some tips to end things to remember for answering paper 1 or question a specifically so in general for paper 1 the biggest issue here is time 1 hour really isn't enough time to answer this questions so you need to make sure you're watching the clock here and actually go ahead and set some piecing times for yourself I would give yourself 10 minutes to read over and really take notes on each of the four sources 10 minutes maximum then give yourself maximum 20 minutes anywhere
• 11:30 - 12:00 from 15 to 20 minutes to answer a question a and then give the rest of your time to be because when you actually look at both of the rubrics for question a and question B question B is where you get your most points and it actually is the most time-consuming one of the papers you need to make sure you're giving yourself approximately 25 to 35 minutes to answer question B for this paper other tips in general you need to once again make sure that you were going textual evidence for each one of your paragraphs I know I said that a few times but I really want to hammer
• 12:00 - 12:30 that in you have to make sure that you get evidence from both sources for all three of your paragraphs for your question a so that's it for paper one question a check back soon for more videos on other ace history papers