1、THE HISTORY APTITUDE TEST FAQs, DOs AND DONTs Now that the HAT has been running for several years, we thought it might be helpful to provide some further feedback to candidates. We continue to maintain that the HATis nothing to wory about and, specifically,that itdoes not require preparation, but we
2、 are aware that some schoolsprovide more help and support to candidates than others, so we have taken a decision to increase the amount of guidance that we ourselves provide. Below are some questionsand answersbased on points often raised with us by candidates and teachers, together with some advice
3、 on how to handle the test itself. There is further information elsewhere in these pages, and you will also find discussions of HAT on our online discusion board, History Off the Shelf (http:/hots.modhist.ox.ac.uk/). Do I need to do any preparation for the HAT? I think other people are. No. The HAT
4、is designed to test how you think, not what you know. Atthe same time,there are two things that you might find helpful to do: It could be worth looking at the past papers, so that you know hat the test will look like, and what kinds of things to expect. If you want to use them for practice, you can
5、then usethe marking scheme to see how you might have done. There is no specific advantage in knowing what was in previous HAT papers, but you might find it easier to relax and focus in this years paper if you have seenthe formatbefore. You will need to deploysome historical knowledge in order to be
6、able to answer the essay question (1c). The HAT examiners will not be marking your essay for depth of knowledge, but they will consider whether youve chosen an example that shows understanding of the question, and you may find it easier to think of a good example if youve spent a litle time reviewin
7、g the work that you have donesince year 11. Equally, you will find it easier to consider what youve studied in relation to the question if youve refreshed your memory a litle. You dont need to learn factsfrom your notes its not like revising for an A level, or IB, or whatever but it might beworththi
8、nking about the big picture in the topics you have studied. What was each topicreally about? Whatchanged during the period you looked at? Why did it change? What stayed the same? Why? Whatconflictsor movementsdid you study, and how can they be characterised? What made them happen, and why did they s
9、top happening? Whatgroups were involved? Howwould you describe the political life of the periods you studied? How ould you describe society in these periods, or religion, or ideology, or culture, or the economy? There is no need to do any extra readingto answer these kinds of questions, and notall o
10、f them will necessarily fit what you have studied: its more a case of thinking a bit about how to characterise what youve studied, and how to generalise from it. If you dont have time to think about all of these issues in advance dont worrycareful thought on the day is much more importantbut if you
11、do have time to give them some thought beforehand you might feel more confident when tackling the essay question. You often choose medieval examples, but I dont know anything about the middle ages. Is this a problem? Absolutely not. On the whole, we try to choose material which we think will be equa
12、lly unfamiliar to all students, and we dont expect people to know much about modern Vietnam, or Korea, or Nigeria either. Itwontdisadvantage you if you knownothing about the periods orproblems explored in question 1 or question 2: the examiners are marking you on the basis of your capacity to unders
13、tand and apply concepts from question 1, and on the basis of your imaginative responseto,and close readingof, the source in question 2. If youdoknow something about the periods or problems discussed in the texts, try not to let your knowledge distract you from taking the texts on their own terms and
14、 thinking flexibly about them. Howimportant arethe wordlimits? Except for question 1(a), where being concise is part of the exerciseand you willprobablybe penalised for going substantially over, the wordlimits are guidelines only. You will not get credit for writing longer answers, and youmay find t
15、hat you can answer the questions adequately in a shorter space than the recommended length: our suggestions are simply intended to tell you what to aim for. I didnt answer all the questions: does this matter? Yes. It is important to answer allthe questions. If you do not answer one of the questions,
16、 you will get a mark of zero for it, andthis will affect your overall mark. You should find that you have plenty of time to read, think, plan and write the four answers required. Why do you askcandidates to write on one side of the paper only? What happensif we dont? We do this to make it easier for
17、 us to photocopy the scripts. If you inadvertently write on both sides of the paper, dont worry, and certainly dont waste time rewriting: we will manage! If you can number the pages of your script, it helps usto make sure its in the right order. I dont think my vocabulary is very sophisticated. Will
18、 I lose marks for that? No. Clarity is the most important thing, and it is often posible toexpress complex ideas in simple words. We are much more interested in relevance, fluency of argument, accuracy and so on, than we are in the quality of your vocabulary. It is important only that you should say
19、 what you mean, and that we should be able to understand it. Are there rightand wronganswersto the questions? For the most part, no. Our mark scheme establishes a common understanding among the markers of what they should be looking for, and it also gives examples of some of the things they might ex
20、pect. It is easiest to be precise about questions 1(a) and 1(b), because these are mainly about comprehension. Our guidelines for questions 1(c) and 2 are necessarily more openended. Every year, candidates do things with the essay question which we have not anticipated and/or see things in the sourc
21、e question which we havent spoted. Thats fineas long as your answer fits within the terms of the question, it should be properly rewarded by our examiners: they are used to making these kinds of judgements, not only fromthe experience of HAT marking, but fromthe experience of marking university exam
22、s. Is there any more advice you can give about how to handle the HAT? Try to relax a bit and take your time. You shouldnt need to spend too much time writing in this test: its important to give yourself time to read, think and jot down ideas. Most candidates will find the texts difficult to understa
23、nd. You may want to read them two or three times, or even more, and you may need to puzzle over somepasages to get at their full meaning. Give yourself time to do this. Bear in mind the weighting of the different questions when apportioningyourtime. The first two questions are certainly important, b
24、ut they only account for 30% of the marks,so youwill not want to spend much more than half an hour on them (including reading and thinking time). Use your own words, as much as posible. This is especially important when youre asked to summarise: you should try to paraphrase briefly, using alternativ
25、ewords from your own vocabulary, rather than copying out short extracts from the text. One reason we ask you to do this is to check that youve understood the text correctly another is sothat we can also measure your ability to expres your understanding. Of course, there are limits to how far you hav
26、e to go in using substitute words: in the 2007 paper, for example, it would be fine to use the word governments in your answer, but you would not be advised to answer 1(a) by saying, The principal pointsmade by the author in the first paragraph are that “all governments had in common a striving to e
27、xtend effective control over their subjects” and. Plan the answers to the longer questions. A good plan helps you to structure your argument, as well asreminding you of relevant information. With theessay question, you might want to begin by spending a bit of timethinking about what the question mea
28、ns. Having done that, youll need to think of a historical example that you can use to answer it:it maynot be immediately obvious how hat youve studied can be used, but if you think about it, you will almost certainly come up with some ideas. Next, you might want tojot down whatever ideasabout your e
29、xampleand/orthings you know about itmight be relevant to an answer. You could then look critically at what youve gothow does it fit together? Does all of itreally addres the question? Is there another side to the question that you didnt think of at first? Then finally,sketch out the bones ofan argum
30、ent that answers the question, including an introduction that explains the question and indicates why youve chosen your example, several paragraphs of argument/analysis/exposition, and a conclusion. In the case of the source question, you dont need to write an argument, but you might want to group y
31、our points together a bit, and planning might also help you to think about their implications, or about deeper connections between them. When answering the essay question, take care not to regurgitatean essay that youve alreadywritten for A levelor IB. Its fine to use materialthat youve learned at s
32、chool or college, of course, but its most unlikely that an essay youve written before will be the best posible answer you could write to the question on the HAT paper, and we give great emphasis in our marking to how well candidates have tailored their answers to the demands of the question. Be conf
33、ident in your own ideas. Thats easier said than done, but if youve figured something out, and you can say why you think it, its almost certainly worthwhile, even if no teacher, or book, has ever said anything like it. You may well want to challenge your own ideas (Hang on, why do I think this? It contradicts what Ive just said about that) but thats a different matter from worrying about them or discarding them: its part of refining them, and/or taking them to a point where youre sure that you believe in them. Your ideas are important, and we want to see them.
