Tips From an Irvine History Tutor: 5 Tips to Study for a History Final

Irvine History Tutoring: 5 Tips to Study for a History Final

Finals week is not so far away, and students will need to study for each and every subject. Every student in middle and high school will be studying for at least one history final and will need to make sure they have their dates, VIP’s, and cause & effect learned by heart before they sit down to complete the exam. History is a huge a subject in that pretty much everything leading up to today is considered a part of history. Whether a student is in a highly specific course such as AP art history or a broad survey course like 9th grade US history, their study strategy will be largely the same. There’s a lot of memorization, correlation, and understanding of the personal interaction between people and cultures – our private Irvine history tutors will help you score high on your history final.

1.  Dates and timelines

History is made up of a giant timeline filled with tons of important dates that students have to memorize in order to ace those final exams. It’s definitely essential for students to know when important things happened but also realize that there are giant spans of time in between elections, wars and conflicts, and cross-cultural connections. Just memorizing a date won’t give a student a full understanding of events so they are, encouraged to read about each important historical situation and discover how it affected things that occurred later on.

2.  Correlation and cause & effect

There are so many things found within history that correlate with each other in some way and/or have an important cause & effect. For instance, two things might have happened in different countries at the very same time that later affected the connections between those two cultures. Also, the end of one conflict might have started the beginning of another one. History is full of fascinating connections that students should understand both for their interest and for the grade on their final exam. Complicated connections may require further explanation from a classroom teacher or supplemental tutor so that students get why one event occurred and how it affected people and places within that timeframe.

3.  Understanding VIPs

There are tons of critical people that students should learn about to do well on a history exam. Students should make sure they know about politicians, royalty, soldiers, and others who played a big part in moving history closer to the present. Additionally, students should take the time to learn about everyday people within history and what their lives might have been like. Don’t forget, these people made up about 95% of most populations and so looking into a day in their life can give students a good understanding of what happened during that time frame and, as a result, help them understand how to answer questions on an exam.

4.  Communicating thoughts clearly

In addition to understanding textbooks and handouts about historical events, students need to write about them in a series of passages, free response questions, or essays. It’s essential for students of history to be able to clearly and concisely communicate their thoughts so that the reader -in this case, their teacher- understands the point the student is trying to get across. Effective writers do a great job of answering questions thoroughly but not wasting time on unnecessary words. This is an essential skill for a history student or a student of any subject at the middle or high school level.

5.  History repeats itself

It’s beneficial for students to know that history repeats itself, which is to say most things occur in a cycle. This will help students understand why we have one war and then another or why advancements occur during different time periods. Times are good, and then they are bad. Countries are allies, and then they are enemies. Students who can grasp this overall theory will often do a much better job of answering test questions and writing free response passages. This is another complex topic that students might want to talk about with their classroom teacher or tutor before they sit down to take their exam at the end of the year.

It’s never too early or too late to start prepping for your history final with the help of a private Irvine history tutor. Call us today to learn more.

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