IB Topics: Internal Assessment Documentation

To submit your History Internal Assessment, you must complete the following two steps:

1. Submit a copy of your IA (pdf format is fine) to GoogleDrive and share it with the 4 IB History teachers:
1. Jeffrey McCarthy
2. Les Albers
3. Jen Dean
4. Steven Brown
2. Download a copy of Form 3CS and complete in Adobe Acrobat.  After completing the form, print it out and turn in to me with your signature.
1. Session: May 2016
2. School number: 0882
3. Subject: History
4. Level: HL
5. Candidate session number: see me if you don't know this
6. Teacher's name: your junior year history teacher

IB Seniors: Paper 3 Review PPTs

Five slideshows of Paper 3 material can be found by clicking here.  Files are saved in PDF format.

IB Seniors: History Review Session

If you missed today's review session, here are the powerpoint presentations that I used:

Topic 1 - Independence Movements
Topic 3 - U.S. Civil War

Note: you'll have to be logged in to your APS Google Account to view these slideshows.

IB Seniors: Thursday's PPTs

These presentations are a lot more useful if you attended the review session.  You'll need to be logged in to your APS Google account to view the slideshows:

Topic 6: The Mexican Revolution

Topic 7: The Great Depression

IB Seniors: Tuesday's PPTs

These presentations are a lot more useful if you attended the review session.  You'll need to be logged in to your APS Google Account to view the slideshows:

Topic 1: Independence Movements

Topic 3: U.S. Civil War

IB Seniors: Notes from your Paper 3's

At long last I'm finished grading your paper 3 essays, and I thought I'd use Room3011 to provide feedback.  Mr. Albers and I split up the essays, so I'll only be able to comment the essays that I read and marked.  I'm also going to refrain from posting the text of the question, just in case IB doesn't want those published on the interwebs.  That shouldn't be a problem for any of you, since you should still have a copy of the exam.

Question #1
Number of Essays: 34
Score Range: 0-17
     Many decent essays in this group.  Remember to include specific supporting details from the time period.  Don't ignore Dutch and Spanish aid to the American colonists, even though it was less significant than French aid.  Explain why the countries that provided aid did so.

Question #8

Number of Essays: 5

Score Range: 2-13

     Many essays incorrectly asserted that Reconstruction led to the Harlem Renaissance.  The two events are half a century apart.  No essays made the link between the rise of the NAACP and the Harlem Renaissance (although one student did link DuBois to the movement).  A good essay will bring up several reasons for the flourishing of the arts and politics in Harlem, including WWI's impact on African American society.  Most essays lacked specific details, only mentioning one or two artists of the time in passing.  My impression from grading these essays was that most of the students didn't actually know enough about the Harlem Renaissance to write about it in a Paper 3 essay.

Question #11

Number of Essays: 8

Score Range: 4-13

     All of these essays were lacking enough detail to qualify for the highest marks.  The question asked students to "compare and contrast."  For IB, compare means to describe similarities and contrast means to describe differences.  Most students simply did not include enough information in their essays.

Question #12
Number of Essays: 4
Score Range: 13-15
     These essays were pretty good.  Some shortcoming I found in some were a lack of detail necessary in an essay that receives 15 or more marks.  Few essays mentioned that Calles's creation of the PNR (which later became the PRI) provided political stability in Mexico (which it was sorely lacking) at the expense of true democracy - it's a trade-off that should be explained as both a success and failure.  Land redistribution came with mixed results as well, but at least Calles redistributed more land than Obregon.  Labor reform was also mixed.  Unions were supported, but co-opted into the government and that weakened their independence.  Finally, all the essays should have mentioned Calles's support for secular education and the intense problems that this caused with the Catholic Church.  Nearly any major initiative of the Maximato should be characterized as both a success and a failure, with the appropriate supporting details.

Question #13
Number of Essays: 28
Score Range: 6-17
     One of the easier questions on the exam.  For the highest scores, one needs to identify how the financial system was unstable and then use several detailed examples of how New Deal programs addressed those instabilities to create a more financially secure U.S.  If you choose to focus on WWII as a greater achievement of FDR, you still need to devote space to explaining why FDR's stabilization of the U.S. economy is less impressive.

Question #19
Number of Essays: 6
Score Range: 6-16
     There was a large variation in scores on this question.  The best answers included multiple ways in which foreign policy changed during the Eisenhower administration.  Too many students only wrote about the Suez crisis.  Don't forget to include Ike's use of the CIA and the threat of "massive retaliation."

Question #21
Number of Essays: 1
Score Range: 14
     This essay did a great job of describing the impact of the Black Panthers, but needed more description of the aims (or goals) of the Black Panthers.

Question #23
Number of Essays: 1
Score Range: 13
     This essay mentioned some successes and failure of Clinton and successfully covered both the domestic and international spheres.  It did not provide enough specific examples of bipartisan legislation and the interpretation of NAFTA was inaccurate.  Finally, since Topic 12 ends at the year 2000, a discussion of the disastrous result of repealing the Glass-Steagall Act is irrelevant since the effects were mainly felt in 2008 and later.

Question #24
Number of Essays: 9
Score Range: 5-7
     Students generally did a good job of identifying both positive and negative impacts of the internet on the United States.  Unfortunately, that alone could only earn a student 6 points out of a possible 20.  To earn any more than 6 points, the essay needed to include specific real-life examples to illustrate the impacts of the internet.  Nearly every example provided by students was from the last 5-8 years.  This is how the markscheme told graders to address examples:
All examples in the mark scheme precede 2001; examples identified which clearly occurred after 2000 are outside the timeframe of the syllabus and should not be considered as relevant to the question and therefore are not a basis for the award of marks.
     That means that citing Twitter, Facebook, Kony2012, Obama, etc. will earn you no credit.  What examples could you use that pre-date 2000?  I'm not really sure - I'd have to do some research.  I know I didn't cover this unit in my class and I doubt Mr. Albers covered it in his.  Avoid questions 23 and 24 on the Paper 3 exam!

Other Assorted AP Knowledge

APGov - Period 3 - Homework

Week of April 19 - April 23
MONDAY: Janda pp. 526-532
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 532-537
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 537-546
THURSDAY:
FRIDAY: Ch. 15+16 take-home exam due at the beginning of class.

AP's Description of Free Response Tasks

Last year I posted these descriptions of the various free response tasks that appear on the AP Government exam.  With two weeks to go before the AP Exam, it's important that you know what these words mean to the AP.


List/Identify.Listing or identifying is a task that requires no more than a simple enumeration of some factors or characteristics. A list does not require any causal explanations. For example, a student might be asked to list or identify three characteristics presidents consider when making appointments.
Such a list, which could be bulleted or numbered, might include party, race, gender, etc.
Define.
A definition requires a student to provide a meaning for a word or concept. Examples may help to demonstrate understanding of the definition. Students may be instructed to note the term’s significance as part of the definition.
Describe.
A description involves providing a depiction or portrayal of a phenomenon or its most significant characteristics. Descriptions most often address “what” questions. For example, if students are asked to describe reasons for the decline in voter turnout, they must do more than simply list facts—they must actually describe the reasons. Students may explain that the expansion of suffrage led to a decline in overall voter turnout because once voting was made available to more individuals, the overall percentage of those voting declined.
Discuss.Discussions generally require that students explore relationships between different concepts or phenomena. Identifying, describing, and explaining could be required tasks involved in writing a satisfactory discussion.
Explain.
An explanation involves the exploration of possible causal relationships. When providing explanations, students should identify and discuss logical connections or causal patterns that exist between or among various political phenomena.
Compare/Contrast.
This task requires students to make specific links between two or more concepts.
Evaluate/Assess.
An evaluation or assessment involves considering how well something meets a certain standard and as such generally requires a thesis. It is important to identify the criteria used in the evaluation. If no criteria are explicitly given in the question, students should take care to clearly identify the ones that they choose to employ. Specific examples may be applied to the criteria to support the student’s thesis. Evaluation or assessment requires explicit connections between the thesis or argument and the supporting evidence.
Analyze.
This task usually requires separating a phenomenon into its component parts or characteristics as a way of understanding the whole. An analysis should yield explicit conclusions that are explained or supported by specific evidence or well-reasoned arguments.

APGov - 3rd Period Homework

Week of April 12 - April 16
MONDAY: Janda pp. 501-506
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 506-509, SCOTUS case summary due Thursday
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 511-516
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 516-520
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 520-526

APGov Reading Assignments - Period 3

Week of April 5th - April 9th
MONDAY: Janda pp. 470-472
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 473-480
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 480-490
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 490-495
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 495-501

APGov - Period 3 - Homework

Week of March 22 - March 26
MONDAY: Janda pp. 448-457
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 457-461
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 461-464
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 464-467
FRIDAY: Complete Ch. 14 Exam over the break and turn in your completed Scantron on Monday, April 5

APGov - Period 3 - Homework

Week of March 15 - March 19
MONDAY: Janda pp. 427-433
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 435-438
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 442-448
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 442-448
FRIDAY: Bureaucracy Exam Monday; Member of Congress PPT due Monday (must be shared with me on GoogleDocs

APGov - Period 3 - Homework

Week of March 8 - March 12
MONDAY: Janda pp. 406-411
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 412-417
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 417-422
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 422-427
FRIDAY: Heritage Assembly, no homework over the weekend

APGov PowerPoint Template

APGov - Period 3 - Homework

Week of February 22 - February 26
MONDAY: Janda pp. 334-340
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 340-347
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 347-354
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 355-364
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 365-369; Congress Exam on Tuesday

APGov - 3rd Period Homework

Week of February 16 - February 19
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 109-115, Congressional research sheet submitted to GoogleDocs by 11:59pm on Wednesday
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 115-118, Congressional research sheet submitted to GoogleDocs by 11:59pm on Wednesday
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 118-123
FRIDAY: Ch. 4 Exam on Monday

Due to lost school days, Member of Congress presentations will not be held in March.  The presentation will either be transformed to an online presentation or will be be rescheduled to early May.  A final decision will be made by the end of this week.

APGov - Member of Congress Assignments [UPDATED 2/3/10]

All member of Congress assignments have been recorded on this Google Spreadsheet.

UPDATE - Feb. 3rd
If you have not been assigned a Representative, you have until Feb. 4th to request one.  If you fail to do so, you will be assigned a Representative by me.  Remaining 5th period Representatives must be Democrats.  Remaining 7th period Representatives must be Republicans.

APGov - 3rd Period Homework

Week of February 1 - February 5
MONDAY: Janda pp. 103-109
TUESDAY: Janda pp. 109-115
WEDNESDAY: Janda pp. 109-115 (no new assignment; we're spending today in the computer lab)
THURSDAY: Janda pp. 115-118
FRIDAY: Janda pp. 118-123

Ch. 4 Exam is currently scheduled for Tuesday, February 9th

APGov 3rd Quarter Project

A .pdf file of the third quarter project can be downloaded here.