Resources for History

Reasonable range identified in the left column; on its own this evidence is insufficient for credit at Level 2.

Some reasonable ideas about types of evidence provide the detail that credit at Level 2 requires.

• the first achievement criterion allows only Not Achieved or Credit with Excellence
• for the first achievement criterion this student defined elsewhere the area of historical inquiry

Defining only two focusing questions is appropriate given the thoughtful nature of the questions. The second one, in particular, is well beyond the easy and obvious type of focusing questions and will require research and thinking in advance of the expected standard for Level 2.

• ensure that only relevant evidence is selected
• quickly locate relevant evidence once the communication stage of the research task is being worked on (probably for Achievement Standard 90466)
• make comments on the usefulness and reliability when completing an evaluation of the research process

Note that when a single piece of evidence is cut out and pasted in (as with the extract above) it may be unnecessary to highlight which parts of the evidence are relevant to the focusing question - presumably only relevant evidence will have been cut out.

Evidence of organisation of evidence into sections according to focusing questions.

• Since a formal bibliography is not a requirement for this Achievement Standard the normal conventions of a bibliography, such as alphabetical order and organisation into sections, should not form part of the judgement towards awarding credit
• This exemplar provides an example of credit with Excellence at a high level. Had the student made some small omissions, such as failing to provide all internet accession dates, Excellence may still have been awarded.

Explanatory Note 3 of this Achievement Standard states that 'Communicate clearly means explicitly identify key historical ideas, e.g. through headings, subheadings, topic sentences, or through appended explanations.' Communication of key ideas by any of these methods is accepted as being sufficient for explicit identification of a key idea. For credit, key ideas are required to be supported with evidence. For further discussion of the requirements concerning key historical ideas with supporting evidence please refer to the Clarifications section.

Note that the key ideas identified in the end glossary do not contribute useful evidence for the purposes of this Achievement Standard. To be relevant, each of these terms, identified from the text, would need a statement in the text that expressed a key idea (e.g. 'Conscription was a feature of British army recruitment') and then supporting evidence that elaborated on that particular key idea would need to be supplied.

The Achievement Standard requires depth and/or breadth of understanding for credit with Merit, and comprehensive understanding for Excellence. The task's word limit may have restricted this student's ability to write in sufficient depth for a higher level of Excellence. Given the brevity of the writing this student has done very well to include both detail and understanding, just demonstrating a 'comprehensive' understanding at Level 2.

Note that responses need not be particular actions taken - see Explanatory Note 6 of the Achievement Standard. This can make the difference between perspectives and responses difficult to distinguish. Ideally, a link needs to flow from a perspective held (and explained), to a resulting response (and explanation).