How to Write a Top Mark VCE Modern History Essay

Manoj Arachige -

What does a VCE Modern History Essay entail?

Attacking an essay prompt gets easier the more you know about it – what it wants you to cover, what you are expected to include and what level of analysis (regarding the history) you are meant to demonstrate.

VCE History essays, even beyond the Moden History level, can generally be categorised into three varieties:

  • To what extent
  • Evaluate
  • How

Your standard VCE Modern History essay prompt will look like one of these three. Let’s break them down:

To what extent: 

  • The prompt expects you to express a clear position that demonstrates a certain extent of agreement or disagreement.
  • The answer should assess the topic in terms of how much or how accurately it applies to the given context.
  • You are free to incorporate complexity and nuanced perspectives to address potential disagreements, adding depth to your response.
  • You absolutely are okay to incorporate the phrase “to a _____ extent” throughout your essay! This makes things clearer

An example of a ‘to what extent’ prompt might be:

  • To what extent did weakness and tension within the League of Nations instigate the emergence of World War 2?

Evaluate:

  • In VCE, ‘evaluate’ generally requires analyzing key information and forming an opinion or judgment on the topic's significance.
  • Focus on assessing whether an action or event was good or bad, effective or ineffective, or meaningful or negligible within the context of the question.
  • Offer evidence to support your judgment, considering multiple perspectives before concluding.

An example of an ‘evaluate’ prompt might be:

  • Evaluate the significance of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hezbollah’s role in shaping the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1948 to 1993.

How:

  • The prompt expects an explanation of how various factors contributed to a specific historical event or period.
  • Provide detailed and nuanced reasons to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the topic.
  • The emphasis is on clarity and comprehensiveness, not on introducing conflicting perspectives. A point of complexity is not necessary here.

An example of a ‘how’ prompt might be:

  • How did the anti-apartheid movement grow in South Africa between 1948-1990 to mobilize domestic resistance and gain global support for the fight against apartheid?

How do I structure my essay?

Now that we have explored the common action words behind the prompt and what they might be asking us for, the next course of action is to structure our response.

While at a Year 12 level, the final VCE Unit 3&4 History exams have no structural requirement, at a Unit 1&2 (or Year 11) level, the structure of a History essay is often more strict.

Your teacher may expect you to write exactly three paragraphs worth of content and structure your response similarly to a TEEL essay. Different teachers will offer you different guidelines in terms of how they want you to answer a prompt, and it is often helpful to ask them first how they would like you to proceed.

The general protocol is:

  • You can write in any voice or structure, with any number of paragraphs, as long as you answer the question effectively.
  • Confident Year 11 students are encouraged (if permitted) to practice a 2-paragraph structure to build concise, focused arguments. This is especially useful for Unit 3&4 prompts that suit 2-part answers.
  • For beginners, a 3-paragraph TEEL essay (Topic sentence, Evidence, Explanation, Link) offers a clear, reliable structure. Simply develop three points and write them in TEEL format.

How do I actually answer the question for top marks?

This is the actual tricky part now – given we have identified the type of question and which structure we might want to follow, the most important thing at this stage to remember is…

ANSWER THE QUESTION! 

The most common mistake I see is students hesitating to take a clear stance, thinking flowery prose earns better marks. This is NOT true. Examiners reward clear knowledge and the ability to form strong opinions. This is what sets your answer apart and could be the difference between a middle-band and top response.

But, aside from this, what do we want to include in a response? Let’s refer to this Paragraph Checklist:

In every paragraph, we want to incorporate:

  • A clearly-worded, strong topic sentence with a judgment or opinion
  • Dates for events
  • A statistic where applicable
  • A primary source (first-person perspectives of a given event)
  • A secondary source (a historian’s interpretation)

This checklist holds true for whether you adopt a TEEL format, or choose to write more freely.

For a top-scoring response, all these features are essential. Most VCE subjects emphasize keywords and features, and for a History essay, you demonstrate your knowledge by:

  • Historical awareness: Showing a strong understanding of events and dates.
  • Use of evidence: Incorporating technical elements like quotes and statistics to support your points.
  • Critical evaluation: Demonstrating originality of thought and the ability to assess and judge the history in context.

Additional tips:

  • Stay focused: Always answer the question directly and stay on track.
  • Practice under time: Write regularly under timed conditions, or use a stopwatch to track how long you spend writing.
  • Be concise: Avoid lengthy descriptions; explain events briefly and then clearly show how they support your argument.

FAQs

I’m completely stuck writing my VCE modern history essay, what do I say?

Break down your response from the scope of the question, and ask yourself the following:

  • Does my question have a date range? What happened between the start and the end of the range?
  • Does my question ask about a certain event? What do I know about it?
  • Does my question ask me specifically for a certain perspective (e.g., political, economic or social)?
  • What is the keyword, and what structure works best? How many paragraphs do I want to write?
  • What do I think about the question? What immediately comes to mind?

How many words should my VCE modern history response be?

It’s a common misconception among students that a History essay requires a word count. Good news is, it doesn’t! Your essay should be roughly as long as the number of lines provided.

How much evidence I should include in my VCE Modern History essay?

Only include evidence that is strictly relevant. Anything that does not directly support your point does not have to be included.

Final Comments

Overall, it is important to remember that a History essay is unique to all the other types of essays you might write in VCE – the best thing you can do as a student is practice, practice, practice and ask for help and feedback where you need it! Improvement comes from hard work and adjustment. 

Best of luck with those essays!

Want more personalized study guidance to help drastically improve your marks? A private tutor can make the biggest difference!

Written by Andrea Ting, KIS Academics Tutor for VCE. Andrea achieved an ATAR of 98.10 in 2023 with all raw scores 40+, and received the Premier’s Award for Top Three International Students in the state. She is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy and Classics – Latin) at the University of Melbourne. You can view Andrea’s profile here and request her as a tutor.