M1 Enseignement : Death by paraphrase

M1 épreuve finale : Death by paraphrase.

The main difficulty students had was wasting time paraphrasing. Again, remember one of the main aims is to *show* you have a good working knowledge of British history, in particular recent British history. This document gave you the opportunity to show your knowledge of the following subjects :

• The Freedom of Information Act (one of a series of important constitutional reforms carried out by Tony Blair’s governments).
• The economic and social crisis of the 1970s (the rise in unemployment, destruction of industry, the fall of the Heath government after serious conflicts with trade unions).
• The present economic crisis of 2011 and its handling by the new coalition government.
• The history of the domination of Scotland by England
• The history of Irish terrorist organizations and Welsh terrorist organizations
• The central role in foreign policy of the alliance with the United States
• The history of Scottish nationalism, in the 1970s, and today.
• The prospects for the new Scottish government elected in May 2011.

In each case, two to four *precise* and *informed* sentences explaining the reference in the text or linking to events mentioned in the text would be the ideal.
I have listed eight topics above. Quite naturally, if you only spoke about five of them that would be quite acceptable. Several students only mentioned one or two. Ifthis is because you knew nothing about the others, then reading newspapers and general histories of Britain is going to be essential this Summer. If you knew about them but didn’t fit them in, this will be because of dangerous paraphrasing.