Modern History: should I choose it?

What will I learn?

How will I be assessed?

Progression and companion subjects

No complete companion or exclusion review is attached to this profile. Check the official course-entry conditions, language eligibility and your school’s sequence before enrolling. Links between resource hubs show related learning; they do not establish a compulsory prerequisite.

Will I find it hard?

Difficulty depends on your experience, interests, teaching and assessment. These are our reflection prompts, not an official difficulty rating.

• Try explaining a case, source or argument with evidence. Does this type of writing interest you?
• Look at the amount of terminology, examples and source material in the sample rather than assuming the subject is easy.

Does it scale up or down?

Modern History, 2025. UAC Table A3 reports separate means for reported HSC marks and scaled marks per unit, with candidature for each course in 2025. These are cohort statistics. They do not supply individual raw exam marks or a conversion between the two columns. Historical cohort data cannot predict your result or a future scaling direction.

Scaling is not a measure of difficulty or a guaranteed bonus. Prioritise content you can engage with and required subjects for courses you are considering.

Try a little of the subject

The nature of modern history

Modern historians work with an enormous range of evidence, and the historic sites and sources option asks how that evidence is found, preserved and read. An archive is an organised collection of records kept because of their lasting value: government files, court and police records, business ledgers, letters, photographs, maps, film and sound recordings. In Australia, institutions such as the National Archives of Australia, state archives and the Australian War Memorial hold records that let historians trace decisions, lives and communities. Archives preserve evidence from particular people and institutions. Some records were created during the events studied and others later; their purposes may include administration, persuasion or recollection. Evaluate authorship, context and what a record actually supports rather than treating archival preservation as a guarantee of accuracy. Digitisation has changed access. Searchable online collections, such as the digitised newspapers on Trove, can let a student far from a major library or archive read sources that once required a visit in person. Keyword searching can help locate relevant material, but the results depend on coverage, indexing and the terms used. Yet digitisation is selective: institutions choose what to scan, text-recognition software makes errors, and physical features such as marginal notes, paper type or the order of documents within a file can be lost. Historians therefore ask what has not been digitised as well as what has. Historic sites are also sources. To reconstruct a site and build a chronology , historians combine layered archaeological deposits (stratigraphy), datable objects such as coins or bottle styles, building plans, maps, photographs and written descriptions. Scientific techniques extend this

Original practice question: Which statement best explains how digitising archival records changes historical research?

This is ATARMAxxing’s original sample learning material. It is not an official assessment task or a prediction of your school’s workload.

Explore the resources

Open the Modern History subject hub and free preview (opens in a new tab)

• Modern History — HSC Year 12 (opens in a new tab)

Core subject information and planning are free. Full study resources are optional.