BA History & Economics | Preliminary Examination - Course Handbook

In making your choices of period or subject in these four papers, you should be aware that:

• for pedagogical or administrative reasons (such as the wish to teach first-year students within college), some Colleges may restrict the choice of their undergraduates in one or more of British Isles History, the Optional Subject, and Approaches/Historiography/ Foreign Texts.;
• the range of European and World History papers offered in the first year for Prelims differs from that available in the second and third year, examined in Finals.

You must offer four papers as follows:

1. Introductory Economics. This paper is compulsory. It is designed to give a solid grounding in microeconomics, macroeconomics, and probability & statistics. Appropriate mathematical techniques are also covered. For a description of this paper, see Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/294545.
2. European and World History (primarily European). A choice of four options is available: 370-900, 1000-1300, 1400-1650, 1815-1914. These papers are studied thematically. For descriptions of these papers, see Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22239/modules/items/294634
3. An Optional Subject involving the use of primary sources, including one exclusively created for History and Economics students, ‘Industrialization in Britain and France, 1750-1870'. For descriptions of these papers, and details of the prescribed texts, see Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22239/modules/items/294635 
4. A paper on Historical Methods. A variety of options are available. ‘Approaches to History’ involves an examination of interdisciplinary ways of studying history and includes a section on ‘Economics and History’; ‘Historiography: Tacitus to Weber’ looks at great historians and their works; and the Foreign Texts option allows students to study one or two seminal historical works in a foreign language (options in Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish are available). For descriptions of these papers, see Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22239/modules/items/294636

(Please note that the Paper IV option Quantification in History is no longer available to History and Economics students.)

Take time to decide your options. Usually your Tutors will advise you to begin by studying the core subjects, among which you have less freedom of choice. When it comes to non- core subjects, there are conflicting pressures. You may well be interested in and enthusiastic about something less mainstream, but such a subject may offer less support to the core subjects and so require greater application. HECO’s great strength is that it can be customized to meet specific needs without a loss of coherence.

In order to ensure that there is adequate teaching provision, the majority of Optional Subjects have a pre-determined cap on the number of places available for students each year. As places for these subjects may be competitive, students will be asked to indicate four papers that they would be keen to study, in order of preference.

Where the number of prospective takes exceeds the number of spaces available, students will be allocated to one of their chosen subjects via a random ballot. The balloting process takes place in Hilary Term.

Students will be contacted by email in advance of the ballot, and should consider their options carefully. While it is likely that you will get your first- or second-choice subject, you should be prepared to study any of your four choices. It may be helpful to discuss your choices with your college tutors; please ensure that you leave enough time to do so.

If you wish to make a special case for being accepted on to a particular paper, please consult your college tutors in the first instance.

In the outline papers, you may draw upon material you have studied in your British or European and World Paper, as well as material from your Optional Subject and Paper IV option. However, you should be aware that the focus and scope of questions in the outline papers is broader than in the Optional Subject and Paper IV, so you should not focus too narrowly on material from other papers.

More broadly, you should not actually re-use the same information or arguments across multiple papers. 

See the Prelims Examination Conventions under 3 | Examinations and Assessment, for further details. 

Please be aware of these limits on your choices from the outset. It is your responsibility, and not your tutors' to ensure that your choices fall within the regulations. 

All undergraduates studying Economics begin with this course. There are approximately 50 lectures, spread over two terms, covering Introductory Microeconomics, Introductory Macroeconomics, Probability & Statistics and the mathematical techniques required for studying Economics. Students normally have around 16 accompanying tutorials or small classes, arranged by their college tutors, at which the topics introduced in the lectures are discussed in more depth. They are expected to prepare for these sessions by completing a substantial amount of set reading, and submitting written work consisting of essays and answers to problems or short questions.

Introduction to Microeconomics:

Elementary economics including: consumer theory; producer theory; market equilibrium with perfect competition, monopoly and imperfect competition; factor markets; partial equilibrium analysis of welfare, market failures and externalities. Elementary mathematical economics: applications of functions and graphs, differentiation, partial differentiation, maxima and minima, optimisation subject to constraints.

There is no set textbook. Textbooks at an appropriate level include:

• The Core Team, The Economy
• H.R. Varian Intermediate Microeconomics
• M.L. Katz and H. S. Rosen Microeconomics
• M. Steven The Maths Workbook (written specifically for this course, available on WebLearn)
• G. Renshaw Maths for Economics

For more information, please see: Introductory Economics (ox.ac.uk)

Introduction to Macroeconomics:

The relevant part of the rubric for Introductory Economics in the Preliminary Examinations is: national income accounting, the determination of national income and employment, monetary institutions and the money supply, inflation, balance of payments, exchange rates.

The textbook is:

• Charles I Jones, Macroeconomics, 3rd edition

For more information, please see: Introductory Economics (ox.ac.uk)

Introduction to Probability & Statistics

This part of the course covers probability, statistics and causal inference. For further information, please see the course page on Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/294545/pages/3-dot-0-overview-and-instructions-2

Assessment: A 3-hour written examination takes place at the end of the Trinity Term. This accounts for 25% of the overall mark for the year as a whole. The paper includes three parts, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Probability & Statistics. Candidates must answer at least one question from each part and four in total.

An additional sequence of Introduction to Mathematical Methods classes is provided by the Economics Department for students who have not previously studied mathematics beyond GCSE level or the equivalent. Tutors will sign their students up for these. This material is not separately examined. It is designed to help students who need it to acquire the mathematical skills needed to sit the Introductory Economics paper.

Studied in one of four periods, this is a paper in non-British Isles History, which combines the study of an extended period with geographical range. It is approached more thematically than British Isles History, with an emphasis on the conceptual categories – of gender, economy, culture, state and religion – which enable us to understand both what past societies have had in common and where they have differed.

Course information for each of the period options available can be found at: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22234/pages/ewp-paper-options?module_item_id=209521

Teaching: 16 lectures in Hilary Term; 7 tutorials or 7 college classes (or a mixture), normally in Hilary Term, with submitted essays or essay plans for discussion.

Assessment: A 3-hour written examination takes place at the end of the Trinity Term. This accounts for 25% of your overall mark.

The Optional Subject challenges you to examine a closely-defined period or theme in greater depth than the outline papers. This paper is based on the study of selected primary texts and documents, and provides the opportunity to engage with a range of more specialist approaches to understanding the past. 

The teaching of Optional Subjects is partly based on the usual essay-plus-tutorial format, but this is balanced by Faculty classes for eight-to-twelve students, in which you will develop your ability to work effectively in a group. All students will be encouraged to participate in the discussion which constitutes the main form of teaching in these classes, and students are also asked to set the agenda for the classes or to give presentations on the material. Most Optional Subjects focus the classes around the set texts and use the tutorials for study of the substantive topics; but patterns of teaching vary from subject to subject.

Course information for each of the options available can be found at: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22234/pages/optional-subject-paper- options?module_item_id=209524

One of:

1. Approaches to History: Anthropology and History; Archaeology and History; Art and History; Economics and History; Gender and Women’s History; Sociology and History; Histories of Race; Environmental Histories
2. Historiography: Tacitus to Weber: Tacitus, Augustine, Machiavelli, Gibbon, Ranke, Macaulay, Weber.
3. Texts in a Foreign Language: Herodotus; Einhard and Asser; Tocqueville; Meinecke and Kehr; Machiavelli; Vicens Vives; Trotsky.
4. Quantification in History

Through this choice of papers students are encouraged to reflect on the variety of approaches used by modern historians, or on the ways in which history has been written in the past, to read historical classics written in a range of ancient and modern languages, or to acquire the numerical skills needed for certain types of historical investigation.
 

Course information for each of the options available can be found at: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22234/pages/paper-iv-paper- options?module_item_id=209527