BA History & Economics | Preliminary Examination - Course Handbook

The Preliminary Examination in History and Economics is a single nine-month course run by the Faculty of History and the Department of Economics. It does not count towards your final honours degree, but you are required to pass in order to progress into the Final Honour School.

The course consists of four papers. The formal Examination Regulations may be found in Appendix 1. The next sections briefly describe the four units, and full descriptions of each paper can be found on Canvas:

• https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/2212 (Economics)
• https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22239 (History)

The knowledge and skills you will acquire over the whole course are outlined in Section 2 | Teaching and Learning, which also focuses on the basic skills you need to develop in the first year.

Choosing your Options

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 quantitative methods. Appropriate mathematical techniques are also covered. For descriptions of these papers, see Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22239/modules/items/2946302.
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.

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.

Offering a choice of 26 subjects, 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.

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

Teaching: Faculty lectures or classes in first half of Trinity Term; 6 tutorials in Trinity Term, for which essays are normally prepared.

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

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.

Optional Subjects are examined in a single paper in the Preliminary Examination. You are required to answer three questions, to illustrate your answers as appropriate by reference to the prescribed texts.

Capping: The number of students who can take each paper is determined by the teaching resources available to each subject. Some are therefore ‘capped’, and where demand for these exceeds the number of places, students are allocated by a random ballot. Students choosing such subjects therefore need to have backup choices, at least one of which must be a subject which is unlikely to fill its quota: such subjects are flagged on the ballot form. This process takes place early in Hilary Term.