‘This year the history exam was certainly not too difficult for the vwo’ | Interior

,,It was a realistic exam”, says Inno. ,,My students thought it was a good test to take, they had enough time and are optimistic about their score. They could also prepare well by taking the school exams and mock exams. This year the exam was certainly not too difficult for the vwo.” According to Inno, it comes down to precise formulation of the answer. “That is sometimes difficult: students have written less in recent years, so they have difficulty using the correct reference words, for example.”

The students had to learn in advance about ten time periods and four in-depth topics. These were the Netherlands from the Middle Ages to the Golden Age, China, Germany and Enlightenment thinking plus revolutions. Inno: ,,Ultimately there was little about the Enlightenment, the American and French revolutions were not even discussed at all. Very little was asked about the Dutch Revolt, or the Eighty Years’ War, either.”

One question was about ‘enslaved’ through time. ,,So the makers of the exam go along with current events, in the past it would have said ‘slaves’. Many sources were asked what the creator’s intention was. For example, there was a photo of a burning kampong in 1946, made by the Dutch marine Hugo during the police actions. He wrote that publication of his photo was stopped (‘Disgraceful!’) because it showed the misery we caused in Indonesia. Censorship is timeless.”

Over the years, Inno has noticed that the central written history exam is increasingly becoming a mix of explaining text and critically assessing sources. ,,Of course, the main thing about history education is that you learn not to let yourself be pre-chewed on everything, but a little more testing on historical knowledge would be nice. Because that basis is sometimes lacking among students, even though we do our best.”