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Snow Leopard

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« on: October 27, 2019, 09:05:58 pm »
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« Last Edit: April 23, 2022, 06:37:58 pm by Snow Leopard »

clarke54321

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2019, 09:18:48 pm »
+3
I can definitely understand the dilemma that you're in! When I was in year 10, I was tossing up between VCE English and Literature. The decision was so difficult that I ended up choosing both  ;D

Given your situation, however, I'd suggest that you wait until Headstart and just see how you like the class. Try not to focus on whether you'll get a better score for Lit v English. The important thing is to determine if the style of VCE Literature is well suited to your writing ability. Part of the reason I did better at English was because I preferred the structure of the individual writing pieces. Literature was more flexible, which often threw me off a bit.

Good luck  :)
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tigerclouds

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2019, 12:27:46 am »
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Hey guys,

So, for subject selections, I choose Literarture, but I'm really indecisive about my choice now.

I kinda feel like I should've gone with English because I feel like I put 5 times as much effort into Lit (intro to VCE Lit for Yr 10), yet I don't get the best marks (not the best, but not the worst either). Though, I can't really compare my marks cos I got roughly the same marks last semester for mainstream English.

The date for making changes was this Wednesday and since we have headstart I can always see what Lit is like and then possibly change into VCE English. But I'm really indecisive like I said before cos like what if the spaces are all filled for VCE English and then I'm stuck in VCE Lit for Unit 1.

But then again: I do enjoy reading and I have quite a while to improve before Yr 12.

Overall, I choose Literature for Yr 11 next year, but I'm wondering whether I should try to change it now to VCE English rather than wait until Headstart because I feel like I put so much more effort into it and still don't get the best marks in it.

Plz help me!

Hi there!
I was in a similar boat earlier on in the year. I dropped Literature after Unit 1 because I had the same thoughts you're having. I liked the subject itself (as in the content) because I, too enjoy reading and I just loved how the subject prompts deeper and more complex ways of thinking. Unlike English where the focus is on the plot (correct me if I'm wrong), Lit is more concerned with symbolism, context and the behind the scenes essentially. So you can be creative in that sense because there's less of a strict structure but like clarke54321, I prefer having that structure with English essays. In the very anxious process of deciding whether to drop the subject or not, I also had a look at the examination reports and my lord, people are gifted. I just don't think I can write in the way high-scoring responses are written. I know this is not a good thing to do, because I was comparing my skills at the time to my prediction of my abilities in a year's time where all that time in between would be spent practising and refining my skills so keep that in mind. Also, I know you're picking between the two, but it's worth mentioning that Lit helped me out a lot with English in terms of my writing skills like using sophisticated vocab. Like you, I was getting meh marks and they weren't as high as I wanted. I remember I was so dedicated to improving my marks because I like a challenge every now and then but I just sort of realised that there was no need to put myself through that stress when I could pick up another subject that still interests me but is less demanding and I can excel at. Afterall, Lit only scales up by one and I KNOW you shouldn't worry about scaling but I did. The competition is also very high in Lit. Personally, I knew it would be best for me to drop the subject just so that I can alleviate some of the stress next year but hey if you really enjoy the subject, I think you should stick to it because if you really want to do well in a subject and you put the effort in, your hard work will pay off. Sorry for the long reply haha, please remember that this is just my personal experience and my experience with Lit was short-lived so I'm not super informed on it. See how Headstart plays out and talk to your teachers and other students who did the subject.
Best of luck  :)

Snow Leopard

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2019, 06:49:10 pm »
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« Last Edit: April 23, 2022, 06:38:34 pm by Snow Leopard »

tigerclouds

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2019, 07:33:11 pm »
+1
Thanks so much for the advice clarke54321 and tigerclouds1. Would it change your view of whether I should choose Eng or Lit, if I said that I too like structure?
But also in the assessments this semester (in lit intro class), I feel like I never follow the structure provided for us, I just kinda write.

2. Also, since I'm gonna do Bio, chem, methods, one lote 3/4, another lote 1/2, do you think I'd be able to balance everything?
Adding on from this, I'm kinda a mathsy/sciency person, and my current teacher who teaches Lit in VCE said my writing is a bit mechanical. She said this wasn't a huge issue and isn't really something I can fix.
3. But do you reckon my writing style is better suited for Lit or Eng?

sos for all the questions and I'd really appreciate any one's insight into this!
In all honesty, I don't think I'm in the right position to advise you on exactly what to choose. I'm only speaking from personal experience. Your subjects are content-heavy so you need to ask yourself if you are willing to handle that little extra push that comes with Lit. Regardless, if you like the subject and you're ready to put the effort in, then you might go for it. It all comes down to your self-awareness and doing what you think is right and beneficial for you :)

tigerclouds

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2019, 11:34:00 pm »
+1
One last question :D: how much extra effort would I have to put into Literature to do well in it compared with English?
Haha, again, I wouldn't know because I didn't do the subject for very long. Please ask your teachers.

colline

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2019, 09:37:16 am »
+4
Hey Snow Leopard! I thought I’d offer my two cents. I only did Unit 2 English but I hope this can give you some more info.

1. Would it change your view of whether I should choose Eng or Lit, if I said that I too like structure?

A bit. Literature has that scope of creative freedom and a lot of students who are strong in English find themselves a bit lost when they have to write lit essays. But the common misconception is that literature has NO structure — this is false!! You have structure in lit as well, you just choose your own.

2. Also, since I'm gonna do Bio, chem, methods, one lote 3/4, another lote 1/2, do you think I'd be able to balance everything?

I guess that depends on yourself. When I did lit (3/4), I did it alongside SIX other subjects (dance 3/4, bio, psych, further, methods, and music/English) but I found it overall to be quite manageable.

Adding on from this, I'm kinda a mathsy/sciency person, and my current teacher who teaches Lit in VCE said my writing is a bit mechanical. She said this wasn't a huge issue and isn't really something I can fix.

Honestly a lot of students have this problem, even the ‘artsy/humanities’ people. But it really is something you can fix, just not in the short term. Since you’re in year 10, you have about 2 years to improve!

3. But do you reckon my writing style is better suited for Lit or Eng?

See my response to the first question. But overall I don’t think anyone can be PERFECTLY suited for one or the other, it’s all about how much effort you’re willing to put in.

One last question : how much extra effort would I have to put into Literature to do well in it compared with English?

Subjective. I personally found lit easier, someone else may say otherwise.


Hope that helps a bit! xx

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tigerclouds

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2019, 04:40:59 pm »
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Did your marks drastically improve from what you were getting in Lit, if you don't mind telling me?
Hi! Do you mean from Lit to my new subject? If so, for sure! I transferred into Psych which suited my interests so much more and was so much easier in my opinion so I was able to do really well. I went from getting around As and B+s for Lit to getting full marks in Psych (with a few As).

Snow Leopard

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2019, 05:05:30 pm »
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Hi! Do you mean from Lit to my new subject? If so, for sure! I transferred into Psych which suited my interests so much more and was so much easier in my opinion so I was able to do really well. I went from getting around As and B+s for Lit to getting full marks in Psych (with a few As).
Hello! Did you do both Lit and Eng for Unit 1? If so, were you always getting better marks in English compared to Unit 1 Lit?

colline

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2019, 06:46:31 pm »
+1
Hey Snow Leopard, thought I’d offer my two cents:

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I feel like I would do better in English because I feel like in Literature you literally have to know your novels/texts inside out, have annotated them extremely well and are very familiar with those literary devices/views and values etc in order to do well.
Hm, I think this would apply to English as well. I highly doubt you’d be able to get a 45+ in ANY subject if you don’t know the content inside out.

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the times my teacher has given me feedback, the things that she would tick twice (really like, therefore give a higher mark) were not things that I had picked up on myself, but had actually searched up and gotten that idea from other internet sources
I don’t think this is too problematic. No one is expecting a high school student to suddenly have an epiphany and come up with totally new and groundbreaking analysis for a text scholars have been scrutinising for years, decades, or even centuries (though if you did that wouldn’t hurt). Analysing texts come with practice and extensive reading.

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Pro's of Lit
- I enjoy reading and writing
- Word limit is higher (I tend to write a lot in Assessments)
- I enjoy discussing views and values
I think enjoying reading and writing is a pro for both lit and mainstream. Honestly, you’d probably be doing more writing in mainstream as the final exam has 3 essays, while the lit exam only has 2. Regarding word limit, while it’s great to write a lot, make sure to prioritise quality over quantity.

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Con's of Lit
- The teacher is a really harsh marker
- My vocab ain't that great
Harsh marker really isn’t a detriment, if anything a teacher who has a sharp eye for areas of improvement is EXACTLY what you want!
Vocab - I think this would apply to both english and lit. I don’t think there’s a criteria in english which states you can use less sophisticated vocab. Finally, a lot of literature students have extensive vocab but their essays just sound as if they vomited out a thesaurus. You’re marked on how well and how effectively you convey your ideas and sometimes having sophisticated vocabulary could actually work against you.

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Cons of English
- More people in the state do it, so it could also be really hard to do well in it
That means there are also more spots for 40+’s ;)

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- Most people in the class are doing it cos it's compulsory, therefore they're less motivated and more likely to be distracting

Plus, Literature is going to be so much more competitive and the environment isn't going to be as quiet as a Lit class would normally be cos we're gonna have pretty rowdy people in that class.
IMO, you shouldn’t worry too much about the attitude and skills of people around you. Just focus on your strengths and weaknesses and see which subject would suit you more.

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Also, just wondering for current/ past lit students, do you feel like a literary perspectives essay is easier than a passage analysis essay?
I feel like literary perspectives is easier because you have less to discuss. Like really your talking about the views and values of a text and using literary criticism to back up what your saying alongside literary devices. Whereas passage analysis, you have to discuss literary devices, views and values plus make comparisons between the passages all in the same paragraph.
I definitely would not say that there is less to discuss in literary perspectives. If anything, it’s the opposite. In lit perspectives, you not only have to analyse the passage given but you must also go into far more detail regarding the particular lens you chose. I personally found close passage analysis to be easier, because lit perspectives is a completely new form of assessment and also required so much more research into academic sources.

Hope this helps! :D

VCE: Literature [50] Methods [50] Further [48] Chemistry [40] Biology [33]
2022: Bachelor of Science (Mathematical Economics) @ ANU

tigerclouds

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2019, 07:04:51 pm »
+1
Hello! Did you do both Lit and Eng for Unit 1? If so, were you always getting better marks in English compared to Unit 1 Lit?
Yes, I did do both and yeah my marks for English tended to be higher than Lit.

colline

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2019, 12:05:12 am »
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Thanks again for your amazing advice colline. Wait for Literary Perspectives do you also have to analyse passages, or did you mean the prior analyzing that you do when you study the text ? In that sort of assessment that we did for an intro to VCE Lit (Sem 2 Yr 10) we were allowed to have a quote sheet with 15 quotes (both from the novel and literary criticisms) and were given a prompt to write with, but no direct passages to analyse.
No worries! :)

For lit perspectives you will do plenty of analysing both as preparation and for the actual assessment. You’re essentially doing the critiquing on top of close passage analysis.

Your teacher may let you have a quote sheet for internal SACs but on the final exam you won’t be allowed one. You will just be given one prompt.

You won’t be given direct passages to analyse because you’re expected to have quotes, critiques, and major points of analysis memorised.

Put simply:
Section B (CPA) - close passage analysis (with references given)
Section A (LP) - critique AND analysis (without references)

So going back to your original question, literary perspectives is definitely not the less content-heavy of the two. ;)

VCE: Literature [50] Methods [50] Further [48] Chemistry [40] Biology [33]
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colline

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #12 on: November 28, 2019, 09:53:03 pm »
+3
I think you should give lit a try and see how it goes :)

In year 10 when I was deciding whether I wanted to do 3/4 lit in year 11 without 1/2, or just do mainstream English in year 12, I was very worried of lit's unprecedented reputation and thought maybe it would drag down my other subjects. Honestly, choosing lit ended up being one of the best decisions I made for VCE. So I encourage you to try it and decide for yourself. Give yourself a challenge. ;)

VCE: Literature [50] Methods [50] Further [48] Chemistry [40] Biology [33]
2022: Bachelor of Science (Mathematical Economics) @ ANU

Snow Leopard

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #13 on: November 29, 2019, 09:47:39 pm »
+1
I think you should give lit a try and see how it goes :)

In year 10 when I was deciding whether I wanted to do 3/4 lit in year 11 without 1/2, or just do mainstream English in year 12, I was very worried of lit's unprecedented reputation and thought maybe it would drag down my other subjects. Honestly, choosing lit ended up being one of the best decisions I made for VCE. So I encourage you to try it and decide for yourself. Give yourself a challenge. ;)
Thanks again for all of your advice. Even though the deadline for subject changes has now changed to this Monday midday, I've decided to stick with Lit for at least Unit 1 and see how it goes. I'll try to stop thinking about whether I should've went to mainstream and instead focus on doing my best.

colline

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Re: VCE Literarture vs VCE English - Pls help me decide!!!
« Reply #14 on: May 03, 2020, 07:34:09 pm »
+6
How do you feel about the assessments in literature versus mainstream English? Specifically, which do you think your writing style suits more? I think this is the most important factor to consider if you are trying to decide between the two.

Also, what kind of feedback are you getting for your literature SACs? For example, are they mostly targeted towards your analysis, or your arguments, or maybe writing structure and style, or something else entirely?

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is doing well in English in Yr 12 less time consuming than doing well in Lit?
This depends on the individual. Honestly from an assessment/exam POV English should be more time consuming as there are more assessments, and you must learn 3 essay styles for the exam as opposed to two in lit.

VCE: Literature [50] Methods [50] Further [48] Chemistry [40] Biology [33]
2022: Bachelor of Science (Mathematical Economics) @ ANU