English Language Exam 2012 Revision Thread

[Kaille]

So how are we writing these section b thingos? I've heard so much conflicting information, i'm not too sure how i'm gonna tackle this thing tomorrow.

So basically its intro and stylistic features of the text? that it? OWW NO THIS IS NOT GONNA GO DOWN WELL TOMORROWW!

[Niskii]

Section B = commentary yeah?

I get what you mean about the conflicting information! I've heard about so many different ways of writing one, it's crazy.

In my practice ones I've handed in, I generally do an intro, then a few paragraphs depending on what is important to the text. For example function, context and/or social purpose, and talking about how they affect the language used. But there are so many approaches which could potentially work - I assume as long as we write cohesively/coherently with examples from the text we'll be right

[ldee]

So how are we writing these section b thingos? I've heard so much conflicting information, i'm not too sure how i'm gonna tackle this thing tomorrow.

So basically its intro and stylistic features of the text? that it? OWW NO THIS IS NOT GONNA GO DOWN WELL TOMORROWW!

This is the problem, nobody knows exactly how to handle it! Hopefully they will be fairly lenient in their marking since it's the first year and I think peoples set ups will differ greatly, but this is how I'll be presenting mine:

First paragraph, somewhat like an introduction, just saying what the text is, register, target audience, context etc etc. Pretty brief.
Then from there, just sectioning it off into subsystems, and also topic management, turn taking (if they are applicable) and coherence/cohesion.

And obviously linking each example found back to everything identified in the beginning

[Kaille]

yoos section B.

Hopefully they'll be somewhat lenient in terms of what they're expecting, its not as if we have anything to go on with!

Oh interesting! i've never done it your way before, i normally do paragraphs explicitly for lexicon syntax etc.

what about coherence and cohesion and discourse, do you guys talk about it a lot in your analyticals?

[Niskii]

I haven't really mentioned them too greatly much in ones I've done in the past but I can imagine areas where it might come into play. For example if you have a spoken text and two people talking about two different things, you could comment on the lack of coherence of the discourse as a whole due to their willingness to both dominate the conversation... But I haven't come across that in an actual text I've been given before! Or for cohesion you could touch on anaphoric/cataphoric referencing to ensure an effective exchange and unnecessary repetition.

Has there been anything published about a word count expectation for the commentary and essay?

[Kaille]

Has there been anything published about a word count expectation for the commentary and essay?

i think vate says around 500-600 each

[Kaille]

or more too lol

[Niskii]

Haha cool Sounds like a good estimate to me - thanks!

[RTandon]

I gave a practice analysis to my teacher and I was pretty happy with it, but in the end she gave me 8/15.
But then she said she may have marked it harshly, so I'm reaaallly hoping she did and it was actually better than 8/15.

[rambo9593]

hey guys wat do u think a person needs to get out of 75 to get a score of 33

[thushan]

What are you guys scoring in your essays? (Section C)

[ldee]

hey guys wat do u think a person needs to get out of 75 to get a score of 33

It's really hard to call, seeing as its a new exam structure and the cut offs may be completely different. But for 33 you'd probably be looking at all Bs so maybe 45/75?

What are you guys scoring in your essays? (Section C)

In sacs, our essays were marked out of 10, and I got mainly 8s. When submitting practices in the lead up to the exam, my teacher didn't give them a grade as she thought this would either make us arrogant or disheartened (I see where she's coming from but don't agree). So I have no idea what to expect tomorrow, just hoping for some essay topics that play to my strengths!

[thushan]

8/10 = 12/15...that's pretty damned good.

[MattMethods]

What are you guys scoring in your essays? (Section C)

My last couple of practice essays have been given 12-13/15 by my teacher. Hopefully I can replicate that tomorrow!