Just wanted to clarify a few things.
The main obstacle for most people in their way of doing well in English isn't a lack of writing experience or ability. It's the fact that they don't bother to analyse and in turn understand the texts which are the subject of their essay. And even more so, they rely too much on their teacher's interpretations and those of study guides, rather than actually doing any work themselves.
What you'll find is that most of the elite 'Asian 5' students do extremely well in English, even if they're not so talented at it, because they apply themselves the right way.
Thank you, charmanderp!
Why oh why do so many students go to study guides and things BEFORE they start making up their own minds and forming sophisticated opinions about their texts in English? It's like saying that your favourite colour is red but then before you decide WHY you like red or why it is in fact your favourite colour, you consume everyone's opinions about why red is so amazing. What good does that do? I know my example is incredibly simplistic, but simple was what I was aiming for, for explanation purposes!
This can also apply to practice exams. There is a reason why you shouldn't plow through the entire VCE course in 2 months. There is a reason why VCE includes both year 11 and 12. So that you absorb everything and go through the knowledge and theory and process all of the study at a decent pace. So that you build on the knowledge each year. You're not advised (well I hope not) to go from grade prep piano to grade 5 in one year. There's stacks of fundamentals. Sure, you can pour over the works and get there eventually, but you're missing lots of steps in the learning process and not experiencing the natural, gradual progression from one level of learning to the next. So just chill with the "must do 4000 practice exams" mantra. Yes I am not being anti-practice papers, but do them when the time is more appropriate. I.e. not before the year 12 course has already started.
I don't know, not as many people performed well in english language compared to english in my high school...
Yes this subject is sciencyer (woah, calm down creative word formation!!!) than English. But that does not mean that those who prefer maths/science based subjects are going to do better at it than English. If you want to do really well in ELang there are plenty of fundamentals to the English language that you already need to have equipped yourself with. Not knowing the basics is what cost good scores for the majority of my class. So picking this subject over mainstream English can be deceptive, especially if you're choosing it because you're a more sciency person. I don't mean to make either subject more or less off-putting, they're both great, but take this as a disclaimer and choose wisely when considering all aspects of both courses.
And of course once again apologies for my far-fetched analogies, but hopefully you get my point!
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