VCE English Question Thread

[cosine]

Can someone please mark my Language essay, the article is: Article 6 found: http://digeng.global2.vic.edu.au/files/2014/09/Using-Language-to-persuade-booklet-25ad3km.pdf

[Photon]

Hey, guys, I am a year 10 student and I am quite indecisive about what English subject I am going to be choosing next year. I am not sure what to choose between English Language or Standard English   I want to go into biomedicine and I still have not entirely made up my mind on my English subject for next year. Any tips?

[odeaa]

Hey, guys, I am a year 10 student and I am quite indecisive about what English subject I am going to be choosing next year. I am not sure what to choose between English Language or Standard English   I want to go into biomedicine and I still have not entirely made up my mind on my English subject for next year. Any tips?

Choose which one you enjoy, and are better at (usually one and the same)

Personally, I find English language much more relevant to the real world, and it's also much easier to study for

[chemzy]

Hey guys I'm an year 11 student this year and I was wondering how I should be preparing for next year English.

I feel that my language is pretty good, but I always stuff up because I'm not prepared for the topic given to us on the assessment task.

Should I be writing an essay each week? How do I improve my ability to understand texts and write for any prompt?

I also feel like I need a very good English tutor. If anyone knows an English Tutor in South eastern suburbs, could you please help me out? Thank you.

[Coffee]

Hey guys I'm an year 11 student this year and I was wondering how I should be preparing for next year English.

I feel that my language is pretty good, but I always stuff up because I'm not prepared for the topic given to us on the assessment task.

Should I be writing an essay each week? How do I improve my ability to understand texts and write for any prompt?

I also feel like I need a very good English tutor. If anyone knows an English Tutor in South eastern suburbs, could you please help me out? Thank you.

Why aren't you prepared for the topic? Is it simply a lack of knowledge and understanding about your texts? Are you exploring them in depth enough? Say you're studying Medea and you have a great understanding of passion/rage/revenge/etc and you know you can write anything on those topics, but then you get to the exam and it's asking you about how gender is explored in the play and you have no idea. Is it like this, or something else? If this is the case then you just need to work on understanding your texts better. Read them and reread them, use resources (mind maps, flash cards, etc) to connect and develop ideas. If you know your text well you should see improvement.

Writing an essay a week can't hurt and it would be helpful with any upcoming SACs and end of Year 11 exams. It might also be helpful though to write paragraphs, intros, conclusions (whatever you're struggling with). Don't feel like you need to write an entire essay just yet. Basically, whilst its great to employ these sort of study habits and whatnot early, you don't want to burn yourself out before Year 12 even starts. And obviously its important you have a good understanding of the novel and its themes/characters/etc before you start writing essays.

For tutoring, although I do think that you can do well enough without one if you and your teacher are willing to put in the work, if you absolutely feel like you need one then I'd recommend taking a look at the following websites:
http://www.gumtree.com.au/
http://www.tutorfinder.com.au/region/melbourne/
http://bettereducation.com.au/tutor/melbourne/tutors.aspx
ATARNotes actually does have its own section of awesome tutors but it doesn't look like its up at the moment. If you're willing to wait a bit though maybe keep an eye out.

[bobisnotmyname]

How many people do you think will be doing the white tiger this year, like a rough percentage

[cosine]

Can someone please mark my Language essay, the article is: Article 6 found: http://digeng.global2.vic.edu.au/files/2014/09/Using-Language-to-persuade-booklet-25ad3km.pdf

Someone please..?

[heids]

Someone please..?

I'd just started doing it just then

For my context piece (essay), I'm thinking of having it structured with four pieces of evidence. Two of which are texts, one is a film (skin) and the other evidence will be personal stuff. Is four types too much or too little? And I'm also concerned about whether I shouldn't double up on using two texts as my supplementary sources? thanks

Do you mean that you're structuring the essay ROUND the evidence?  Rather, your paragraphs should be structured round IDEAS about the prompt, and then you’d use relevant evidence to back that up.

It’d really be better to have a wider selection of examples (including some different types of examples, such as historical examples – you’re right, I don’t think you should use just texts).  Rather than saying ‘I will use these four pieces of evidence in my essay’, ideally you should say ‘I have these ten (or twenty) pieces of evidence I know, and then I’ll choose the four most relevant pieces’.

[heids]

Feedback... hope it makes some sense, I got distracted doing other stuff all the way through so it was kinda disjointed marking

[Escobar]

roughly how long is a good essay?
my teacher says 600 words is enough at the end of the year but I feel like it is a bit short

[heids]

roughly how long is a good essay?
my teacher says 600 words is enough at the end of the year but I feel like it is a bit short

Yes, I'd say more like 1000 words (assuming you're thinking end of Unit 3/4) - but it depends on how concisely you write.  A concise 800 word essay may say as much as a waffly 1200 word essay (and will be better) - if you write really concisely, 8-900 could be fine.  When your essay is too short, you can't go into either enough breadth or depth (can't introduce as many examples and can't analyse as deeply and thoroughly), but you just don't have time to go on for like 1500 words.

[paper-back]

When doing Language analysis, I sometimes have trouble explaining 'HOW'/'WHY' an author uses a particular phrase/technique to persuade the reader even though I have a faint idea in my head, it's like I'm unable to express this idea in words though I know what it's trying to do. How do I fix this?
I also have trouble elaborating on my 'HOW' and 'WHY' sentences without them becoming too repetitive

EDIT: What are some 'synonyms' for: Through doing so/By doing so? (Need some L.A. sentence starters)

[cameotodd]

When doing Language analysis, I sometimes have trouble explaining 'HOW'/'WHY' an author uses a particular phrase/technique to persuade the reader even though I have a faint idea in my head, it's like I'm unable to express this idea in words though I know what it's trying to do. How do I fix this?
I also have trouble elaborating on my 'HOW' and 'WHY' sentences without them becoming too repetitive

I sometimes have this exact same problem

[Splash-Tackle-Flail]

For those of you guys who have done english, how many practice exams did you do? And how many practice essays (as in practice exam essays not prep for SACs or anything)? It's just so much harder to do with it being 3 hours and all..

[appleandbee]

For those of you guys who have done english, how many practice exams did you do? And how many practice essays (as in practice exam essays not prep for SACs or anything)? It's just so much harder to do with it being 3 hours and all..

My English tutor did three practice exams purely for the experience of writing for three hours straight (excluding the school trial). He didn't do more due practicality reasons like getting burnt out. He only did this a fortnight before the actual exam. In terms of practice essays, he did more plans than essays because he found them more useful (he wrote about 25 plans during the term 3 holidays and about 5-10 practice essays). He wrote timed and untimed essays simultaneously so he could get the standard of the timed up to the untimed.

If three hours is too long, you could just write two essays in a row or two essays with a half an hour break in between, which can still help you build up your stamina.