ATAR Notes: Forum
Archived Discussion => Exam Discussions => New South Wales => HSC Exam Discussion 2020 => Topic started by: Joseph41 on October 10, 2020, 12:23:11 pm
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Hi everybody. With HSC exams upcoming, we've just created this new section specifically for HSC exam discussion. As exams get closer, we'll create specific threads to discuss the exams from major subjects - but also feel free to create your own threads/discussions.
Shortcuts:
→ English exams
→ Maths exams
→ Science exams
→ Humanities exams
→ Creative Arts/PDHPE exams
→ Technology exams
→ Language exams
How are you feeling about exams at this stage? :)
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Hi everybody. With HSC exams upcoming, we've just created this new section specifically for HSC exam discussion. As exams get closer, we'll create specific threads to discuss the exams from major subjects - but also feel free to create your own threads/discussons.
Shortcuts:
→ English exams
→ Maths exams
→ Science exams
→ Humanities exams
→ Creative Arts/PDHPE exams
→ Technology exams
→ Language exams
How are you feeling about exams at this stage? :)
Thanks for creating these Nick, I can't wait to engage in them! :)
Currently, I am just doing lots of past papers with a focus on consolidating my notes for all subjects. I can't believe it's all starting in 10 days though, Year 12 has gone very quick. :)
Keen to see how other HSC students are going ;)
Coolmate 8)
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Damn I feel like things are getting serious now that there is a discussion board for the exams :-\
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I agree with SamGresham; having a board for the exams is really putting it into perspective how little time is left!! I'm keen to discuss predictions for this year's questions, how everyone else is preparing in these few weeks, and how everyone is feeling! I'm feeling mostly calm, which is good since stress affects my exam performance a lot.
Alice : )
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I cannot bring myself to write any more essays for English or Legal Studies - every time I look at a question, I just go yup I know what I'll write about and give up on writing it because I'm so bored. I don't really stress before exams, this just feels like another normal exam. My study each day now is extremely limited as I'm just re-reading my essays, re-writing my evidence and doing past questions for math and chem. How's everyone else doing? I just want it all to be over.
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Wishing you all the best with your first HSC exams tomorrow, Class of 2020! I'm excited to hear how the paper goes for all of you (and to see the wonderful memes that will be coming out of it hopefully in the Discussion Group) 8)
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Wishing you all the best with your first HSC exams tomorrow, Class of 2020! I'm excited to hear how the paper goes for all of you (and to see the wonderful memes that will be coming out of it hopefully in the Discussion Group) 8)
A big thank you for your valuable input and assistance with English over the past months. I am quite happy how it went hence there may be a hope for Band 5 🤞🤞🤞🤞
I was ranked 5th out of 100+ in a middle ranking school. Would love to know what would be a required HSC mark for me to get Band 5?? (Standard English)
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Yes I agree with Natasack. Thank you so much for your constant help, angewina_naguen, for always being active on the boards and answering questions with in-depth responses. We appreciate it a lot! :)
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A big thank you for your valuable input and assistance with English over the past months. I am quite happy how it went hence there may be a hope for Band 5 🤞🤞🤞🤞
I was ranked 5th out of 100+ in a middle ranking school. Would love to know what would be a required HSC mark for me to get Band 5?? (Standard English)
Yes I agree with Natasack. Thank you so much for your constant help, angewina_naguen, for always being active on the boards and answering questions with in-depth responses. We appreciate it a lot! :)
Thank you both for your kind words! The forums are almost a second home for me and I'm glad to know that I've been able to help out and give back in some way :D
As for your question Natasack, the required HSC mark to get a Band 5 is 80 but how that 80 is determined depends on several factors beyond my own understanding. How you arrive at your final HSC mark is a product of your individual performance (raw mark), the cohort's overall performance, your school's performance and probably a gagillion other ingredients. However, your rank is quite high so I would say a Band 5 is definitely possible if you felt that the exams went well for you as well! It'll be interesting to see how NESA marks and determines the standards for the bands this year given the controversies with the papers this year. I think you'll all perform brilliantly. Good luck for the rest of your exams :D
Angelina ;D
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Hey, what do you mean by the controversies?
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Hey, what do you mean by the controversies?
Hey!
From what I've seen on the Discussion Group and meme pages (which aren't particularly reliable sources but that's beside the point), Section I for Paper 1 seemed pretty problematic with the mark allocations and the length of the texts themselves. The lack of a reflection and specification of the imaginative form for Section III of Paper 2 was also a shocking move. I did say in my lecture this and last year that I anticipated NESA will pull that at some point because it's not impossible but I didn't expect it to happen for the 2020 cohort. I don't think the paper was that controversial myself but a lot of people seem to think it was yikes. I think I would have been furious as a Year 12 student doing the syllabus if my strongest and weakest areas (which were actually creative writing and short answers respectively) both had problematic aspects to them.
I also hear from my Standard students that the questions for Paper 2 were similar to the CSSA Trials so I'm interested to see whether NESA will deal with this in any way :o There's an article about it on SMH here. We'll see how it all plays out in due time though :D
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Hey!
From what I've seen on the Discussion Group and meme pages (which aren't particularly reliable sources but that's beside the point), Section I for Paper 1 seemed pretty problematic with the mark allocations and the length of the texts themselves. The lack of a reflection and specification of the imaginative form for Section III of Paper 2 was also a shocking move. I did say in my lecture this and last year that I anticipated NESA will pull that at some point because it's not impossible but I didn't expect it to happen for the 2020 cohort. I don't think the paper was that controversial myself but a lot of people seem to think it was yikes. I think I would have been furious as a Year 12 student doing the syllabus if my strongest and weakest areas (which were actually creative writing and short answers respectively) both had problematic aspects to them.
I also hear from my Standard students that the questions for Paper 2 were similar to the CSSA Trials so I'm interested to see whether NESA will deal with this in any way :o There's an article about it on SMH here. We'll see how it all plays out in due time though :D
Hey Angelina
You are probably familiar with the controversial image as well. The question asked about the form and language techniques, but I discussed visual techniques. Is that what the form means?
Also discussion groups are saying that at least 5 pages are needed for Band 5. Is that true? Wouldn't a quality 4 page essay be better, than a longer one, but not as good. Additionally, some people write big, some smaller letters, so surely the number of pages is not the most important thing?!
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Hey!
From what I've seen on the Discussion Group and meme pages (which aren't particularly reliable sources but that's beside the point), Section I for Paper 1 seemed pretty problematic with the mark allocations and the length of the texts themselves. The lack of a reflection and specification of the imaginative form for Section III of Paper 2 was also a shocking move. I did say in my lecture this and last year that I anticipated NESA will pull that at some point because it's not impossible but I didn't expect it to happen for the 2020 cohort. I don't think the paper was that controversial myself but a lot of people seem to think it was yikes. I think I would have been furious as a Year 12 student doing the syllabus if my strongest and weakest areas (which were actually creative writing and short answers respectively) both had problematic aspects to them.
I also hear from my Standard students that the questions for Paper 2 were similar to the CSSA Trials so I'm interested to see whether NESA will deal with this in any way :o There's an article about it on SMH here. We'll see how it all plays out in due time though :D
Hmm, I honestly couldn't see a problem in Section 1 of Paper 1, though I can see why some people were upset by Mod C on Paper 2. I guess the syllabus does say that students must learn imaginative, discursive, persuasive and informative text types, so it was a perfectly fair play by NESA. Besides, the sample paper released by NESA had a question without a reflection. It was just one of three questions released for Mod C, so surely that was accepted as a highly probable question.
I think it's just the majority of teachers went about it the wrong way, teaching narrowly and focusing only on one form combined with a reflection. What do you guys think? Wouldn't mind a debate haha.
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Hmm, I honestly couldn't see a problem in Section 1 of Paper 1, though I can see why some people were upset by Mod C on Paper 2. I guess the syllabus does say that students must learn imaginative, discursive, persuasive and informative text types, so it was a perfectly fair play by NESA. Besides, the sample paper released by NESA had a question without a reflection. It was just one of three questions released for Mod C, so surely that was accepted as a highly probable question.
I think it's just the majority of teachers went about it the wrong way, teaching narrowly and focusing only on one form combined with a reflection. What do you guys think? Wouldn't mind a debate haha.
same I saw no problem w section 1 however mod C did throw people off- I know a number of people who ended up writing a reflection too just in the confusion of the moment. tbh I'm actually glad they did that in some ways...because it really evened out the 2 papers as a whole which had no curveballs and kind of straightforward questions. however I'm not sure if it's "fair" on nesa's part... some schools were completely ill prepared for the imaginative text type as many focused on the discursive/reflection because of the new syllabus...why bother changing up the syllabus if you're not even gonna test out its new bells and whistles in only its second year?
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You are probably familiar with the controversial image as well. The question asked about the form and language techniques, but I discussed visual techniques. Is that what the form means?
Yeah, I talked about visual techniques also, like vectors protruding from the Sun, I think that question was worded weirdly.
Also, for Paper 2 in the creative story, did anyone begin with the stimulus (even though it said not to write the full thing out), because I quoted different parts of the stimulus throughout my creative, did anyone else do this?
Coolmate 8)
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same I saw no problem w section 1 however mod C did throw people off- I know a number of people who ended up writing a reflection too just in the confusion of the moment. tbh I'm actually glad they did that in some ways...because it really evened out the 2 papers as a whole which had no curveballs and kind of straightforward questions. however I'm not sure if it's "fair" on nesa's part... some schools were completely ill prepared for the imaginative text type as many focused on the discursive/reflection because of the new syllabus...why bother changing up the syllabus if you're not even gonna test out its new bells and whistles in only its second year?
True, and I understand that the blame can't go to the students yet they had to bear the brunt of the effects, but I feel NESA were justified in their actions, because the syllabus and sample papers indicated that they didn't have to ask for a reflection and could specify a text type. Unfortunately, I think a lot of teachers misinterpreted this and focused on a rigid structure, which poorly prepared their students. I feel like this was just unfortunate on behalf of the teachers, and it's a bad situation, but the blame can't really go to NESA. In my opinion, of course.
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Hey Angelina
You are probably familiar with the controversial image as well. The question asked about the form and language techniques, but I discussed visual techniques. Is that what the form means?
Also discussion groups are saying that at least 5 pages are needed for Band 5. Is that true? Wouldn't a quality 4 page essay be better, than a longer one, but not as good. Additionally, some people write big, some smaller letters, so surely the number of pages is not the most important thing?!
Just saw these questions now! If you discussed language and visual techniques you should be good because the form of the text is visual :) I also try to get it out of students' heads that you need to read a certain number of pages to do well because everyone has different handwriting sizes, some people cross out a lot more things etc. so gauging how you went based on pages won't give you much. As long as you answer your question, use quotes and techniques to support your arguments and effectively link back, you're fine! It definitely is up to quality over quantity :D
Also, for Paper 2 in the creative story, did anyone begin with the stimulus (even though it said not to write the full thing out), because I quoted different parts of the stimulus throughout my creative, did anyone else do this?
Coolmate 8)
This is also fine! I did this in Extension 1 English in my HSC; I treated the provided excerpt they gave us as a refrain so I was using it throughout my response. What matters is that your response was relevant to it and developed its ideas in an engaging way :D
As for my thoughts on the Module C section, BakerDad12 is right in that the NESA sample paper did show an option where they could just ask for a full 20 mark response and specify a text type so teachers should have prepared students for that outcome. However, I also agree with ririre in that there is this whole emphasis being placed now with the new syllabus on learning other text types, developing connections with your prescribed texts through the writing and engaging in the craft of writing in a more holistic manner. Either way, I think them throwing this as a curveball in the second year of the syllabus was a poor move. I am on the fence with this debate because I wasn't the one sitting the paper and I think whatever any of you think about it is more valid :) Ultimately, I think that the papers could have been way worse and while everyone faced their own set of challenges, you will all come out just fine :D
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Just saw these questions now! If you discussed language and visual techniques you should be good because the form of the text is visual :) I also try to get it out of students' heads that you need to read a certain number of pages to do well because everyone has different handwriting sizes, some people cross out a lot more things etc. so gauging how you went based on pages won't give you much. As long as you answer your question, use quotes and techniques to support your arguments and effectively link back, you're fine! It definitely is up to quality over quantity :D
This is also fine! I did this in Extension 1 English in my HSC; I treated the provided excerpt they gave us as a refrain so I was using it throughout my response. What matters is that your response was relevant to it and developed its ideas in an engaging way :D
As for my thoughts on the Module C section, BakerDad12 is right in that the NESA sample paper did show an option where they could just ask for a full 20 mark response and specify a text type so teachers should have prepared students for that outcome. However, I also agree with ririre in that there is this whole emphasis being placed now with the new syllabus on learning other text types, developing connections with your prescribed texts through the writing and engaging in the craft of writing in a more holistic manner. Either way, I think them throwing this as a curveball in the second year of the syllabus was a poor move. I am on the fence with this debate because I wasn't the one sitting the paper and I think whatever any of you think about it is more valid :) Ultimately, I think that the papers could have been way worse and while everyone faced their own set of challenges, you will all come out just fine :D
Thanks again, Angelina!
And what do you think how important was to give the creative story a title?
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Thanks again, Angelina!
And what do you think how important was to give the creative story a title?
I find that having a title shows that you recognise that it is a part of the form of any piece of writing, that you understand its importance and you can, therefore, allow it to provide significant weight and meaning for your piece if you choose an effective one. I think this is particularly the case given that they didn't have a reflection this year. A title says a lot about your ability to reflect upon your creative choices and make conscious decisions on how they shape your imaginative writing. Despite my thoughts though, you technically don't need a title and won't "lose marks" for not having one (remember that markers are looking to give marks!). It's not specified anywhere in the syllabus that you need to have one so if you didn't have one or know of people who didn't, it's all good :)
If you were asking me this question prior to the HSC exams, I would have been emphasising over and over again to have it because it differentiates your response immediately since so many people forget to/choose not to have titles. However, the exams are over now and I can truly say that it isn't as huge of a deal as people make it out to be. The creative will speak for itself ;D
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I find that having a title shows that you recognise that it is a part of the form of any piece of writing, that you understand its importance and you can, therefore, allow it to provide significant weight and meaning for your piece if you choose an effective one. I think this is particularly the case given that they didn't have a reflection this year. A title says a lot about your ability to reflect upon your creative choices and make conscious decisions on how they shape your imaginative writing. Despite my thoughts though, you technically don't need a title and won't "lose marks" for not having one (remember that markers are looking to give marks!). It's not specified anywhere in the syllabus that you need to have one so if you didn't have one or know of people who didn't, it's all good :)
If you were asking me this question prior to the HSC exams, I would have been emphasising over and over again to have it because it differentiates your response immediately since so many people forget to/choose not to have titles. However, the exams are over now and I can truly say that it isn't as huge of a deal as people make it out to be. The creative will speak for itself ;D
Thanks! I think it's time for me to stop thinking about English and focus on my other exams 😁 3 next week 😲