ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE English Studies => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English & EAL => Topic started by: monicacinom on October 06, 2013, 12:36:22 am
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Hello everyone,
It seems to me that many high achievers in English seemed to have pre-prepared their essays for the exam.
Therefore, I was just wondering, is there any tip on how to prepare for those pre-written essays? especially for the Text Response section?
Thank you :)
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For the love of all that is good and holy, don't prepare a response for Section A >.<
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For the love of all that is good and holy, don't prepare a response for Section A >.<
Oh really? Why is that? :O
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Just don't do it...
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Because every single year the assessors tell students not to.
Massive waste of time.
What if you wrote on Harry Potter an essay about friendship and the prompt was about destiny?
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Yeah don't memorise essays for text response. TR is not like Context where you can tweak a piece.
The question you "memorise" is probably not even going to be close to your actual topic that you are presented with in the exam.
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Because every single year the assessors tell students not to.
Massive waste of time.
What if you wrote on Harry Potter an essay about friendship and the prompt was about destiny?
What is an effective good approach in dealing with TR?
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What is an effective good approach in dealing with TR?
Memorising Quotes that you can always use.
Knowing your texts very well
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I used to prepare essay plans but not actual essays.
Like, to a lot of different topics, say 30 per text...just literally write down what the paragraph would be about (a sentence) and think about what quotes or examples I could use there.
And then in the exam, especially for Context, you end up with something that probably pulls together a few of those paragraphs because you've covered a lot of ground and left it broad.
For Section A though yeah, preparing essays is an awful idea.
Just quotes and examples and understanding the overall themes and then practicing with random topics you dislike is best.
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What is an effective good approach in dealing with TR?
Practice getting good at it so you can do it to any prompt without a prepared essay.
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thank you all for the input!
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Interestingly enough...I know a school in NSW (*cough* Ruse *cough*) that actually legit trains their students to memorise a number of essays word for word and then tweak the topic sentences and a few others to match the prompt. Sounds a bit like a mark factory more than a school to me :P
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Interestingly enough...I know a school in NSW (*cough* Ruse *cough*) that actually legit trains their students to memorise a number of essays word for word and then tweak the topic sentences and a few others to match the prompt. Sounds a bit like a mark factory more than a school to me :P
I guess its possible, but its a massive risk and could be a complete waste of time if the topic given is completely different. Thushan, do you know how many essays they memorise?
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I guess its possible, but its a massive risk and could be a complete waste of time if the topic given is completely different. Thushan, do you know how many essays they memorise?
No idea.
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Interestingly enough...I know a school in NSW (*cough* Ruse *cough*) that actually legit trains their students to memorise a number of essays word for word and then tweak the topic sentences and a few others to match the prompt. Sounds a bit like a mark factory more than a school to me :P
Yeah had a convo with a Ruse mate about this haha, from what I gathered their English course is more suited to that though.
TT memorised all his essays (VCE) and got high 40s in English, seems risky though
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You can rely on pre-written essays to a certain degree. I found that at the very least it ensures you don't come up completely blank in the exam. This helps to establish confidence. Especially for section B. Just make sure they're flexible.
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What is an effective good approach in dealing with TR?
Well, one, you gotta know your text pretty well. So I would recommend writing a bunch of paragraphs about as many themes as you can find in the book, making original points about each theme as well as backing them up with evidence. Then, when you write practise essays, you can try incorporating your points into your paragraphs. When you've written enough practise essays, just start to write detailed plans for as many prompts as you can - group similarly-themed prompts together, and you'll find that some of your points will relate closely with more than just one prompt.
And then, come exam time, you'll already have good repertoire of evidence-based arguments and all you have to do is link the prompt up with your arguments (but don't make it a superfluous link - make it a strong link). For me, I guess this approach worked well for text response.
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I guess its possible, but its a massive risk and could be a complete waste of time if the topic given is completely different. Thushan, do you know how many essays they memorise?
This is not related to Russ Ruse (see edit), his school, or NSW in any way but supposedly "four" is the number... for each section A and B.
I dunno how it works, but apparently (this is all 2nd or 3rd hand knowledge) all prompts can be grouped into 4 categories. Then you work on each type until you can produce high scoring (and flexible) essays that you also need to memorise.
That's at least eight perfect essays you need to fully memorise... if this method even works... studying the set texts properly seems much easier :))
EDIT: I really suck at reading don't I...
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Where did Russ come from? Did you mean Ruse? :P
#moreAlwinmoments
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Oh okay. Fair enough.
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What is an effective good approach in dealing with TR?
Studying.
What if you wrote on Harry Potter an essay about friendship and the prompt was about destiny?
My lawyers will be in contact with you regarding intellectual property infringements.