ATAR Notes: Forum
Archived Discussion => English Studies => 2015 Exam Discussion => English & EAL => Topic started by: literally lauren on October 28, 2015, 11:47:45 am
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Discussion for the Language Analysis here!
What did you all think? How'd you handle the comparative aspects? A copy of both speeches can be found here!
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So apparently 'Mathew' only had one 't' in it....
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So apparently 'Mathew' only had one 't' in it....
LOL!
You wouldn't have been penalised :P It's convention to use the surname anyway, but it's not a big deal.
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It was so much better than last year's Section C!
Only con was that there was way too much to talk about!
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Yeah I was happy it couldn't be considered a hard VCAA one, definitely do-able! Managed to get a fair bit out. The picture was a bit vague though, what did you guys write about it?
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Ouch. I'm done. This one was horrid.
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Yeah I was happy it couldn't be considered a hard VCAA one, definitely do-able! Managed to get a fair bit out. The picture was a bit vague though, what did you guys write about it?
I wasn't too sure about it too!
I wrote that behind Nguyen's team's success it was a team effort and I compared it with the banner in my comparison paragraph. I also wrote that it showed that volunteer work is a team effort which everyone can be a part of.
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damn i only wrote about one visual, will this hurt my score? I just wrote about one because i thought they would convey the same 'symbolism'?
:'(
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I wasn't too sure about it too!
I wrote that behind Nguyen's team's success it was a team effort and I compared it with the banner in my comparison paragraph. I also wrote that it showed that volunteer work is a team effort which everyone can be a part of.
Yeah I did basically the same. Coming together in unison, no bias towards gender/race etc. I was a little mad that I couldn't get as much analysis as we usually do (or how much we are meant to), hopefully it wasn't just me though haha.
Then for the award banner I wrote some bull about how the hand is coming from above, like 'helping someone in need' gg
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LOL!
You wouldn't have been penalised :P It's convention to use the surname anyway, but it's not a big deal.
Haha that's alright then. I only used his first name in the intro
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I liked it, certainly more personality and expression than last years. To me it seemed the response wasn't that much of a opposition towards the original piece (as it was last year) but rather a gentle clarification which I incorporated into my contention. I didn't explicitly state that he "disagrees" with her. Though I could be wrong and 6/10 incoming.
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Spent waaay too long on language analysis, compromised my writing time and quality for section A and B, will be lucky to get a 35
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i still am stumped on her contention
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Yeah I did basically the same. Coming together in unison, no bias towards gender/race etc. I was a little mad that I couldn't get as much analysis as we usually do (or how much we are meant to), hopefully it wasn't just me though haha.
Then for the award banner I wrote some bull about how the hand is coming from above, like 'helping someone in need' gg
Yeah for the banner I basically wrote the same thing, that it showed a 'helping hand'.
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I liked it, certainly more personality and expression than last years. To me it seemed the response wasn't that much of a opposition towards the original piece (as it was last year) but rather a gentle clarification which I incorporated into my contention. I didn't explicitly state that he "disagrees" with her. Though I could be wrong and 6/10 incoming.
I had roughly the same idea, so we can both get 6s together if that's the case! But yeah i didn't explicitly highlight it either, i just talked about how she wanted to emphasise bigsplash as a company whose cared about creating a culture of collaboration in the community, how like - everyone else forgets volunteers except bigsplash; and then in contrast Nguyen's highlights that personal satisfaction is the true reward for volunteering
wasn't a bad analysis, though i could have been a bit more insightful in places. overall i don't really know how to feel about my performance. I felt as though this was a slightly harder analysis then last year, if only because as an award giving speech her contention wouldn't have been as immediately clear.
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damn i only wrote about one visual, will this hurt my score? I just wrote about one because i thought they would convey the same 'symbolism'?
:'(
I spent much of last night chanting 'don't forget the visual... Don't forget the visual!' Aaaannd guess what I did? I forgot the visual. Well, only the second one, I analysed the first. Sigh... Here's hoping our study scores don't go down too much.
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Sample response for those interested (intention is not to dampen anyone's spirit but offer another perspective).
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Sample response for those interested (intention is not to dampen anyone's spirit but offer another perspective).
Was this in 60 mins? If so, jeez :/
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In terms of comparing and contrasting did we have to do it in depth?
pretty sure i compared the first speech based on arguments then said "conversly" and analysed the next speech.
Any opinions?
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Did so bad. I wrote 6 pages worth (I have massive handwriting when under pressure), but it wasn't as good as other essays I have written. Thinking along the lines of a 6.
I was like WTF when I saw it because it was so big!
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I was so surprised to see 2 speeches this year, it was only on Monday when I was joking to my students about there being speech comparative :D . Hope everyone did well, Stasiland prompts weren't to difficult.
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I found analysing the pieces relatively straightforward, however I could be full of false confidence and receive a horrible result haha.
For the first speech I wrote that she was 1. Trying to talk up bigsplash and 2. Praising volunteers/justifying the award, and for the second piece I said he was attempting to show he is worthy of receiving the award etc.
The more I think about it, it was a relatively strange piece compared to the vast majority of the practices I've done.
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I preferred last years Section C (and really all the previous years I had done up to '08), just because they seemed more argumentative.
Here's how I structured my Section C. I'm sure I phrased things better in the exam :P
Intro:
- Mentioned that the use of social media/technology has enabled volunteering on a global scale, and has generated interest and attention to the efforts of volunteers, generating praise for their work.
- The 'bigsplash' award is presented annually to a worthy volunteer organisation
- The CEO of 'bigsplash' Stephanie Bennett presented this award before the audience at the event gathering. In her speech, she contented was that volunteering is a significant undertaking in Australia, and that Australia should do more to recognise the efforts and contributions of volunteers.
- In contrast, in his acceptance speech, Nguyen (I spelt this surname incorrectly so many times, then corrected myself) proposed that volunteering is it's own reward, and that all individuals who are "lucky enough to live in comfort" should help others and volunteer.
P1 on Bennett
- Appreciative and enthusiastic tone
- Use of statistics to emphasise the significance of volunteering in Australia (1/4 of Australians)
- Use of economic figures to emphasise the vast contribution (if volunteers were paid minimum wage, would amount to billions per year)
- Uses rhetorical question to signpost the next portion of her speech "what would we do without them?"
- Lists of the assistance which volunteers provide in short, rapid succession, overwhelming the audience and persuading them of the vast scope of the contribution which volunteers make.
P2 on Bennett + Bennet Visual
- Subtle shift in tone as she becomes critical, almost attacking.
- Utilises inclusive language to involve the audience, make them feel responsible "we, to our great shame" "we take it for granted"
- Suggests that we need to be more appreciative of volunteering efforts
- The banner between the lectern is included to highlight this
- The empower hand raising/assisting the unempowered hand is commonly associated with helping those less fortunate/in need, but in the context of the speech it is suggested that Australians should assist and recognise the effort of volunteers, who are usually the ones providing this assistance.
P3 on Nguyen + Nguyen Visual
- Mention contention
- Begins speech in a humble, thankful tone
- "Disagrees" by highlighting that "volunteering is it's own reward"
- Argues that "those that have lived in comfort" should assist those who are doing tough - uses anecdote of "home's been wiped out in a flood" to appeal to morality and goodwill, empowers the audience to involve themselves by volunteering and assisting others
- The visual Nguyen has chosen to include in his organisation's application is a close up of hand clumped on top of one another.
- This visual suggests that volunteering and making a difference is the small efforts of many which together create a large impact.
- Furthermore, the faces of individuals in the image are not shown, suggesting that they do not require recognition for their efforts, and reinforcing that "volunteering is it's own reward"
Small conclusion.
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That's just what I did, doesn't mean I was right and there are definitely different ways of approaching it (e.g. not from an argumentative / contrasting stance).
Hopefully I did alright, none of us will know until we get our results back. Hope you guys all did well - I liked the other to sections, so hoping for the best :)
Thanks for your support everyone, especially Lauren - your practise exams helped heaps! Good luck to you all with the rest of your exams!
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This was the worst, and basically fucked up my entire exam, I basically kept repeating myself. D:
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Did anyone else feel that the script book's pages were so small? Lol I literally wrote till all the way till the end for section C haha, and Krakyn, I feel like I structured my analysis exactly the same as yours with similar points :o :P
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Yeah same I totally screwed myself over for the analysis and context, probably even the text response. So unhappy of my performance far out, 3 hours is just not enough time... Regretting life rn
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i wrote that it was all a big corporate advertisement. the whole thing was televised and her association of the awards with charity is to paint her company in a favorable light. the second speech is the product of genuine altruism, and while both promote charity and give pretty good reasons for doing so, they obviously come from very different places.
i felt it was pretty tough, but also don't really see vcaa penalizing kids who didn't take this line. hopefully im not over analyzing the whole televised business? then again their logo literally had dollar signs spraying out
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Did anyone else feel that the script book's pages were so small? Lol I literally wrote till all the way till the end for section C haha, and Krakyn, I feel like I structured my analysis exactly the same as yours with similar points :o :P
I asked the dude whether I can have another book, and he said they don't provide extra books because of the stickers, and he then gave me a sheet of loose leaf paper. I know that they have to give you extra books, and not loose leaf (read the front) so I just tried to squeeze it on the last page (not the blank page that says don't write). I don't think it would get processed to be honest (if the rules are as strict as they say)...
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Is it true that you only get 4/10 if you don't analyse the visuals?
I'm not sure if the guys on VCEDiscussionspace on Facebook are joking or not anymore
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Is it true that you only get 4/10 if you don't analyse the visuals?
I'm not sure if the guys on VCEDiscussionspace on Facebook are joking or not anymore
Well the task is to analyse both written and visual features, not sure if it would be as low as 4/10 tho, probably a bit higher than that.
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Well the task is to analyse both written and visual features, not sure if it would be as low as 4/10 tho, probably a bit higher than that.
Well... shit
As if I forgot to analyse the visuals
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Is it true that you only get 4/10 if you don't analyse the visuals?
I'm not sure if the guys on VCEDiscussionspace on Facebook are joking or not anymore
That would be utterly ridiculous.
You might lose a mark or two, because visuals are part of the task, but if you've earned 10 marks' worth with your analysis of the writing, they're not going to take off much.
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Is it true that you only get 4/10 if you don't analyse the visuals?
I'm not sure if the guys on VCEDiscussionspace on Facebook are joking or not anymore
They're always joking
I'd say 9/10 is possible without analysing visuals, although take that with several grains of salt
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They're always joking
I'd say 9/10 is possible without analysing visuals, although take that with several grains of salt
That would be utterly ridiculous.
You might lose a mark or two, because visuals are part of the task, but if you've earned 10 marks' worth with your analysis of the writing, they're not going to take off much.
Thanks guys. I don't think my analysis on the written elements is 10/10 but would I still be able to pull of at least a 6/7 without the visuals?
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Was this in 60 mins? If so, jeez :/
It took me around 90 minutes (typed). I graduated in 2013 so not as quick anymore haha
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Thanks guys. I don't think my analysis on the written elements is 10/10 but would I still be able to pull of at least a 6/7 without the visuals?
Not having read your piece, I can't say, but it's definitely quite possible :)
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Some general discussion in a blog I just wrote. Just jotted down my thoughts, feel free to question or challenge me. Hopefully it gives some of you guys some reassurance!
http://atarnotes.com/2015-english-exam-breaking-down-the-language-analysis/
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Some general discussion in a blog I just wrote. Just jotted down my thoughts, feel free to question or challenge me. Hopefully it gives some of you guys some reassurance!
http://atarnotes.com/2015-english-exam-breaking-down-the-language-analysis/
Didn't realise that there were two audiences :o
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I found analysing the pieces relatively straightforward, however I could be full of false confidence and receive a horrible result haha.
For the first speech I wrote that she was 1. Trying to talk up bigsplash and 2. Praising volunteers/justifying the award, and for the second piece I said he was attempting to show he is worthy of receiving the award etc.
The more I think about it, it was a relatively strange piece compared to the vast majority of the practices I've done.
That was pretty much what I wrote about. I went a little further with the Mathew (changed from Matthew in the last 5 mins), but essentially the same. I just hope my analysis was objective enough.
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I stuffed it up so bad...
I know that I can write well but I kept repeating myself and using rather pedestrian phrases & I couldn't express myself clearly
I want to die tbh
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Is it OK to say that Bennett bifurcates society in her use of inclusive/exclusive language - i.e. volunteers and non-volunteers, them and us? I don't think that was her true intention, but I kind of stuck with it... It seems a little far-fetched now that I think of it. And then I said that this moiety is collapsed by Nguyen, especially as the slide is contrasted with the banner (two interlocked hands compared to a multitude of interlocked hands). Surely other people said this too? :-\
I did mention that Bennett dichotomises the non-volunteers and volunteers. I'm not really sure if it was her true intention either, but the exclusive language she used to position volunteers as of a high moral integrity/standard was apparent especially when she elaborated on how society is unappreciative towards volunteers. She seems to be insinuating that if people weren't willing to take the initiative to volunteer, perhaps they should be more appreciative (she seems to be targeting the non-volunteers for the most part). I contrasted Nguyen's approach towards the audience to that of Bennett's but didn't pick on the difference between the two images.
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Is it true that you only get 4/10 if you don't analyse the visuals?
I'm not sure if the guys on VCEDiscussionspace on Facebook are joking or not anymore
literally nothing they say on vcediscussionspace is true. they're trying to sabotage everyone. just ignore them. atarnotes is waay more reliable
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As a marker ...
This is going to be 2011 all over again. Way too long and too much going on. I mean - three audiences (on stage, in the room, watching on TV), two visuals and two lengthy texts?
So, it's going to be one hell of a meeting where we complain about the fact the exams are set by people who don't actually teach Year 12 English. We'll be instructed to mark whatever students managed to do so long as they "had a go" and there will be a sense of "sorry, that was a stuff up" in the room. No way could a student cover everything on that task.
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They're always joking
I'd say 9/10 is possible without analysing visuals, although take that with several grains of salt
No - we take off a lot more than that.
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No - we take off a lot more than that.
As a marker ...
This is going to be 2011 all over again. Way too long and too much going on. I mean - three audiences (on stage, in the room, watching on TV), two visuals and two lengthy texts?
So, it's going to be one hell of a meeting where we complain about the fact the exams are set by people who don't actually teach Year 12 English. We'll be instructed to mark whatever students managed to do so long as they "had a go" and there will be a sense of "sorry, that was a stuff up" in the room. No way could a student cover everything on that task.
seems legit
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As a marker ...
This is going to be 2011 all over again. Way too long and too much going on. I mean - three audiences (on stage, in the room, watching on TV), two visuals and two lengthy texts?
So, it's going to be one hell of a meeting where we complain about the fact the exams are set by people who don't actually teach Year 12 English. We'll be instructed to mark whatever students managed to do so long as they "had a go" and there will be a sense of "sorry, that was a stuff up" in the room. No way could a student cover everything on that task.
Thanks for weighing in! This gives me newfound hope for the future tbh, having spoken to many other students who included seemingly essential details which I left out (bigsplash's ulterior motive to promote themselves, the multiple audiences, Nguyen's nuanced contention which contrasted and concurred with Bennett at the same time - I made no mention of the contrast).
A question: Given these things I left out, would I be prone to losing marks in the "understanding of the ideas and points of view presented" criterion? My overall interpretation of the texts and visuals was something like "Bennett aims to encourage a philosophical admiration and respect for volunteering, which Nguyen develops further by encouraging the audience to pragmatically actualise this respect by participating in volunteering.
seems legit
Looking at his post history (dates back to 2013, where he introduces himself articulately and grammatically as an examiner and teacher), I'd say he seems credible. Plus, he seems to have a very good grasp of marking trends and all that. And I guess the harsh truth is that about one-third of the criteria is 'analysing visuals', if we ignore the mandatory 'good expression and language' criterion, since it's an English exam.
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No - we take off a lot more than that.
Is it still possible to get a 7 if you forget to mention the audience in the intro?
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Thanks for weighing in! This gives me newfound hope for the future tbh, having spoken to many other students who included seemingly essential details which I left out (bigsplash's ulterior motive to promote themselves, the multiple audiences, Nguyen's nuanced contention which contrasted and concurred with Bennett at the same time - I made no mention of the contrast).
A question: Given these things I left out, would I be prone to losing marks in the "understanding of the ideas and points of view presented" criterion? My overall interpretation of the texts and visuals was something like "Bennett aims to encourage a philosophical admiration and respect for volunteering, which Nguyen develops further by encouraging the audience to pragmatically actualise this respect by participating in volunteering.
Looking at his post history (dates back to 2013, where he introduces himself articulately and grammatically as an examiner and teacher), I'd say he seems credible. Plus, he seems to have a very good grasp of marking trends and all that. And I guess the harsh truth is that about one-third of the criteria is 'analysing visuals', if we ignore the mandatory 'good expression and language' criterion, since it's an English exam.
oh, I didn't even bother to check... I automatically assumed it was a troll. Thanks joe444!
Yeah same, I had a sense of the ulterior motive thing but I thought nah and now I'm kicking myself for not including it
Thankfully I analysed the visuals... the piece was hell though. Not persuasive at all, and I kept fluffing around trying to make some sort of analysis when the piece was just rubbish
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Is it still possible to get a 7 if you forget to mention the audience in the intro?
Yeah easy. If you write the best essay ever written and forget to mention the audience in the intro you'd get a 20/20 :P.
Just depends how good the rest of your essay is.
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Am I screwed because I forgot to mention the audience at home? I kept on telling myself to include it BUT I FORGOT.
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Am I screwed because I forgot to mention the audience at home? I kept on telling myself to include it BUT I FORGOT.
It's unlikely you'll get hindered for not mentioning it. There are so many things you could've talked about, so mentioning one single possible audience in the grand scheme of an essay about analysing language isn't paramount. You'll be fine!
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Am I screwed because I forgot to mention the audience at home? I kept on telling myself to include it BUT I FORGOT.
Definitely not. The way I see the second audience is as an opportunity to gain a 10, not lose a 7.
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I didn't realise that it was televised and therefore didn't include this information in my essay. Would this be a problem?
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I didn't realise that it was televised and therefore didn't include this information in my essay. Would this be a problem?
Not a big one. More a missed opportunity for extra marks than something that will actively count against you :) --- virtually everyone probably did the same thing.
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Am I screwed because I forgot to mention the audience at home? I kept on telling myself to include it BUT I FORGOT.
No jasmine i swear u worry too much anyways
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If i forgot to mention the audience at all in the my essay, how many marks is automatically lost?
Well i somewhere wrote that the readers, 'aspiring volunteers' were aroused etc... but i dont think thats enough ..
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So if we only refer to one audience (instead of the three) are we immediately barred from upper range? In the same way forgetting the visual/s restrict you to about a 6 Max (at least according to my teacher). Like can you make up for it in other ways?
Another thing was I analysed how the audience clapping and cheering promoted togetherness and all that, but my mate says I'll be penalised as the clapping isn't really part is the speech- is this an issue?
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If i forgot to mention the audience at all in the my essay, how many marks is automatically lost?
Well i somewhere wrote that the readers, 'aspiring volunteers' were aroused etc... but i dont think thats enough ..
If you talked about the effect to some extent, then you should be alright. I don't really see how you could do an L.A. without at least implicitly referencing the audience, and just because you didn't have a phrase like 'This impels the audience to think/feel/believe...' doesn't mean you weren't discussing the effects of language in some way.
Though if you called them 'readers,' then a snarky assessor might get annoyed with you :P They wouldn't penalise you hugely though; there are no 'insta-lose-4-marks' factors because marking is holistic, meaning they look at your piece overall and say 'this feels like about a 7/10 or so.' There are formal criteria, but none of them state 'students must use the word 'audience' 3 times per paragraph' or anything that restrictive.
So if we only refer to one audience (instead of the three) are we immediately barred from upper range? In the same way forgetting the visual/s restrict you to about a 6 Max (at least according to my teacher). Like can you make up for it in other ways?
Another thing was I analysed how the audience clapping and cheering promoted togetherness and all that, but my mate says I'll be penalised as the clapping isn't really part is the speech- is this an issue?
Since the multiple audiences thing was really only brought up by a line and a half in the background info, I can't imagine them using that to split the state this year. There's no requirement to discuss different levels of effects (ie. this technique would affect those present at the speech in this way, whilst also affecting those watching the broadcast in this way.) That might've been good in some sections, but the focus is on the language, and dealing with the effects is more like the third or fourth step in that process of spelling things out. You certainly wouldn't be limited to <6 or anything like that. Again, holistic assessment is your friend here - if your analysis is worthy of a certain mark, the things that your piece is missing might amount to a mark or two lost overall, so it's not as though there's a one-to-one correspondence between the components of your essay and your mark out of ten.
Re: clapping, I probably would've left it alone since it's not really a part of the writer's use of language, though you could say the way the speaker invites applause (esp. with that drawn out "And the winner is..." bit just before Mathew's speech) and thus fosters excitement etc.
Then again, they've put that in there for a reason, so you won't be penalised for discussing it. But it might be one of those little things (like someone analysing the fact that the word 'volunteers' was in bold in the first image) - true, and with plausible justification, but not necessarily within the scope of the task. So long as you didn't base an entire paragraph around that single point, and you were able to back yourself up well with the rest of your analysis, you'll be totally fine.