ATAR Notes: Forum
HSC Stuff => New South Wales Education Discussion => Topic started by: Bparker on August 05, 2016, 07:53:02 am
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Hi AN community!
I seem to be in a constant struggle between writing essays quickly, yet legibly. In the past I have had feedback regarding my hand writing and the need to improve, however, I can't seem to get more than an 800 word essay out in 40 minutes when I focus on writing neatly!
So to all you graduates (and my fellow speedy year 12's), how do you get out a 1000 word essay in 40 minutes without sacrificing legibility?
Additionally, are 1000 word essays necessary in order to access those higher marks, or would a fairly concise 800 word essay also do the trick?
P.S I already tried to find a thread on this topic but can't seem to find one, so please direct me if there is one!
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Hi, thanks for your awesome question!!
My first piece of advice is the sacrifice your legibility IMMEDIATELY as soon as you start writing your essay.
A problem I used to have is... I would start my introduction with the fanciest muh'fkn writing you've ever seen. Curves here, joins there, some flamboyant ticks all over the damn place like I was tryna draft the next Declaration of Independence.
I'd really want to do a good job of my handwriting. Inevitably that sacrifices speed.
I think a lot of students do this.
THEN, 15 minutes to go, you realise you've only done 40% of your essay, and all of a sudden you're in a world of hurt. Then, BANG. You wrote too quickly, get the dreaded "can't read it, can't mark it" zero on your paper, then spend the rest of your days pacing Central Station decrying BOSTES and asking random passers by for spare change or an easily grippable pen.
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Instead... Just go HAM from the get go, but not "5 minutes to go" HAM. Just, "fuck my handwriting, I'm gonna do this quick" HAM.
In a paradoxical way, it actually takes pressure off, and it will make your admittedly low level of handwriting have a higher 'base' point. It's low, but it's consistently low from start to finish, and low to a point that you can still read it. If it gets lower than that point, as it might towards the end of your essay, that's when you're in trouble.
So I think that's one really good piece of advice. In the first minute, when you aren't under pressure... Write like you're under pressure, and you give yourself a whole world of extra time compared to your relaxed-but-shit-10-minutes-to-go-now-I'm-not-relaxedohgodwhatdoIdo friends.
So - focus on writing your essay, not on writing neatly. But make sure it's legibile. Find that point where it's legibile but you aren't trying to make it pretty. There's a big difference.
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Also, a high-level 800 words can achieve a lot. A skilled writer can get a lot out of 800 words. It's not really about the words, but about *how well you can hit the criteria*... And you can hit the criteria in 800, or you can hit it in 1000.
Obviously, the longer your essay is, the more chance you have of adequately hitting the criteria (some might thing), but really, if you're hitting the criteria extremely well in 800 words... You will get the high marks. (But an excellent 1000 words can certainly be better than an excellent 800 haha)
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Quality, not quantity.
Don't have the mindset that it's all about the word count. If your essay reads more like an essay then that overrides getting a lot of content onto the paper.
My 4 page Mod C essay ended up getting a higher mark than my both 6-paged Mod A and B essays in the final exam because I forced myself to figure out how Mod C even worked.
That being said, don't make it look like the neatest thing ever. It should be neat enough to be read.
(I wrote in cursive, so my handwriting wasn't a problem provided I wrote each letter to look decently like how it should look like (in cursive). But that has to deal with how I've been using cursive all my life.)
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A problem I used to have is... I would start my introduction with the fanciest muh'fkn writing you've ever seen. Curves here, joins there, some flamboyant ticks all over the damn place like I was tryna draft the next Declaration of Independence.
Hahaha this made me laugh so much because it's 100% true! Looking over my past exams you can see a gradual decline from my beautiful introductions to my last minute attempts at sentences.
Really great advice and I think I'll definitely start writing quickly from the get go!
Thankyou so much brenden :)
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My 4 page Mod C essay ended up getting a higher mark than my both 6-paged Mod A and B essays in the final exam because I forced myself to figure out how Mod C even worked.
Hi RuiAce, thanks for the awesome reply!
Did you go into those modules memorising essays? Or as you said, just understanding what the module was all about and how it worked so you could easily formulate an argument?
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Hi RuiAce, thanks for the awesome reply!
Did you go into those modules memorising essays? Or as you said, just understanding what the module was all about and how it worked so you could easily formulate an argument?
Memorising essays would've killed me.
I had my quotes and techniques prepared and found it much easier to argue the question on the spot.
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Memorising essays would've killed me.
I had my quotes and techniques prepared and found it much easier to argue the question on the spot.
I guess that would really assist in answering the actual question in your response rather than having to tailor a pre-prepared response! I'm still a bit divided on the subject of memorising, on the one hand it means I can get out a nicely worded essay without too much thinking, but on the other hand, it really seems to be pure luck if a question comes along that is relevant to the prepared essay...
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Hahaha this made me laugh so much because it's 100% true! Looking over my past exams you can see a gradual decline from my beautiful introductions to my last minute attempts at sentences.
Really great advice and I think I'll definitely start writing quickly from the get go!
Thankyou so much brenden :)
No worries at all.. let me know if it works for you!! :)
As for memorising... check out these blogs. One of them advocates for it, one of them discourages. You can decide for yourself :)
http://atarnotes.com/memorising-essays/
http://atarnotes.com/memorising-english-essays/
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Hey Bparker! Be sure to get some writing practice done at home as well, that can tend to boost your speed a little! Kind of like those writing exercises you'd do in Year 7-10, 10 minutes write as much as you can? Those sorts of things definitely help, and you can use them to help remember quotes and stuff too ;D
I'm anti-memorising, but I'll admit that it is faster to write a memorised essay than it is to come up with one on the spot :P that said, memorised essays, as you say, may not target the question directly and that can leave you in a bit of trouble, so it is a trade off. I shout don't memorise from the roof tops, but plenty of students do and heaps do really well with that strategy, so over the next few months just figure out what works for you! ;D
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Hi AN community!
I seem to be in a constant struggle between writing essays quickly, yet legibly. In the past I have had feedback regarding my hand writing and the need to improve, however, I can't seem to get more than an 800 word essay out in 40 minutes when I focus on writing neatly!
So to all you graduates (and my fellow speedy year 12's), how do you get out a 1000 word essay in 40 minutes without sacrificing legibility?
Additionally, are 1000 word essays necessary in order to access those higher marks, or would a fairly concise 800 word essay also do the trick?
P.S I already tried to find a thread on this topic but can't seem to find one, so please direct me if there is one!
Tbh I sacrifice some legibility for speed. But a tip that is often told to me is to tie a battery or weighty object on the end of your pen while doing practice essays (or better yet dictation) and then use a light pen during the exam room. Itll look weird and sure youll probs get a comment or two, but it will benefit you so much during the exams! I can now write 1100-1200 in 40 minutes.
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Tbh I sacrifice some legibility for speed. But a tip that is often told to me is to tie a battery or weighty object on the end of your pen while doing practice essays (or better yet dictation) and then use a light pen during the exam room. Itll look weird and sure youll probs get a comment or two, but it will benefit you so much during the exams! I can now write 1100-1200 in 40 minutes.
My girlfriend did this in the HSC! I didn't ever get around to doing it consistently, but it worked really well for her ;D
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Hey Bparker! Be sure to get some writing practice done at home as well, that can tend to boost your speed a little! Kind of like those writing exercises you'd do in Year 7-10, 10 minutes write as much as you can? Those sorts of things definitely help, and you can use them to help remember quotes and stuff too ;D
I think I missed out on those writing exercises Jamon! Although that does give me some good ideas - perhaps writing one or two paragraphs from my essay as fast as I can? Memorising and speed in one - oh yeah!
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Tbh I sacrifice some legibility for speed. But a tip that is often told to me is to tie a battery or weighty object on the end of your pen while doing practice essays (or better yet dictation) and then use a light pen during the exam room. Itll look weird and sure youll probs get a comment or two, but it will benefit you so much during the exams! I can now write 1100-1200 in 40 minutes.
Yes I just started doing this about a week before my trials! Not too sure if it completely worked, but we'll see in the long term when HSC starts and I've had a bit more practice haha :)
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Tbh I sacrifice some legibility for speed. But a tip that is often told to me is to tie a battery or weighty object on the end of your pen while doing practice essays (or better yet dictation) and then use a light pen during the exam room. Itll look weird and sure youll probs get a comment or two, but it will benefit you so much during the exams! I can now write 1100-1200 in 40 minutes.
This never worked for me lol. I write slow and I still can't change that habit
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very interesting, I might try some of these tips myself
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Yeah, my history ext teacher said we should be getting out 1700-2000 words in an hour (per essay)!! :-\ No idea how I'm gonna achieve that
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Yeah, my history ext teacher said we should be getting out 1700-2000 words in an hour (per essay)!! :-\ No idea how I'm gonna achieve that
I am sorry, but I think that's horrifically excessive. 2000 -> That's more than a word every two seconds! I could never do that, and I don't know anyone that could. At least, you could never do it without memorising the essay. I'd love to see a 2000 word essay written on the spot in an hour, ahaha ;D
I don't know about History Extension, but in my essay subjects I probably got about 1400 words done in an hour (non-memorised), about 2700 words in two hours anyway (that's about where my Paper 2 essay totals were at from memory). 2000 words in an hour seems way beyond scope in my eyes :P
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Extension essays go for 60 minutes, not 40.
But 2000 is still too much. A "reasonable extremity" in my opinion would probably be 1500 yeah :P
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Extension essays go for 60 minutes, not 40.
But 2000 is still too much. A "reasonable extremity" in my opinion would probably be 1500 yeah :P
Yeah I'd agree with Rui here, around 1500 seems reasonable in an hour if you are extremely well-prepared, a fast writer who memorises could possibly come up with more. In saying that however, there are a lot of students I know who do exceptionally well writing much less, its about quality over quantity!
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I am sorry, but I think that's horrifically excessive. 2000 -> That's more than a word every two seconds! I could never do that, and I don't know anyone that could. At least, you could never do it without memorising the essay. I'd love to see a 2000 word essay written on the spot in an hour, ahaha ;D
I don't know about History Extension, but in my essay subjects I probably got about 1400 words done in an hour (non-memorised), about 2700 words in two hours anyway (that's about where my Paper 2 essay totals were at from memory). 2000 words in an hour seems way beyond scope in my eyes :P
Ok, that's a relief! I thought she was being a bit ambitious... Still, so much I want to write :'(
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Ok, that's a relief! I thought she was being a bit ambitious... Still, so much I want to write :'(
If your worried about writing so much, then practice writing under timed conditions
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Yeah, my history ext teacher said we should be getting out 1700-2000 words in an hour (per essay)!! :-\ No idea how I'm gonna achieve that
I tend to think that history teaches expect a lot more writing than what is actually necessary...that's just always been my experience! My teacher for modern history (well, she was the teacher for the other modern class, but we shared teachers sometimes) admitted to us after the exam that all year she had told us a huge number to give us a high goal to achieve, and if we fell short, we'd still be writing a lot.
In saying that, for Extension English, I wrote an essay about 2000 words in perhaps an hour and 5/10 minutes? I had it completely memorised. For something like history, I just don't think I could ever come that close. You can't completely memorise history essays for an exam. I could only write so much for Extension because it was memorised and the essay question was workable with my prepared work. I could not do it for something I have to think up on the spot!
History is one of the subjects that you need to optimise your reading time for, in order to get the absolute most out of your writing time. So rather than thinking about how you're not going to be able to write 2000 words (although, maybe if you eat your nutrigrain you might get close ;)), think about how you can make the most of that time. Try build up the skill of thinking about the sentence ahead as you're still writing the sentence before. Try timed conditions if they work for you (I never did timed conditions, bar like, two occasions), find a pen that glides wonderfully, and focus on optimising your time, rather than a word count. You've got this!
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I tend to think that history teaches expect a lot more writing than what is actually necessary...that's just always been my experience! My teacher for modern history (well, she was the teacher for the other modern class, but we shared teachers sometimes) admitted to us after the exam that all year she had told us a huge number to give us a high goal to achieve, and if we fell short, we'd still be writing a lot.
In saying that, for Extension English, I wrote an essay about 2000 words in perhaps an hour and 5/10 minutes? I had it completely memorised. For something like history, I just don't think I could ever come that close. You can't completely memorise history essays for an exam. I could only write so much for Extension because it was memorised and the essay question was workable with my prepared work. I could not do it for something I have to think up on the spot!
History is one of the subjects that you need to optimise your reading time for, in order to get the absolute most out of your writing time. So rather than thinking about how you're not going to be able to write 2000 words (although, maybe if you eat your nutrigrain you might get close ;)), think about how you can make the most of that time. Try build up the skill of thinking about the sentence ahead as you're still writing the sentence before. Try timed conditions if they work for you (I never did timed conditions, bar like, two occasions), find a pen that glides wonderfully, and focus on optimising your time, rather than a word count. You've got this!
Aaarrghh ok. For question 1 I tend to spend the reading time reading the source (obviously :p) plus 5-10 minutes annotating/planning it before I actually write my response... Do you think this is too much time on the source?
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Aaarrghh ok. For question 1 I tend to spend the reading time reading the source (obviously :p) plus 5-10 minutes annotating/planning it before I actually write my response... Do you think this is too much time on the source?
I didn't study Extension History so I don't have an exact plan of attack. Although, my plan for every exam was to spend the least amount of writing time, not writing, as possible. So I wanted to do any source/text reading and analysing in the reading time, plus a minute or two overboard for annotating, and then spend the rest writing my answer. But, take this with a grain of salt, because I don't know the demands of the History Extension paper!
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I didn't study Extension History so I don't have an exact plan of attack. Although, my plan for every exam was to spend the least amount of writing time, not writing, as possible. So I wanted to do any source/text reading and analysing in the reading time, plus a minute or two overboard for annotating, and then spend the rest writing my answer. But, take this with a grain of salt, because I don't know the demands of the History Extension paper!
Ok, well thanks anyway!
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Usually teachers are able to decipher your words, therefore I think you should aim for speed, although don't write totally illegibly in 2 year old scribbles. This is what I learned from my experience :)
Katya ;)
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I am notoriously messy and both my English and SOR II teachers make no denial of it. I recently got told to use a felt tip pen of you are messy as similar to writing in texta, it forces you to be neater. I sacrifice a little bit of speed then writing with a ballpoint, but I gain a lot of legibility.
The advice is out there. Up to you whether you take it on board or brush it to one side. Doesnt bother me ;D
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Aaarrghh ok. For question 1 I tend to spend the reading time reading the source (obviously :p) plus 5-10 minutes annotating/planning it before I actually write my response... Do you think this is too much time on the source?
Hey! For History Extension you really do need to spend that 5-10 minutes planning, that is the perfect amount :) The sources, particularly in section 1 are really long, and require more than the reading time to understand. They don't treat it like you are writing a 1 hour essay, but a 50 minute essay. Even then, History Extension is not like Modern of Ancient whereby you need to write at least 1000 words in 45 mins to be considered a band 6, but is WAY more focused upon the actual content of your writing, and how well you engage with the source.
Spending the extra time to really nail that source and writing a 1100 word essay is better than writing a 1500 word essay but not engaging with the source :) Hope this helps! These are all tips from an old senior marker.
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Speed is probably more important for English than anything else. Because it's essay after essay after essay. (Or insert a creative halfway through, but you get the idea.)
Write fast enough so that you can get your content on the paper. But if you sacrifice so much legibility to the point that BOSTES has to actually HIRE a decryptor for you then we have problems.
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My handwriting is torture to read, and that's not counting the number of teachers commenting to watch my handwriting. Even when I'm writing slowly it looks pretty terrible; the closest mental image I can give is messed up calligraphy, but that's probably an understatement. And that's not even getting into what it looks like when I'm coming up with things on the spot....
Any tips to counteract this?
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My handwriting is torture to read, and that's not counting the number of teachers commenting to watch my handwriting. Even when I'm writing slowly it looks pretty terrible; the closest mental image I can give is messed up calligraphy, but that's probably an understatement. And that's not even getting into what it looks like when I'm coming up with things on the spot....
Any tips to counteract this?
Hey teapancakes08! If you're serious about improving your hand writing you need to make a conscious effort to practise forming your letters the way you actually want them to look. You might feel stupid, but think back to when you first learnt to write back in primary school and you had to seriously think about every single letter you jotted on the page.
To help with this there's a few things you can try to do:
- let your arm and wrist do the work, not your fingers
- don't press down too hard on the page
- keep your grip light (try googling the correct pen grip, have a play and see what feels the best for you)
Also get yourself a bloody nice pen that flows beautifully. I stick to Papermate Kilometrico mostly cause I'm lazy but if you go to Officeworks and try all of the sample ones you might find a particular one you like :) :) :)
In saying all this, letter formation is going to be the last thing on your mind during an exam so just do the absolute best you can if you're in the 2016 graduating class. Its worth sacrificing a bit of time and writing slower if it means your work can read! Markers are usually pretty good at deciphering weird handwriting, its just that neat writing is way easier for them. Good luck! :) :) :)
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Hey teapancakes08! If you're serious about improving your hand writing you need to make a conscious effort to practise forming your letters the way you actually want them to look. You might feel stupid, but think back to when you first learnt to write back in primary school and you had to seriously think about every single letter you jotted on the page.
To help with this there's a few things you can try to do:
- let your arm and wrist do the work, not your fingers
- don't press down too hard on the page
- keep your grip light (try googling the correct pen grip, have a play and see what feels the best for you)
Also get yourself a bloody nice pen that flows beautifully. I stick to Papermate Kilometrico mostly cause I'm lazy but if you go to Officeworks and try all of the sample ones you might find a particular one you like :) :) :)
In saying all this, letter formation is going to be the last thing on your mind during an exam so just do the absolute best you can if you're in the 2016 graduating class. Its worth sacrificing a bit of time and writing slower if it means your work can read! Markers are usually pretty good at deciphering weird handwriting, its just that neat writing is way easier for them. Good luck! :) :) :)
Thanks for the advice ;D
Luckily, I'm part of the graduating 2017 class, so I still have a while before HSC (but a year does go by very fast...). That said, I'll keep that in mind when I'm working through practice papers and essays. I currently found a better way to grip the pen so I'm going to try to get used to it. I'm also probably going to have to go pen hunting too.
Thanks again. Best wishes to you too :)
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Thanks for the advice ;D
Luckily, I'm part of the graduating 2017 class, so I still have a while before HSC (but a year does go by very fast...). That said, I'll keep that in mind when I'm working through practice papers and essays. I currently found a better way to grip the pen so I'm going to try to get used to it. I'm also probably going to have to go pen hunting too.
Thanks again. Best wishes to you too :)
Awesome you've got heaps of time! If you make it one of your focuses this year I'm sure you'll improve by the time exams roll around :)