ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => VCE English Studies => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English Language => Topic started by: stonecold on June 26, 2010, 11:28:15 am

Title: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: stonecold on June 26, 2010, 11:28:15 am
Okay, so other than in past exams and the Kirstin Fox Exam Guide, where can you find transcripts and questions for practice?  This is the type of thing I'll only get better at by practising, and I would really like to do as many as possible to make sure I have everything down.

Anyone found anything to buy or have something to upload.  It would be much appreciated.
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: stonecold on June 26, 2010, 12:23:20 pm
It appears that Insight make trial Exams for this subject.
http://115.178.21.87/pdf/2010%20Trial%20Exam%20Order%20Form%20Website%2015FEB.pdf

I was only able to find one on the Internet, which I've attached below.  It has no answers unfortunately.

Surely these papers exist, so if someone could upload them it would be much appreciated.
I would buy them, but only schools are allowed to.

Also, does anyone know where I could find the VCAA 2000 exam, and also the missing copyright material in the 2002, 2003 and 2008 exams?
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: stonecold on June 26, 2010, 01:09:14 pm
Yeah, but I want them for the SAC which is in two weeks.

I'll just go through the past exams and the Fox Book. It will be enough for the SAC hopefully. 

I hope we get more material for the exam.
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: Visionz on June 26, 2010, 02:36:05 pm
Try VATE ones.

http://www.vate.org.au/
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: stonecold on June 26, 2010, 05:45:03 pm
Did you mean to just look through the catalogue?  There was nothing there.

Or did you mean something on the website?
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: Gloamglozer on June 27, 2010, 02:02:13 pm
Trial exams for this subject are very scarce.  Besides Insight, VATE and VCAA ones, on the top of my mind, I don't think there are any other companies that produce trial papers.
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: vexx on June 27, 2010, 10:43:50 pm
Trial exams for this subject are very scarce.  Besides Insight, VATE and VCAA ones, on the top of my mind, I don't think there are any other companies that produce trial papers.

ahh that sucks.

but if we can get all the ones of the current study design, 4 for insight, 4 for VATE, 3 for VCAA, there's 11... that's not thaaaaat bad i guess... (eek still pretty bad haha)
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: vexx on June 27, 2010, 11:03:20 pm
Hmm, I don't think you can improve much from practicing English, can you...?
In my opinion, I think one can only improve from interacting with the language in everyday life unlike spamming practice papers. Just my 2 cents, I don't know how to improve my English either. ><

of course you can improve.. everything is improvable, and since the majority of the paper is short answer anyway you want to get the most exposure to all possible questions as you can (same as all subjects) and essay practicing is the same as normal english, you can get better each time you practice and improve (+more exposure=better)
this subject is not about improving your fluency of english, but how english language is used (linguistics), my english is perfect but i still am not the best at this subject due to it's 'humanities' nature.
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: stonecold on June 27, 2010, 11:15:56 pm
yeah, you can definitely improve.  especially with the transcript analysis.  the more you do, the better you'll get.  englang is very different to normal english.  if you put in the time, you will likely get a decent score.  unlike with regular english where it largely comes down to getting lucky with essay topics.

it's much easier to prepare for englang essays than regular english essays, as the topics are pretty concrete and can be easily prepared for.

i.e. make sure you can write good esays on:
-standard english
-varieties of australian english including aboriginal and ethnolects
-language and identity (individual/social/cultural)
-euphemism, doublespeak, political language and PC
-jargon + slang
-PoA, politeness and taboo's
-history of english/australian english
-language + power
-language and the media

if you can write high quality essays on any of these topics, then the essay component of the exam should be fairly straight forward, as I don't believe that there is that much more which they could ask you.


anything that I missed?

edit: vexx, do all the VCAA ones right back to when the subject began.  they have transcripts, and the questions are pretty similar.  
Title: Re: Practice Transcripts & Questions. Where can you find/buy them?
Post by: vexx on June 27, 2010, 11:57:13 pm
^ yeah i probably will do them/check some parts out:)

uhh you missed needing to know about regional variations in aus, and socio-economic status variations (culivated/broad/general accents) but i guess these fit in those topics you listed along with all sorts of things.

it's a pretty broad subject englang, but yeah definitely easier to prepare for the exam than regular english.