How to memorise Essays FAST

[pi]

Paul, it was just tongue and cheek, sorry to offend I know that you deserved more than what you got looking at your work and raw talent.

Of course I wouldn't recommend memorising heaps of essays, but I'll admit, I did memorise my context pieces and the piece I wrote for the exam was almost identical to one I wrote for a SAC. I guess memorising is mainly only useful for context though, wouldn't see it being used to much success in the other areas of english.

[paulsterio]

Paul, it was just tongue and cheek, sorry to offend I know that you deserved more than what you got looking at your work and raw talent.

Of course I wouldn't recommend memorising heaps of essays, but I'll admit, I did memorise my context pieces and the piece I wrote for the exam was almost identical to one I wrote for a SAC. I guess memorising is mainly only useful for context though, wouldn't see it being used to much success in the other areas of english.

No, there was no offence taken at all, but the point I was making is that, it's all just opinion really and we all have what works for us, and while memorising essays might have helped you, for me, it might not have. So yeah, I was just putting that out there, you didn't offend me at all, and yes, I know you meant it as tongue in cheek, I've known you long enough to get used to your jokes now

But yeah, I think so too, context seems to be the only real area, text response can vary too much for memorisation to work

[Panicmode]

Memorising word for word is not a good idea. The thing is, if you read over your piece and memorise the key points/sentences, when it comes to actually writing the piece, you'll produce something better because you've had all that time with the ideas swilling around in your head. Focus on remembering what makes your essay special, and then you should find that when it comes to writing it under SAC conditions, the words just flow out rather than mechanical memorisation.

It's what I did for both my text response and context. I wrote a ridiculous amount and developed all these ideas, so come exam writing, the words just flowed and I knew what came out was pretty decent.

[lilaznkev1n]

Haha all I did for the English Exam was memorize phrases and sentences for my text and language analysis essays.
I memorized my entire context essay (creative) which I adapted to the prompt in the exam.
I just repeat the sentence several times, the try repeated them inside my head a couple of times without looking at the paper.
For my context essay I memorized one sentence at a time and repeated them without looking inside my head. I kept doing this until I could repeat the entire essay in my head without looking.
However, I would not recommend memorizing essays if you want to get in the high 40's for English.

[VivaTequila]

I want to memorize as we have been given the topic or in this instance, the passage, and therefore i have written my essay already and think that it would be wise to memorize so i can make sure my SAC is the same essay.  There is no way i can be tripped up on SAC day by another topic or what not so its not a risk as such

Ok, I understand, what I would do is memorise it in stages

Stage 1 - Memorise the key ideas, so you can write an outline of your essay, so basically this includes the topic sentences and your contention.

Stage 2 - Memorise the important sentences which you will be using as evidence. So this includes quotes.

Stage 3 - Memorise the "impact" sentences, the ones which make your essay sound good.

Stage 4 - Memorise the "filler" - stuff that's not really necessary but just there to add volume and complete the essay.

The benefit of this is that if you don't get up to a particular stage, the ones below will still help you and as long as you have Stage 1 - 2 all down pat, you can probably do Stage 3 and 4 on the spot, it's much better than trying to rote memorise. You also learn more about essay writing this way, by dissecting and decomposing your essay into the 4 types of statements.

This is genuinely really good advice, thanks!