English Preparation/Study?

[Comma]

So I've done pretty consistently this year (year 11) in English, but I've never got full marks and this is something I definitely want to achieve next year, so...

I was just wondering what the best way of studying for English is? I know a lot of people say to write an essay a week and I am willing to put in this effort, but I just don't know what to write about, who i should get to mark it etc.

Anything else I can do to really improve in English?

(P.S. I can't afford a tutor, so yeah otherwise I'd just get them to tell me all this..)

Thanks in advance

[sgeorge]

Read the books a lot!

[TrueTears]

Hi, what I did was write alot of essays then get your teacher to correct them and make them as pro as possible. Then memorise different "general" paragraphs and regurgitate them out in the exam or SACs (obviously change some of it on the spot according to the topic but the majority should be the same). Donno if this will work for you but it worked for me

[Comma]

Yeah I'm going to go over the books really thoroughly these holidays

Thanks TrueTears, I'll try that.

Any ideas on what to write on. Like should I do one weak of language analysis, one week of text response then one week of context, wash, rinse repeat. Or should I be specifically focusing on the text/concept I'm doing in class?

[xoxogossipgirl]

i'd try and consistently work on all 3 sections. i know in term 2 and 3 i let go of language analysis A LOT coz we had no more SACs on it, so i basically had to re-learn it in term 4.
but don't just write essays every week if you're not improving - make sure you're working on your mistakes
and yeah, once you know the texts well, i'd recommend memorising succinct and nice sentences that have to do with certain themes so you can pull them out in the exam if you get a topic on it
context - do lots of research on your context! make yourself intrigued by it, let yourself love it. do work on it outside what they teach you at school.
work on your weaknesses.

[flash36]

Definitely what True Tears said. I did this for the film Look Both Ways, as all the themes are connected etc, so I had paragraphs on 3 main characters which I was able to alter according to the prompt, but the majority of the para was the same as what I had been writing in all my practices.

I struggled at English in year 11 (failed my first SAC) and this year got up to the top 5 or so in our cohort of around 80, and I owe it all to constant practice of essay writing. For each SAC, I read the book/watched the film a number of times, and then got a hold of as many prompts and questions I could and wrote essays on all of them. I also got my teacher to correct them so I could rectify the problems in the next essays, but this is definitely the best way to go, IMO. Same with language analysis, I did as many as I could.

In relation to the exam, I did as many practice exams as I could, to time. This often required gathering a prompt for a text response, context, and an article and just doing them in 3 hours. I have no doubt that without the work I did, I'd be looking at a 25 in English this year, but instead I'm hoping for a high 30; this improvement is undoubtedly due to the practice I did.

And like xoxogossipgirl said, when you're writing your practice essays, you'll be sure to come up with quotes/sentences/terms/words that are just gold, so try and memorise these and intertwine them into your essays. I also didn't need to memorise quotes, as I had watched/read the texts so many times I recalled many quotes.

[Slumdawg]

So I've done pretty consistently this year (year 11) in English, but I've never got full marks and this is something I definitely want to achieve next year, so...

I was just wondering what the best way of studying for English is? I know a lot of people say to write an essay a week and I am willing to put in this effort, but I just don't know what to write about, who i should get to mark it etc.

Anything else I can do to really improve in English?

(P.S. I can't afford a tutor, so yeah otherwise I'd just get them to tell me all this..)

Thanks in advance

The biggest tip is READ YOUR BOOKS MULTIPLE TIMES. Honestly that will help you TREMENDOUSLY. A lot of people are scared about how many different areas of the book they could throw at you in the exam, I know that scared me quite a bit. But if you've read the books let's say 3 times each then you'll really know the ins and outs of it. If you've only read your books once it makes your job a lot tougher. I'd say read all of them these holidays, then once again when you study them in class and then once again roughly one to two months before the exam. Of course you know that writing heaps of essays is really helpful, but not many people drum into everyone that reading the books multiple times is vital. I only realised this half way through the year when the head of english told me the top students she taught had all read the books more than the other students which put them ahead. I know some people are freaks at english and only read the books once and still get ridiculous scores, so some people might disagree. But for the majority, this is a very very important thing to take on board. 

[saaaaaam]

I've found that one of the best ways to study for english (for me at least) has been to discuss it with my friends (who are good at english, which helps). We talk about different themes, characters, ideas, the author's contention, things like that.

It's also useful to break down essay topics with friends because often they'll approach it from a different angle and have ideas you don't. So that gives your essays a breadth of knowledge and probably stop them from being superficial.

[kyzoo]

Yeah I'm going to go over the books really thoroughly these holidays

Thanks TrueTears, I'll try that.

Any ideas on what to write on. Like should I do one weak of language analysis, one week of text response then one week of context, wash, rinse repeat. Or should I be specifically focusing on the text/concept I'm doing in class?

=/ I didn't learn how to write context or text response until Term 3. And I did almost no work for English in Term 2 because we only had a single oral SAC the entire term. At the start of the year I kind of planned to write an essay a week, but it fell by the wayside. I don't think it's actually practical to write an essay a week, just go along with what the class does and write 2-3 essays a week in the weeks just before a SAC.