A 23 in literature is harder to get than a 25 in English. I wish they took this into account, rather than going through an automatic process of denying anyone who got less than a 25 raw score.
As far as I know, there's no way to boost study score pre-reqs ): Have you considered looking into doing an associate degree if your dream course has one? I'm not entirely sure what they entail, however my friend's in the same category as you having got a SS for English <25 told me was going to go for an Ass. Degree.
Well, so far the plan is to do VCE English units 3/4 this year and basically treat it like a gap year with only 1 subject. Then I'll apply again for 2014. The only bad thing about that is that I'll be almost 20 by the time I start university and I'll feel like everyone else is way ahead of me...