What's the hardest AOS?

[Dayman]

Just out of curiosity.. What is the hardest area of study?

Answers such as they are all equally difficult or it depends on the person are acceptable... Just making it clear lol.

[Professor Polonsky]

It really, really does depend on the person.

I think that many people find Reading and Responding (your standard text response essays) the easiest, as it is most familiar to them by Year 12. Personally, I find it the hardest. It requires you to be very familiar with a text, and a high level of analysis. And memorising quotes. Ewww.

In terms of an objective level of difficulty, even though this is very hard to measure, I think the easiest would be Using Language to Persuade. You can prepare yourself to virtually anything that may pop up on the exam for this one without too much difficulty. 

I like Creating and Presenting the most, as it allows for the highest degree of individuality and free-form writing, whilst having some sort of a common theme to get you going. I mean, you can basically write about whatever you're interested in. I've covered historical examples, politics, ethics of war, my favourite music, LotR... As long as you can use an example from it to advance your point (which really isn't that hard), you can write about anything. I think it gets a lot of undue hate, probably because teachers don't really teach it that well.

[BigAl]

context was the hardest area for me...because you have so much stuff to talk about yet you have to be so specific.

[brenden]

Objectively, I would say that Text Response would generally be the 'hardest', followed by Context, followed by ULP. As Polonius mentioned, Text Response is quite a lot of work, and in ULP, you just have to demonstrate skill, as opposed to demonstrating textual knowledge or ideas etc.

For me personally, Text Response and ULP were the most enjoyable/easiest by far. I wasn't as motivated for Context because of my choice to write short-stories  - it was a gamble, because hitting the criteria becomes more subjective that for another style, and my teacher was quite cautious in the way he encouraged us - he always wanted me to do expository. I also didn't think that practice would help me very much for Context - every story is hugely different from the other, so I really just didn't see the point in practicing when I already knew I could generate a story well within the time limit (and well under it come exam day, O, the horror!) So Context was the biggest 'uh oh' for me walking into the exam, because I knew I could score well in the other two sections, and for Context I was just like "well, I hope you write something good when the time comes."
The subjective and abstract nature I think also makes it the hardest intellectually. Like, Text Response requires more effort imo, but I would much, much rather teach a class full of people Twelve Angry Men than Context.

[Dayman]

I was thinking exactly the same thing

Reading and responding could be one the most painfully annoying AOS. I hate how arguments must be very complex and based from evidence from the book and nothing else.

memorising quotes. Ewww.

Whereas creating and responding though we haven't got to it in year 12 yet and i didn't understand it in year 11 because as you said before teachers dont really teach it well but having read some of the comments here it sounds awesome

and language analysis suits me because its more formulaic then all the other ones and i consider myself mathematically orientated

[brenden]

and language analysis suits me because its more formulaic then all the other ones and i consider myself mathematically orientated

I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote to a forum member via personal message -- he wanted to know how he could get motivated to do English, even though he did Methods and Spesh everyday.

Creating passion where there is none has got to be one of the hardest things to do, I think. I want to say something like "Just do it!", but obviously it's just not that easy sometimes.
Obviously, you're a problem solver. Right? You like Methods, you like Spesh. You solve problems, that's just what you do. It seems here, we have problems within problems. You're not working for English, that's a problem. However, English is a problem in itself... You're just not solving it? I've met so many people that love Math and hate English, and they all say the same [bullshit] thing - "I like Math more because it has one clear answer and English doesn't". I think that's wrong. There is going to be one clear answer for all your texts/prompts, and that is the best answer that lets you show off your skills and hit the criteria. Or just the most logical answer. That's how I saw my text, "what's the most logical analysis?", and I just viewed that as correct. The only deliberate thing I can see you doing that might help (other than just setting yourself a quota and sticking to it etc etc) is... See English as Math. Because it really is, you just aren't using numbers in your calculation. Every prompt you get is just asking for a proof or a solve. Whatever you prefer . Either solve the problem/prompt, or prove that your theory is correct. Then get someone to give you feedback to see if you've missed some working out or skipped a step. You could even start looking at essays like formulas to answers (and still not write them formulaic. I taught my math-friend a formula for intros but said it was only an efficient/sophisticated formula when it didn't look like it). It was something like
Good intro (proportionality sign) (Cc^2)(M3t)/i can't remember what we divided it by, he helped me make it
So then,
Good intro is proportional to, in this order, contextualising sentence, clarifications (if you need to define any words in the prompt or contextualise further), your three main ideas then a thesis statement. And I wish I could remember what it was over.

But you get the idea. My advice to you is: See English as Math.

[Dayman]

Objectively, I would say that Text Response would generally be the 'hardest', followed by Context, followed by ULP. As Polonius mentioned, Text Response is quite a lot of work, and in ULP, you just have to demonstrate skill, as opposed to demonstrating textual knowledge or ideas etc.

For me personally, Text Response and ULP were the most enjoyable/easiest by far. I wasn't as motivated for Context because of my choice to write short-stories  - it was a gamble, because hitting the criteria becomes more subjective that for another style, and my teacher was quite cautious in the way he encouraged us - he always wanted me to do expository. I also didn't think that practice would help me very much for Context - every story is hugely different from the other, so I really just didn't see the point in practicing when I already knew I could generate a story well within the time limit (and well under it come exam day, O, the horror!) So Context was the biggest 'uh oh' for me walking into the exam, because I knew I could score well in the other two sections, and for Context I was just like "well, I hope you write something good when the time comes."
The subjective and abstract nature I think also makes it the hardest intellectually. Like, Text Response requires more effort imo, but I would much, much rather teach a class full of people Twelve Angry Men than Context.

So what you are saying is that there's no real way to prepare for context on the exam?
Besides the good ol' getting a journal full of stuff relating to the context.


Context actually does kinda seem hard, as teachers expect you to develop a story on the spot relating to some prompt that could go anywhere. Oh well all we could do is give it our best and hope for the best.

[brenden]

So what you are saying is that there's no real way to prepare for context on the exam?

Definitely NOT what I am saying! If you write in an expository style, you can definitely prepare in the same way as text response. Even for persuasive and imaginative pieces you could prepare - blogs, letters, diary entries - they're all draftable. I was being very specific to myself - if you'd ever read one of my stories, you'd get it. They're all very unconventional and each is very different from the other. For my stories, the only thing I could do was hope I had a good idea and make sure I wrote well.

[Dayman]

I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote to a forum member via personal message -- he wanted to know how he could get motivated to do English, even though he did Methods and Spesh everyday.

wow thanks, this is awesome. And don't get me wrong i am not the stereotypical math student as i actually love it more it gives me a break from those dreadful numbers and allows me to create something. I also love to finish them because i feel more of a joy and satisfaction finishing an essay rather than a measly math exercise (unless it a very difficult one of course). Maybe because its like a new frontier for me and i can really improve it.

and again thank you for that post/quote.

[Dayman]

Completely depends on you and it can vary throughout the year. When I did Section 1 and 2 for the first times I found it extremely hard to come up with ideas and it was only until after my last SAC that I was able to write pieces that scored an 8 in those sections. Then when with consistent practice they became fun and Section 2 was a way to express my thoughts for me, which I really enjoyed. On those I scored 20/20 and 16/20 respectively.

Section C was more like the opposite my first piece scored a 9 and I was extremely happy with that and the formulaic approach I suited me quite well. However in the exam I found this Section very hard which entailed 'only' a 7.

Judging from this and everyone else's replies, difficulty depends on the person's interest and passion in the particular AOS. Well i am going to invest in some English roids and raise my passion for all the AOS's.

Thanks everyone for your replies!

[brenden]

You're welcome


Difficulty is certainly related to passion, in anything!

[Professor Polonsky]

Context actually does kinda seem hard, as teachers expect you to develop a story on the spot relating to some prompt that could go anywhere. Oh well all we could do is give it our best and hope for the best.

I would highly recommend giving expository a go. Once you figure out what you want to say and have some examples to support it, you're very much set to go. And you can definitely prepare for it - if you have enough possible ideas to use walking into the exam, you can smash any prompt.

[pi]

To me, Language Analysis.

[brenden]

To me, Language Analysis.

You did alright on IRC. Maybe I should've written your practice articles. hehe

[lala1911]

Depends, in reality, they are all hard for me.
Language Analysis = My favourite AOS and probably the easiest for me. It doesn't require you to study texts or come up with ideas, you just need to analyse the article (or picture). It's pretty straightforward. You could throw nearly any article at me and I can always find where language is used to persuade. Also, you won't be jipped if there was some real hard prompt.
Text Response = I will near always be able to at least 5/10 on my essays, 6-7/10 if lucky, 8-10/10 if an angel spawned near me.
Context = Depending on the prompt, I could score 3/10 or 7/10. It's my hardest to study for as well. I think it's because with text response, I see it as all the information is there and it's an response of the book, no outsourcing of information, whereas with context you must be able to create ideas to write about, idk, something about it makes it difficult for me.