I need help on basic comprehension

[TryHardVceStudent]

In the last few months on my year 11 sacs i've been losing simple points on my answers during sac tests. The worse was when I got my sociology sac back this week and I got a D. It frustrates me because I know very well I know the answers but when I reviewed what I did wrong, I had no idea what the hell I was writing and I didn't answer the question.
Part of this is my nerves and another part is me going on and not being specific to the question that is being asked.

I want to know how can I improve on this? I plan on asking my tutor to give me sample of questions that i'll be doing in my spare time under test conditions. I want to know how do you answer a question precisely for full marks while maintaining nerves? My teacher has give me tips such as highlight specific parts of the question but other than that I don't know what to do. This doesn't feel very black and white to me.

[literally lauren]

In the last few months on my year 11 sacs i've been losing simple points on my answers during sac tests. The worse was when I got my sociology sac back this week and I got a D. It frustrates me because I know very well I know the answers but when I reviewed what I did wrong, I had no idea what the hell I was writing and I didn't answer the question.
Part of this is my nerves and another part is me going on and not being specific to the question that is being asked.

Okay, so one the one hand, you're nervous about doing well. And on the other, you're not sure how to tailor your knowledge to the questions in your assessment task.

I'm going to deal with your second concern first, and I'll come back to the general nerves stuff later.

Rather than just practising your answers over and over again, I'd actually recommend just flicking through a past paper in order to look at how those questions are structured.

For example, for Sociology, one of the Section C extended response questions from last year was:

Discuss how a sense of community can be inclusive and exclusionary at the same time. Refer to factors that maintain, weaken and strengthen a sense of community. Use the representation and/or material that you have studied this year in your response.

Consider those key words: 'discuss,' 'refer,' and 'use.'
Basically, you're being asked to talk about a certain idea by including certain information.

In more colourful terms:

Discuss how a sense of community can be inclusive and exclusionary at the same time. Refer to factors that maintain, weaken and strengthen a sense of community. Use the representation and/or material that you have studied this year in your response.

So the question wants you to talk about that red stuff using the green and blue parts to support you.

That means if you start going off on tangents about things that don't fit in any of those red/green/blue categories, you'll know to curtail yourself and focus on those main ingredients in the question.

You may find it useful to compile a list of those 'question words' so that you can quickly discern what you should be doing if asked to 'Evaluate XYZ' or 'Compare XYZ' or 'Discuss XYZ' etc.

And luckily, you can do all of this without even having to worry about the content! So going through sections of the exam that you haven't talked about in class is fine - you're not thinking about what exactly you're going to write, but rather how you're going to write it. That way, when you get into class assessment tasks, you'll be able to just slot your answers into place.

There's also some general advice here and here that may be of some use.

In terms of nerves and whatnot, I'm going to use my favourite question here:
Do you not know what to write, or do you not know how to write it?

When you're in a SAC or a test, do you feel as though your understanding of the content is a bit flawed or incomplete, and that's why you end up rambling a bit? Or do you have all the right ideas in your head, but just can't express them properly/ efficiently? Those are two very separate problems, but the more precise you can be, the easier it is to solve things

[TryHardVceStudent]

In terms of nerves and whatnot, I'm going to use my favourite question here:
Do you not know what to write, or do you not know how to write it?

When you're in a SAC or a test, do you feel as though your understanding of the content is a bit flawed or incomplete, and that's why you end up rambling a bit? Or do you have all the right ideas in your head, but just can't express them properly/ efficiently? Those are two very separate problems, but the more precise you can be, the easier it is to solve things

I feel like it's a bit of both. I always study and revise before tests. But sometimes I'm paranoid if i have everything down for the question so my answer goes on and on. Or that I go on one part of question too much and end up not answering another part.
Example would be in the text analysis in English I had.

The goal of the analysis was to find prejudice, I did so by going depth of the characters and back story and general knowledge of social aspects but at the end i only got 22 out of 30 marks. I asked him what made me lose marks besides the obvious. He said I didn't make statements of the prejudice. Like "This character is predjuice because such and such". He even said my practice text analysis was even better.

Overall I think it's more about how I don't know how to write or answer the question, I would just answer way too in-depth and end up losing marks for not answer another part because I feel really paranoid I didn't write enough.

Thanks for the links and explanation they were very helpful.

[literally lauren]

I feel like it's a bit of both. I always study and revise before tests. But sometimes I'm paranoid if i have everything down for the question so my answer goes on and on. Or that I go on one part of question too much and end up not answering another part.
Example would be in the text analysis in English I had.

Okay cool, I can definitely be of more help with English than Sociology

The goal of the analysis was to find prejudice, I did so by going depth of the characters and back story and general knowledge of social aspects but at the end i only got 22 out of 30 marks. I asked him what made me lose marks besides the obvious. He said I didn't make statements of the prejudice. Like "This character is predjuice because such and such". He even said my practice text analysis was even better.

So it sounds like there's an aspect of the task that you aren't yet fulfilling, and that's your ability to form a contention! Whilst you can absolutely get a decent mark by simply providing textual evidence that relates to the prompt, if you really want to push yourself into A+ territory, you want to formulate an argument based on what the author is saying about prejudice.

The goal of the analysis is never just to "find prejudice," it's to discuss the author's overall point. Instead of saying "this character's prejudice can be seen in XYZ," you want to go a step further an talk about how "this character's prejudice can be seen in XYZ, and through this, the author suggests..."

It can be tough, but it's definitely a good way to make your essay stand out.

Also, this is a more minor point, but try not to use too much of the "backstory and general knowledge of social aspects" - assuming we're talking about Text Response here, your focus should be on the text itself. It's great that you understand the social and historical context, but you're not technically meant to use that as part of your evidence. Unless you can substantiate your points with close analysis of language/quotes in the text, there's a chance you may have lost marks here too.

Overall I think it's more about how I don't know how to write or answer the question, I would just answer way too in-depth and end up losing marks for not answer another part because I feel really paranoid I didn't write enough.

In your case, I think having clear goals in mind every time you begin a short answer response or start a new paragraph in your essay will be a big help. And I don't mean 'I want to get 5/5 on this question' or 'I want to get a 40+ English study score.' I mean saying to yourself, 'okay, this is the first body paragraph in my Text Response essay, so I need to start by outlining my focus using the author's name and a verb, like 'The author showcases...' or 'The author highlights...' and then explain my sub-argument.'

^Having that kind of goal should prevent you from feeling as though you need to keep providing information even after you've answered the question. And it'll also hopefully help you be more critical when it comes to what individual questions or parts of your essay have to accomplish.