Quantity Vs Quality in English Essays

[Unknown_one]

Yeah.
I was just writing, I just write inssane amounts of pieces in an hour, I usually write maybe 2000ish words, equivalent of 3-4 pages tiny writing...
Yeah. I was wondering about this for the fact that last year, when I did the GAT, which shows an indication of what you might get in English, I got 46 standardised mark, and basically I rambled on about the fashin and the alpha pack, filling up the majority of the pages, just leaving maybe an hour for the multiple choice, ended up doing poorly on history, but meh who cares, I dont do any history subjects..
I was wondering, overall in the English exam for 2012, and in the past, do the examiners expect quantity?
As usually at school, and in the past, when I've gotten a topic that is extremely uncoomon and unrelated to a textual piece, well in my opinion has few quotes as referral, Ive merely started as a quantity piece rather than quality, and gotten A+'s..
Is this uncommon?
Or yeah. =)

[superstar1]

Hey.. From what I know my tutor in year 12 told me that some examiners hate it when there is a long and pointless piece and it sometimes bored them..
Personally my language analysis was decent.. it was about 5 pages and a bit in the script book in the exam. I know some schools like quantity but there would be no point in writing 2000 words if 1000 of them were irrelevent.. Hope this helps

[Stick]

Examiners expect depth, not quantity. Use less words to say what you want to say and hence be able to say more. I know I've only just finished Year 10, but the English staff always say before we sit our SACs that we should re-read our essay at the end and cross out as many unnecessary words as possible (this also tends to fulfill the 'Student has shown evidence of planning, proofreading and editing' criterium).

[abd123]

OP, you do realise you can write a essay that has both quantity and quality. I believe that quantity and quality can coexist. Hence, both should be not putted in comparison to see whats better or not.

Inb4 someone calls out that quality wins lol.

[superstar1]

OP, you do realise you can write a essay that has both quantity and quality. I believe that quantity and quality can coexist. Hence, both should be not putted in comparison to see whats better or not.

Inb4 someone calls out that quality wins lol.

yeh I completely agree with you.. That how most of my essays were (buy I don't think they were 2000 words )

[86]

OP, you do realise you can write a essay that has both quantity and quality. I believe that quantity and quality can coexist. Hence, both should be not putted in comparison to see whats better or not.

Inb4 someone calls out that quality wins lol.

The key point is, if you have more content, the assessor has more to give you potential marks on (or take away marks if you don't balance quality and quantity well..) After all, they can't mark empty pages can they?

[Unknown_one]

Yeah.
I balance it alright, Most of it is context into a piece,
I dont ramble on like you are supposed to like in a speech, it makes it redundant..
The only problem is that I was wondering whether it would have any significant impact,
2000 is a lot of words, only problem is in year 11, most I've ever done I can guess is about 3500 in about 2 hours, it takes far too long to write articulate pieces without your hand hurting from scribbling down your p. of view/ context for the last hour and a half. =P
Its just fustrating, as sometimes at school, Im not sure I got graded on how well the piece was written, sometimes i just get A+ with maybe a half page of corrections, it makes me think, gee
I guess they were like its me, might as well give it an A+,
Cant be bother reading it..
Is that true in some casses?
It sort of reminds me in, one of my past essays about war and conflict, I did a 3000 piece essay on the war and its ongoing crisis to the development of third world countries, how it affects the population rather than the detrimental effects of war, and I got  little feedback, apart from the teacher telling me that my piece was outstanding to the class OUT LOUD- oh they were listening Im sure of it,  which I think was pretty stupid, and that it didnt have a lot of mistakes. =PP

[pi]

I don't think it is a matter of "Quality vs Quantity", rather "Quality and Quantity" is what you should be looking at. Rambling around for a page or two is just as bad (imo) as leaving your piece without finishing a paragraph. The problems associated with rambling:
1) It detracts from your central argument
2) It can be boring
3) You may accidentally contradict yourself
4) It tells the examiner that you haven't really planned what you are writing about (physical or mental plan or both)
5) You may not even "hit the nail on the head" with your central points as you attempt to cover "too much"

My advice to you would be to try and plan your pieces before hand (just take 2-4 minutes max doing this). This will stop deviating from your main points

I was wondering, overall in the English exam for 2012, and in the past, do the examiners expect quantity?

To get a 9/10 or 10/10 mark, you'd want to have 1000+ words. Having said that, I know people who have written 1000+ words and have got 4/10 or 5/10. So its definitely "Quality and Quantity"


Good luck!

[Unknown_one]

Gee thanks Rohipi. =)
by the way, is the Gat a good general indication of how you will go,
Though over time, I must admit my writing style has differed from what it used to. =P

[pi]

by the way, is the Gat a good general indication of how you will go,

Not really, it's really random tbh! I got 30-something scaled for the GAT (2011), but ended up with 44 for English. Others I know got high 40s in both

I think it depends on how seriously you take the GAT, the more serious you take it, the more reliable it should be

[86]

I think it depends on how seriously you take the GAT, the more serious you take it, the more reliable it should be

Yeah, I found that if you treat the GAT seriously like any other VCAA exam then you can improve the reliability. I got 40 for both the GAT/Communucation and English. However, my Maths/science/technology and arts/social sciences were way off.

[Unknown_one]

o.0.....
I didnt take the gat that seriously...
I just did what I normally did. =P..
Yeah.
 The only thing that mattered imo was the maths bit, ended up getting 35 for the Gat Section, bu about 40 for the actual score at the end of the year. =P...
Just the only thing, that mattered..
It was sort of a wierd indication, got like 22 for the history bit/social stuff.
But I wasnt disappointed. =D

[patrickpham_19]

I'm a firm believer that scoring well in English ultimately comes down to the quality of your writing. If it is a piece of writing that flows well and effectively presents your key points, you'll find that you won't have issues with quantity. I've always written in the format of 1-3-1, and I've found that writing only 3 body paragraphs has been perfectly adequate, even if my essays do not exceed 1000 words.

In the 2011 exam, for my Text Response I scored 18/20 and in my context I scored 19/20, and I don't think I wrote more than 1000 words for either. If the quality is there and it doesn't seem disjointed, there is no harm in doing the minimalist approach to English. Finding the quality however is much more difficult, I was writing 6/10s and 7/10s before I finally found the best material to discuss in my essays.

[CaiTheHuman]

Apparently i was told that if you do bad in the Gat and somewhat well in your sacs and exams for the whole year. Your sacs, studies, and exam get audited.

[pi]

Apparently i was told that if you do bad in the Gat and somewhat well in your sacs and exams for the whole year. Your sacs, studies, and exam get audited.

I don't think that's right.