My experience...In terms of writing essays, I tried to write an essay a week (unfortunately didn't get around to achieving this goal) and about 2-3 three essays in total in the days before SACs (try different types of topics though). Try to get good teacher (or other) feedback on all essays and ask them to mark you harshly in the practice ones (don't be an idiot and ask your SACs to be marked harshly too!) I'd also advise posting essays up on ATARNotes! I posted up a few LAs, a couple of Ransom text responses and a context piece and the feedback was absolutely amazing, it's always good to get as many different perspectives on a piece of writing as possible, as it shows you the many ways that it can be improved. Even though I later found out that there are people in med who were using my essays to study (leechers...), I think that it was still worth it

Timing is everything in English, so time from the start. That means that every essay I did was timed. If I didn't finish it within the time, I went on to finish it to a standard that I was happy with and then reflected on how much time I had gone over. Eventually, you'll be writing 4+ pages in a hour with considerable ease, so don't give it up! Initially writing essays "open-book" is fine too (to get the quotes down), as long as you don't always do this.
Don't neglect any type of essay. Last year, I think I had a period of 3-4 months without writing or thinking about a language analysis. This probably cost me in the end (exam-wise) and you guys don't want to be in a position where you don't feel too confident going into the exam room, especially when you're worried about screwing up the fundamentals such as structure and getting contentions.
Furthermore, decide on your preferred text for the text response component of the exam ASAP. I spent the entire year with my tutoring group studying Ransom and then two weeks or so before the exam, I decided to write on Richard III instead
1, further adding to my stress

The advantage of what I did was that I was fairly prepared for both texts (but not "fully prepared for either), and I was lucky that the Ransom prompts sucked, so my risk payed off in the end (kinda).
On the side, for those of you that have not read all of your texts yet, do that as soon as possible too. In general, you'd want to have:
- Read the texts in the summer break for "enjoyment" and story-line
- Re-read when studying in class, take notes and read study guides (I like to take notes in my actual book so I don't have to carry around too much)
- Re-read by yourself before the relevant SAC, also re-read your notes and annotations to get they key quotes memorised, make more notes if necessary (you might see some new points)
- Re-read once or twice before the exam, re-reading all YOUR notes/annotation (don't read the study guides, you don't want to mix your unique ideas with the general drab present in most guides - York Notes are an exception imo)
Obviously you don't need to make plentiful notes for Context (unless you're into that sort of thing), but for text response, I'd advise it very much.
Overall, I'd say English was the subject I studied the second most for (I didn't have much natural talent and my yr11 teacher was crappy
2) after spesh and that probably meant a good 6 hours per normal non-SAC week (usually on weekends) and up to 12 hours on SAC weeks. But studying is highly individualistic, so don't take this to be a bench-mark or anything, which is why I kinda find the title of this thread a bit pointless in a way because how much English study one person does should not dictate your own study (which is why I changed it for this post)

Do more or less until you think you're doing alright

DON'T make those
amateur mistakes like I did, because it will cost you
big-time come the exam! Although I ended up with a score I was happy with (44 -and I am happy with it!), I still get the feeling I didn't do my SAC scores the justice they probably deserved. I don't have many regrets in VCE (choosing physics was the main one btw - don't pick it), but I really do wish I had the motivation to not make these errors in my study, because I really do think it would have helped me a lot and reduced a lot of stress I had for the exam (this was the only exam I was properly stressed for I think, I'm generally pretty easy-going with these things). The last thing you want is to be disappointed with yourself (don't blame anyone else, it's your fault in yr12), it sucks.
tl;dr:
- Aim to write an essay a week of different types
- Get them checked from many sources, the more the merrier
- Spamming essays of different types of topics before SACs is fine
- Time your essays from the start
- Don't neglect any type of essay
- Decide on your text response text ASAP
- Make sure you've read your texts by now
- Don't study for hours, study for self-satisfaction
- Don't make the same mistakes as I did, as it will hurt you come exam day
- Never choose VCE physics
3Good luck

edit: shit, how did this post get so long haha

1http://i.qkme.me/35sbad.jpg2Quote from her: "You may quote from the novel, but in your own words" =.='3If you gain nothing from this post, at least heed this warning