Viva, how did you approach studying for English? How many times did your texts, and how many practice essays did you do? I know its different for everybody, but how much did you personally do?
Mmk I'll give you a bit of a run down of how I approached English...
It might have been a bit different, but I'll explain why. Basically, come the start of year 12 I was already fairly decent at writing. I had the vocab and a lot of the expression skills that I needed, plus I didn't completely despise reading so I got to know the texts...
moderately well. I'll be frank - I was lazy. I substituted knowing the text and having studied it myself - properly and inside out - for having skimmed through each text once and then getting my knowledge of the plot, characters, and key aspects of the text from not just Sparknotes but other sources like critical analyses that I found on the web. These gave me lots of higher tier ideas than what the average year 12 English student could produce, and I just adapted them into my own writing. I had a teacher that introduced literary aspects of all the texts beyond the bare bones of the plot, characters, and complications in the text. He didn't press them as he would have freaked out the whole class, but I pursued them and it paid off. I guess this is rather vague, but I have a picture which nicely summaries what I mean:
My English teacher always touched on metastructural elements of the text, the greater context of the texts (like cultural values and impressions at the time of writing), etc. I always tailed these until I understood them fundamentally and how they related to the text.
Then, my devious strategy was this: For R&R and C&P, largely skim over the generic, typical, and overused classically obvious arguments that every other god damn spanking English student in the state is going to use for that particular book, and focus on stuff that makes you stand out. For Year of Wonders, if you go through the threads from last years exam you'll find that everybody HATED the prompt which elicited a discussion of the texts structure and setting, rather than the characters and plot. I wrote on that and got 10/10 because I chose to study that fully. For creating and presenting, I happened to hate both of the texts that we studied (Shark Net and A Streetcar Named Desire) so I based my ENTIRE final essay in Streetcar on the fact that the author was gay, and forged an argument that he made a very minor character in the text gay in order to grandstand the issue albeit in a subtle way to as to avoid persecution (1950s America could have seen him lobotomized like his brother for being homo), and again I pulled 10/10 for it. This kinda flows a bit when you do Literature for VCE, and it's much easier if you cbf discussing the blatantly obvious disagreements/resolutions in the text which are meant to be the basis for some form of 'discussion' when really there tends to only be one objective reason for whatever happens in the plot.
Can you see how understanding the broader scope of a text can make it so that you stand out?
Obviously, you need to get expression and language down pat before you would attempt something as whack as this. I'd hate for someone to try (especially after reading this - I'd be leading you astray!) to pull something crazy like this off and not have the ability to communicate it effectively.
And then finally for Language Analysis, IDK. All I can say really is IDK. I never thought I was particularly good at them. I can iterate for you though that I never followed any bullshit set structure - I wrote freestyle for it, and still pulled good marks. An essay is an essay, it doesn't matter whether it's language analysis or a text response essay - all you have to do is write to fulfill the task. Language Analysis in my humble opinion does not purport in any way towards a set structure yet it seems to be the general consensus on these forums that that's the best idea. I got 10/10 for LA too on the exam.
I had a few abysmal SAC marks though by a 48 standard (B+ and a few A's) and was rank 3 in my cohort by the end of it.
It's hard to say with English, you might be surprised. I mainly received high As during year 12 English and walked away with a 45. And trust me, I wasn't in a strong English studies cohort.
Put all your efforts into that end of year exam because that is what will bring home the bacon. Yes, the SACs are important but in my case I can tell you that they are obviously not the be-all end-all.
QFT - It really is all about the end of year exam. Prepare for that shit.
Yo, If I'm rank 1 in my entire year level , and get a A+ on my exam for English what score am I looking at?
Cheers.
38+. I was rank 2 for Lit, with all A (sem 1) and A+ (sem 2) SAC scores, and A+ exam, and got a 38. Expect no less than this, and better depending on how much you floor the exam.
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