How many essays?

[rachaelcool]

Ah, amilss, but for me English is probably my only hope for a really good score - I've gotta exploit that!

[werdna]

Roughly 2 or 3 a week from late September until the exam. Like some people have said, make sure it's quality over quantity. And also get these essays marked!!! Get your teachers and tutors to mark them, however an important skill you need to grasp is to mark your own essays very critically. This will subconsciously force you to keep in mind the criteria and things not to do, when you write your next essay. 

[charmanderp]

Roughly 2 or 3 a week from late September until the exam. Like some people have said, make sure it's quality over quantity. And also get these essays marked!!! Get your teachers and tutors to mark them, however an important skill you need to grasp is to mark your own essays very critically. This will subconsciously force you to keep in mind the criteria and things not to do, when you write your next essay. 

Yes! I mark all of my essays and plenty of my friends' essays and I find this lends itself really well to improving my own writing. Particularly in terms of structure, you'll realise that some things simply DON'T work and will inherently start to purge them from your essays.

After you write an essay read it aloud to yourself. Some of the things which might have sounded great on paper might
suddenly sound incongruous and you'll want to make subtle changes. That really helped my simplify my writing, which was a major problem I had early last year.

[rachaelcool]

an important skill you need to grasp is to mark your own essays very critically

Ah, fantastic tip! I tend to keep the criteria in mind while I write (sometimes), but this sounds so helpful! I do read over mine critically but I don't mark them to the criteria per se. Will do this, thanks!

And charmanderp, yeah we're told religiously to read our writing out loud. Its so useful, my sentences can tend to be of monolithic length over and over and over again. My exam hall will probably be filled with people whispering to themselves!

[BigAl]

I've written 4-5 for the entire year. But what I usually do is write down the ideas and put them on the wall..so whenever I enter my room I repeat what I've written. Practice essays will contribute a lot to your time management in the exam. so they are helpful

[DarkHorse]

A farewell to Arms: 4
Cosi: 3
L.A: 2
Growing Up Asian In Australia: 4

So really not many...

[LOLs99]

Just wondering how many essays shld a yr 11 student write, particularly ESL students? Should we write more essays than English students?

[charmanderp]

As many as you feel you need to. There's no set limit. I know people who don't write any and people who write over 100 and both perfect grades. It's all up to you; how strong you are in the subject and how confident you are. Obviously the more the better, as you'll learn something new every time you write an essay. I'd recommend one a week, and give it to your teacher to mark it, maybe over the weekend.

[MJRomeo81]

I wrote zero essays leading up the exams for English and I scored 37 (A on the exam, A sacs). The only essays I wrote all year were the prac SACs and actual SAC.  But there's no denying that essay practice is beneficial.

It honestly depends on what score you're after.

[LOLs99]

Do u think it is beneficial to memorize some common topic A+ essays for text response and context?
Will the exmainers be giving out common topics or rare ones? and usually do we get to choose from 2 or 3 topics for text response and context? 

[dilks]

Will the exmainers be giving out common topics or rare ones?

Depends on which text you are doing. I am expecting rare topics for Ransom, for instance; while contrariwise the examiners seem to have a penchant for giving out really obvious prompts for OTW.

and usually do we get to choose from 2 or 3 topics for text response and context?

2 topics for each text response text. One topic for each context.

[pi]

Do u think it is beneficial to memorize some common topic A+ essays for text response and context?
Will the exmainers be giving out common topics or rare ones? and usually do we get to choose from 2 or 3 topics for text response and context? 

Well, you are aiming for 50 in ESL looking at your sig. If you are then a high achieving student I see no reason why you'd need to memorise essays?

[charmanderp]

Do u think it is beneficial to memorize some common topic A+ essays for text response and context?
Will the exmainers be giving out common topics or rare ones? and usually do we get to choose from 2 or 3 topics for text response and context? 

Well, you are aiming for 50 in ESL looking at your sig. If you are then a high achieving student I see no reason why you'd need to memorise essays?

Exactly. I know many people who say that memorising essays 'works' for them but I've never known any student who aims to or gets 46-50 and prides them self on being a strong English student to do this.

[Neuron]

First of all.. why in the world would you memorize an essay for a random prompt? How would your essay make any sense, since you don't even know what the prompt you are writing about is?

I abhor this tactic because this leaves rooms for people to use A+ essays written by their tutors to gain fantastic marks.. which not only is it disingenuous it defeats the purpose of the English exam - which is writing essays which are formulated on the spot which attempt to discuss the prompt at hand.

[spongebob-7]

First of all.. why in the world would you memorize an essay for a random prompt? How would your essay make any sense, since you don't even know what the prompt you are writing about is?

in context anyway, a lot of the prompts are very similar, so with two or three essays memorized you could actually pull it off, not the best idea though as what charmanderp said, i know a few people who were extremely good at english who actually tried this last year for the exam and it screwed them over, i would just make sure i have a very strong structure and board range of complex ideas before going into the exam, for how many essays to write i would be aiming for about 2-3 a week at the moment which will slowly increase we move closer to the exam.