essay study!

[angryusb]

I'm having a bit of trouble studying for essays, like what should i do to help me write essays? because im not particularly sure how to effectively study for this
please help!

[Bhootnike]

make a log book of examples for each topic we've done in ENL.
learn some quotes.. and learn some ideas you can use in your paragraphs.

also read sample essays!!

[Starlight]

Yeah Bhootnike's right.

Write examples of the types of essays that have come up in past years of vcaa papers, popular one's have included (from the top of my head):

1) Language change across time
2) Language and culture
3) Euphemism (incl. doublespeak) / dysphemism
4) Standard english and non standard english
5) Language as a way of conveying identity
6) Language and technology
6) Spoken and written english

Make sure these are all relevant to the current study design though.

Pick out maybe 4 out of 6 of the topics that you are strong with, and work with those ones, usually at least one of them will come up in the exam! There's only ever been one time where 2 topics have been given for the essay, usually there are 3.

Find quotes, maybe 2 for each one and analyse them, these will form the body of your essay and give evidence for your argument, you may also like to find one's that you do not agree with (probably will get you extra marks). You are required to use AT LEAST ONE of the examples they provide you in the prompt, but using 3 of those will not score high because it shows you haven't adequately researched the essay topic.

Also make sure to refer to australian english whenever you can in your examples.

[angryusb]

oh wow! thanks! that's an eye opener that is, i was also wondering about the length of an essay.. does how many pages you do matter? i mean obviously 1 or 2 pages is stupid but whats the right number do you think?

[thushan]

Ideally you want to fill the entire script book in your exam paper, so that's about 5 VCAA pages (VCAA pages that is - remember the lines are spaced quite widely). In my exam I filled up the entire book, but my handwriting is fairly medium-large.

Having said that, my tutor had a student who was a VERY slow writer so could only manage about 2 pages ish in the exam, but because he was such a slow writer he developed the ability to write REALLY concisely. The guy got like low 40s (A+ in the exam if I remember correctly).

So, again its quality.

Put it this way: in the exam you want to finish with about 2-5 minutes to spare, so write and write and write until you drop finished my exam with about 2-3 minutes to spare.