Time Limit for SACs?

[bopbopbop]

I don't understand why you guys are getting so much time . We have the usual 1 period per SAC, 60 minutes. Except language analysis where we had 15 minutes for reading time.

[Dejan]

90 mins

[Jeggz]

We got 100 min for Text Response, 150 min for Lang Analysis, and 100 min for Context 

[jono88]

90minutes to 2hours, wow...your schools are a bit generous :/ maybe too generous?

[brenden]

Nah, I don't think so. I think the extra time allows a better exploration of your text (or presentation of your own piece), which makes SACs a better learning device for the exam. It means students are more likely to be weak with time management (easily remedied) but perhaps be more familiar writing with depth and quality, which would be harder to obtain writing in sixty minute intervals from he start of the year, in my opinion.

[Brytz]

SACs are two periods, no reading time, which is 98 minutes roughly. Having SACs for 4 periods is not beneficial at all because the EXAM is 3 hours with 3 essays. 4 periods is 196 min which is longer than the exam which is 180 min. I do not believe longer time in the SACs will help you in the long run for the EXAM.

Good luck though for the rest of the year.

[meganrobyn]

I've found that most students, counter-intuitively, don't actually write a whole lot more OR a whole lot better when given a great deal more time. A *little* more time, yes, especially when they're less experienced... but that benefit very quickly drops off. They still go for the three body paragraphs generally (not even the four they should be aiming for in the 60 min exam) and complexity of thought isn't magically conferred by having the luxury of moving more slowly. Parkinson's Law: the task we have expands or shrinks to fit the time we have to execute it.

I think a great deal of benefit in terms of inspiration is actually derived from having time-pressure, and it forces students to mentally edit their writing, before they commit it to page, to make it more specific, direct and succinct. Essays with very long time allocations often just have a lot of padding: say the same thing with more words. And the argument of inexperience doesn't work with having a quotation sheet brought in, either; you're not inexperienced in just memorising stuff.

So, personally, I'm not in favour of going soft. People tend to meet the expectations placed on them; we are expected to be slow and bad, we will be slow and bad. Conversely, if we are expected to be fast and excellent, we will rise higher than otherwise to meet those expectations. A few more minutes at first seems reasonable, but I would be doing my practice essays according to a stricter time limit. If you calculate out the examination requirements, you should be writing 1200-1600 words per hour give or take: this means ideally 200-300 words per paragraph, with four bodies for stronger students and three for slightly less so (or people who expand more than usual in their paragraphs). Language analysis and context obviously tweak these paragraph rules, and very fast students will write more than this.

So, if you want to practise doing essays with longer time limits in preparation for SACs that have them, I would concentrate on formulating an additional paragraph or two rather than waffling in the paragraphs you already have.

In the meantime, I just made some amazing chocolate peanut butter frosting and overloaded a cupcake to "use it up". I think I'm going into a sugar coma.

[Stick]

We get 90 minutes for all our SACs but with no reading time or additional resources (with the exception of a dictionary).

Our language analysis fell on that day when it was 37 degrees and half the school's air conditioners failed, so students in classes that were affected received two bonus marks as a result of the disadvantage. Two students were sick from dehydration.

[BigAl]

2 periods so 90 mins...I usually finished my sacs in 75-80 mins... Yeah I was chilling in the last 30 mins of English exam.

[Emzylolz]

We used to get 90 minutes (2 periods)
But they are thinking of changing it to one hour to prepare us more for writing to the time of an exam
Not sure how that will go, we have our first sac since the change very soon

[jeanweasley]

70 mins w/o cheat notes.

[s.ay]

60mins eep