importance of adhering to word limit

[Nato]

Hey guys i am in year 11 doing English 1/2. i just wanted to quickly ask how important is it to stick by the word limit in SAC. for example if the max. is 700 words, and i was to write 1000 words, do you think it will bring any effects.

thanks guys.

[DetteAmelie]

Limits are just suggestions, your teachers don't honestly expect you to dedicate 5 mins of your time counting how many words you've produced (unless your teacher is pedantic). Limits are placed on SACs to ensure that students don't go on tangents and end up writing an essay that is 10 pages long (bit of an exaggeration but you get the point). Firstly, for the person marking your work it can get tiresome to read lengthy essays. Secondly, it is used to ensure that you're able to write to time. In the exam, you don't have time to write pieces that exceed such limits (unless of course you write abnormally fast). So, to prepare you, they usually provide word limits as a guide and a reminder of the little but valuable time you have to contruct an essay.

In saying that, it isn't all important to follow word limits if there is little discrepancy between the suggested limit and the amount you produced. However, exceeding such word limits to an extent can have repercussions, for instance: not being able to finish your SAC or exam on time - effectively undermining your chances of receiving a desired score. Neverthless, I believe that as long as you've addressed the prompt in a coherent and comprehensive manner, whether or not you fall short or go beyond the limit suggested is irrelevant. In the end, quality maintains precedence over the quantity (as cliche as that sounds). 

[Professor Polonsky]

There shouldn't be word limits in a VCE English assessment. Especially not 700 words.

[DetteAmelie]

There shouldn't be word limits in a VCE English assessment. Especially not 700 words.

Well, different schools have different policies. Generally speaking though, word limits are just guides, you are not necessarily required to abide by them.

[Professor Polonsky]

Well, different schools have different policies. Generally speaking though, word limits are just guides, you are not necessarily required to abide by them.

Schools probably can impose them at the 1/2 level, but it's still rather silly. Seems more like a consequence of lazy teachers than anything. There's no advantage to the student whatsoever.

[DetteAmelie]

There's no advantage to the student whatsoever.

I completely disagree. As alluded to in my earlier post, it ensures that students write to time (beneficial for exams) and because it provides a rough guide for the level of detail required, it can therefore improve an individuals ability to refine their own work. Not to mention, it's good practice for university, especially for those wanting to study law.

[Professor Polonsky]

I think this is going off-topic, and to reply to OP I'd just say ask your teachers, but I don't think that it's a 'hard' word limit (simply a suggestion).

If you want students to practice writing to time, then tell them to practice writing timed. This is actually quite irrelevant, considering we're talking about a timed outcome anyway here. But in my personal experience, there's actually very little link between number of words and time - I've written over 2000 in an hour before, while I spent an entire day on a 100 word abstract. The less words you have to say what you want, the harder it is to get your point across.

English 1/2 is not supposed to prepare you to university. Its primary objective is to prepare you to English 3/4 which has no words limit (on SACs/exams, at least).