50 in English, available for queries :)

[w3dragon25]

Hi lauren,

I was wondering if you've posted (either here or elsewhere) your own essays you've written in Yr 12; just as last minute reading of exemplary pieces for this upcoming Wednesday, you know? Thank you, and I appreciate any help!

[literally lauren]

Check the first post in this thread.
Anything with + sample contains an essay I've written; anything with + example has a breakdown of ideas and usually a sample demonstration.
The English Work Samples thread also contains high scoring responses from other AN contributors.

[mia-la-bella]

Hi Lauren I sent you a pm regarding a question I had a little earlier. I wrote a context piece for Life of Galileo and it was a creative story from third person perspective about Plato's allegory of the cave for a prompt regarding conflict being necessary for progress. But I was wondering is such an abstract story would be advised against because the link might not be clear enough? Also how would you most smoothly incorporate external resources in cretive stories?

[w3dragon25]

Ah thanks! Also, was just wondering, what did you do for the last 1-2 days before your exams? For example, given that I shouldn't be cramming to much in, should I try planning different prompts; memorising quotes; reading external references for context; go over tones and vocab...etc? Are there any last minute advice for us poor students before the exam? I'm just really nervous and kinda stressed out as I go over notes and nothing's really sticking in!

[literally lauren]

mia-la-bella:
Sorry I forgot to send you my little automated 'You are in a queue, plz hold' message didn't I?
I'm on my 3rd last essay in a string of 100+ from today, I should get to yours some time tonight.
Apologies for the delay, you year 12 kids are intense.

There's some helpful stuff on context in this thread that I've totally forgotten about. Links are on the first post, maybe go back and read those if you're bored


w3dragon25:
I'll be posting a 'what to do Tuesday' thing later tonight
Stay tuned for a preview of a very sleep-deprived Lauren ranting and raving about essay preparation!!!

preemptive tl;dr: don't stress.

As usual, Winnie the Pooh says it best:

[mia-la-bella]

Oops sorry haha wasn't sure if I sent it or not haven't used the pm function. I just sent a excerpt of it because I wasn't sure if the idea would even work at all :s

[Edward Elric]

For text response questions

Does anyone know how to tackle 'to what extent questions', like can you say to a great extent however, other things are more important... So disregarding what the prompt is saying but, writing about something that is different that you feel is more important. So basically how far can you stray from the prompt.

Also are 'discuss' questions, so like deliberating both sides of the argument? Is there anything else to know for this style of questioning.

Lastly for 'Do you agree', can you partially agree, and say while its true in this case other times it can be contested. What else do we need to know for this style of questioning.

I know these may sound obvious, but I don't want to go into the exam confused on how to answer basic questions such as these. Thanks

[brenden]

100+

N-N...Not ACTUALLY 100+ though...





Right?

[Jesse C]

Only one day left!
Thanks once again for your help with language analysis, they are around 9's now thanks to you!
With text responses, exactly how much context should we give? I find that giving too much background info takes away from proper analysis, but im not sure exactly how much content examiners are looking for.

Hagen Koch was imbued with the Stasi's quasi-religious doctrine of 'self-created hells and heaven' as a child and thus became a 'paragon for a regime'. yada yada yada... However, Koch's mandate of rigorous protection for the plate suggests it's status as a symbol of 'getting out' of the Stasi's palimpsest reality and thus achieving redemption.

If you have not read Stasiland, don't worry. With the above, would it be necessary for me to talk about what he is achieving redemption for, if something triggered his desire to get out of the Stasi etc?
I feel as though every time I use a character as evidence(and I try to go for more than one per paragraph) I end up with a lot of filler and have to rush arguments. Could I also, regardless on your opinion of the above question, quote a similarity between two characters without giving context to one of them?

i.e, Likewise, Frau Paul's compulsion to 'hold onto the notes to her life' and her mandate to 'not on any account, exaggerate' depicts a woman ravished by guilt for 'deciding against her son', attempting to achieve redemption through objectifying her past and thus alleviating the anguish she has come to associate her perspective on life with.

That does of course give some context, but doesn't introduce the evidence someone separately to the analysis like a lot of responses seem to. Is this fine as long as the overall contention the evidence is supporting has already been introduced?
Thanks in advance!

[literally lauren]

Edward Elric:
The way the question is asked isn't a massive deal. For 'to what extent' you'd have to acknowledge a spectrum for whatever they're talking about. 'Discuss' is fairly generic, usually comes after a statement so that invites challenges. 'Do you agree' is fairly straightworward, but your response should always be more complex than 'yes' or 'no.'

Jesse C:
Minimise external evidence unless it's crucial, or at least ensure you're embedding it in sentences with textual evidence. You don't get much credit for it. Although Stasiland is one of the more historically dense texts, I'd still say there's very few points that would take longer than half a sentence to incorporate. Assume your assessor has some familiarity of the basic context and just try and stick to the core text as much as possible.
Yes, you could quote to compare characters purely for the sake of elucidating something about only one of them, but in any case the other character is probably worthy of analysis too. It depends on the prompt I suppose.
Sounds like you're okay with evidence integration, just don't be tempted to display all your knowledge of the text within the hour(-ish) you'll have tomorrow. Moderation and selection is important

N-N...Not ACTUALLY 100+ though...


Right?

Nah, it's cool. Apparently I ended up writing over 100 prompts so it's only fair you guys got me back -.-
I was seriously surprised by that number when someone sent me a link to the fb page


I'm just typing up the Tuesday thing now so if ya'll could stop being so diligent and sending me 9 essays at a time, that'd be great. Give me half an hour and regular programing should resume.

To everyone who has PMed me, I will get through your pieces so help me god, but feedback may be sparse.
Same goes for anyone who plans on sending me stuff tomorrow. I'm more than happy to look through it, but please don't expect an extensive correction and conclusive list of everything you need to do within the next 24 hours because that simply isn't possible 

[literally lauren]

Tuesday 28/10

As promised, here is a brief run-down of what I'd recommend you focus on for the next ~24 hours. What follows are a list of recommendations, not rules. I didn't follow half of these myself. Take them or leave them, and adapt to what suits you. There are no definitive necessities for what you need to know or how you should go about doing knowing it. At this point, it's all about what works for you; what's going to maximise your performance and confidence for tomorrow.

• 1. Don't write essays. Practice paragraphs at most.
  I'm sure a few of you have heard teachers and past students say this. It might seem counter-intuitive, but chances are writing essays is only going to stress you out, because every time you hesitate or forget something, you'll associate that with being unready, then panic-study, which is radically inefficient, and then stress yourself out more and inhibit all those neural pathways shut up, I totally know how this works and before long you will have convinced yourself you know absolutely nothing and can't handle anything, which is sinply untrue.
  The fact that you've worked all year (maybe,) the fact that you've been trying to improve, the fact that you care enough to stress... hell, even the fact that you're on AN reading this right now means you don't know nothing! You don't know everything either, but no one in the state does. Including VCAA.
  Your priority should not be knowing everything and covering all bases. Sure up what you know, and sleep comfortably tonight knowing that you have put in some effort. That might mean you've been committed since year 10, or you may have just pulled yourself up by your bootstraps yesterday. Either way, it's too late for 'should have's' so just take tomorrow in your stride.
  The prompts are out of your control, but your response is entirely up to you. Stress is nothing but destructive at this point, so break the cycle and remind yourself that you may not be able to handle absolutely anything, but you can handle VCAA.
• 2. Read. If you feel you must do something, read your essays. Read your notes. Read other people's essays. Read the links at the start of this thread that flag common concerns and mistakes you may not know you're making. Read the sample essays on AN. Read old practice exams and lists of prompts.
  If this gets to a stage where you start freaking out about the enormity of life the universe and everything, stop. Breathe. You know things. You can handle VCAA. You have brains, and you have pens. Good ones, hopefully.
• 3. Think about things. Wow, these steps just get better and better.
  This works in both past, present and future. Think about how far you've come. Think about the effort you've put in, and about how much incidental learning you will have done just by hearing friends use T.R. quotes or remembering a bad habit your teacher weaned you off. Then think about where you're at. What are your strengths and weaknesses right at this moment. When you're going through practice exams, what makes you pick one T.R. prompt over another? What section are you best at? Be aware of your capabilities. Don't expect miracles, but don't talk yourself down either. And finally, think about tomorrow. Visualise it. If you're feeling confident enough, visualise an absolute worst case scenario. (My exam 3 is always available if you need help with this  ) What does an awful prompt look like to you? What words would scare you in a Context prompt? How long would an L.A. article have to be to intimidate you? Work through these problems in your head; remind yourself that the whole state is probably struggling with very similar problems as you, so if you can stop fretting over the difficulty and write something, you'll probably trump at least half of them.
  The more you're prepared for, the less VCAA can scare you with.
• Another sub-section of Think:
  4. Think of your own prompts. Device your own mini-exam.
  I've noticed people start to do this on some threads already. What are some interesting discussion points for your texts that haven't been covered yet? Which characters or themes are likely to come up?
  Thinking of prompts puts you in an assessor's shoes, which can be a very valuable place, as it helps you work out what you should actually be writing. If you wrote a question, what would you expect in the response? What evidence is obvious, and what comes to you only after a few moments of contemplation?
• And just because #rule of threes, and I have one more adorable Winnie the Pooh reference to make: THINK!
  
• 5. Don't think. PLOT TWIST!
  This isn't for everybody, and certainly wasn't for me, but for some people, de-Englishing your brain for awhile can be a healthy detox before the big event. If you're prone to stressing out, I'd avoid this, but for those who are fairly confident and/or worried about burn-out, stop. Chill. Go for a walk. Pet your dog. Read a book. Stay away from screens, if possible. Eat healthy, and get a good night's sleep.
  Some people prefer to study, some prefer not to. Neither will be any better prepared by default, it's more about peace of mind.
• On a similar note, 6. help one another, and be considerate. Hang with friends if you like, but you don't want this turning into a collective panic attack. A 'no English allowed' get together might be good. Enjoy each other's company and bask in the glory of having made it through 13 years of schooling. Don't force anyone into this though. Alternatively, if you have friends that you work well with, then it's never to late to bounce ideas off one another. Compare approaches and fill gaps in each other's knowledge. A study buddy is for life, not just for October.
  Something I haven't seen mentioned much, but that I did see a lot of last year: if your friends are being curt or dismissive, they're probably just stressing out. Offer a chance to talk if you're up to it, otherwise just give them some space.
  Finally, when you get out of the exam, don't let others freak you out. Post-exam debriefs, be they celebratory or conciliatory are fine, but do not beat yourself up over mistakes. There's nothing you can do know, and even if you think it all went wrong, you can salvage your performance in other subjects so put things out of your mind and just move on. I'd recommend a cathartic bonfire from personal experience.
• 7. Don't stress!
  I'm worried this isn't big enough... Yes, English is important. I'll verbally joust anyone who says otherwise. But it's not the most important thing in the world. As I'm sure has been reiterated thousands of times on AN: your ATAR will not define you. None of your study scores will define you. There is no 'be-all-and-end-all' for career/life opportunities. VCE is a numbers game that you can either conquer or circumvent. The only losers are the ones who give up without trying.

Don't take things too seriously either. Why do you think I put all those jokes in my practice exams? (Props to the three people who have spotted them so far) You'd go mad if you treated this like The-Most-Important-And-Accurate-Test-Of-Your-Worth-Ever. Even VCAA's not that mad (citation needed.) Perspective is more important than study scores.[/list]

See, it's as simple as DRTTDHD!
urgh what an ugly acronym. Brownie points for whoever can come up with a nice mnemonic.

PSA: with the exception of a couple of hours in the late morning/early afternoon, I will be here pretty much 24/7 until 9:00 tomorrow. For you people who've got proper sleeping patterns, (first of all, congratulations on making better life choices than me,) secondly, I won't be posting any major tips or hints or must-knows. This will simply be answering last minute concerns, so don't panic about frequently checking AN just in case there's one last thing that might be vastly important.


So although I'll be fielding as many queries as I can, and will be curious about how you all handled tomorrow's content, I'll bid you a collective good luck 2014ers! From the loyalists who've been here longer than me to the lurkers I'll never know, I wish you guys all the best and hope everything works out for you in the end

[faredcarsking123]

One last question for you guys before the exam 

What are the time shifts used for in ACC?

[Selcouth]

In my context piece can I use both texts I studied?

Thanks!

[Sanguinne]

Would the contention and paragraphs be sufficient for the text response question for Brooklyn:
"The nature of personal freedom is the true subject of Brooklyn"

Contention: Migration allows us to partially overcome our past limitations.
Paragraph 1: Migration allows weak individuals to overpower the constraints on their freedom
Paragraph 2: Yet, this is only partial, we cannot fully overcome limits on ourselves.
Paragraph 3: Nature of our control overselves being oscillating, changing depending on where we are.
Paragraph 4: There are other qualities than freedom that prevent it from being the true subject.

[millie96]

Hi everyone, my conflict piece is about social constructs and moral imposition
If anyone could brainstorm anything to do with morals and making decisions please let me know!

New environments create conflict