50 in CSL - feel free to ask questions

[drake]

hi all fellow chinese scholars,

as i know that chinese is a very difficult subject in VCE, even for background speakers, i thought it would be a good idea to create a thread like this to help those with any questions they had or those who needed some advice. i know 'bazinga' made one last year, but i think she is currently inactive on ATARnotes. i am a complete foreigner (sri-lankan background...lol) and received a raw score of 50 in CSL last year. while my chinese may not be amazing, i was able to understand the system and use it to my advantage. so if you have any questions or need advice, please feel free to post here or PM me and i'll try my best to respond promptly

all the best for your studies, drake

[RKTR]

How?! Wow ..that's amazing!!!! How long have you been learning chinese?

[drake]

haha i started in year 7 at school!

[mrkebiny]

That's amazing! The fact that you used the system to get ahead of all the background speakers is incredible.

Could you give us some points on how to use the system effectively and to our advantage like you did?

[mikehepro]

Damn........Well he's still Asian what's next? White guy getting 50 in SL???

[Splash-Tackle-Flail]

hey drake,
How long was your general conversation and detailed study? DId you just have the questions you gave me in the other topic? Also, how did you prepare for the oral, and how much did you do for chinese each day/week (and what did you do?)

THanks and congrats on beating all those fluent chinese speakers!!

[drake]

hi mrkebiny,

thank you! well basically, i knew that i would never beat chinese background students by raw ability, so i focused on memorising a lot! and i memorised SMARTLY, not unnecessary things that were sure not to be examined. i found this the best and while, in the end, the exam topic wasn't something i'd prepared, i was able to mould all the stuff i memorised into something good also, make sure you learn lots and lots of idioms. i'm actually selling a list of the most useful idioms i used, if you're interested PM me.

hi splash-tackle-flail,

my general conversation was about 15000 characters and my detailed study was also about 15000 characters. now i had about 100 idioms in each of them... so i was scared that the examiners would ask me "what does this idiom mean?" so i also memorised definitions for each of the idioms i used (... unfortunately the examiners never asked me that haha). yeah those were the questions i used plus i added my own. you have to think of follow-up questions to your answers. for example, if they gave you a standard question like 'what do you want to be in the future' and you give your response, they could follow up with 'what are you currently doing to achieve it' (i got this question in the oral... luckily i had prepared for it!). to prepare for the oral, i did heaps and heaps of practices. well, first i wrote my entire script and memorised it and then slowly started to practice with my teacher and tutor. i would get stumped LOTS because they would ask me a question i hadn't memorised and i wasn't able to speak fluently when i had to respond to a question i hadn't prepared for... so i would write down each question they stumped me and memorise responses to those. eventually, there were pretty much no more questions that stumped me. also, i did a couple of REAL practice orals (like same conditions, real oral examiners etc.) and got feedback which helped to improve because i would get quite nervous - it reciprocated exam conditions! i would do chinese almost every day. i would try to write maybe 2-3 essays a week, perhaps more. sometimes, when i was really into it (e.g. for an upcoming SAC), i would write 5-7 essays in a day... but yeah. i would also be continuously going through my oral and making sure it was memorised. i remember that it took me about 5 hours just to go through my entire script to ensure it was all memorised... so long but it paid off. also, whenever i got an essay topic, i would type it in google and read articles about it and copy their language (because it was much better than mine!). that helped me learn new and relevant vocabulary haha thanks!

[byCrypt]

Hi Drake,

Just noticed this thread haha. sent you a PM just b4.

 

[bkoh]

Hey Drake,
Just wondering with the exam around the corner, what do you think is the best thing to do for revising for the exams?
i have done all of the VCAA papers and as many external papers as I could get my hands on, what do you think is the best thing to do now?

thanks and congratulations on your 50!

[drake]

Hey Drake,
Just wondering with the exam around the corner, what do you think is the best thing to do for revising for the exams?
i have done all of the VCAA papers and as many external papers as I could get my hands on, what do you think is the best thing to do now?

thanks and congratulations on your 50!

hi bkoh,

since you've done pretty much all the practice exams, i would suggest now to continue practicing essay writing and getting them corrected. i'm sure you've chosen which type of essay you want to do in the exam (e.g. evaluative/persuasive etc.) so keep practicing those and thinking of new topics. in regards to other parts of the exam, reading and responding is normally quite easy, and listening should be fine for you (unless you are a foreigner), so i suggest practicing translations too. it is actually really hard to translate chinese into PROPER english, so work on that!

hope that helped! thanks, drake

[strawberries]

Hi Drake,

any last minute tips for the exam seeing as it's in 4 days?
is there anything I should solely focus on? should I write more essays?
what should I practice more of?

I am very bad at memorizing words...is it too late now?

thanks and congrats on your 50 btw

[drake]

Hi Drake,

any last minute tips for the exam seeing as it's in 4 days?
is there anything I should solely focus on? should I write more essays?
what should I practice more of?

I am very bad at memorizing words...is it too late now?

thanks and congrats on your 50 btw

hey strawberries,

read my above message for things to do in the lead up to the exam. mainly focus on practicing more essay topics and translation exercises. if you can find any, then do some listening and responding exercises to. also familiarise yourself with your dictionary (and get a good one - one that not only has the character but shows you how to use the character, phrases used with that character, the english meaning, as well as idioms with that character). i can't exactly remember the one that i used, i think it was a really old oxford one or something... but it was huge and very useful. i think that you can also take two dictionaries into the exam, so take one that's chinese -> english and one that's english -> chinese. and in regard to memorising words, you still have time to memorise impressive phrases/sentences here and there that you can pop into your essay to impress the examiner - these could be idioms or just advanced language. this will really help you in impressing the examiner!

hope that helps! thanks, drake

[Splash-Tackle-Flail]

Hey Drake, how would you tackle the answering in CHinese section of the reading part, say for last years I seemed to answer with the points, but there would be stuff I added that wouldn't be on the answers (but still thought was relevant). How do you know what information to add and what to leave out. Also, for this section is copying the text to answer ok? I'll attach my answers (I underlined the parts that I added but weren't supposed to be added).
Thanks!

[InNeedForHelp]

I'm taking CSL 3/4 in year 11 but I'm trying to achieve at least 30~

Are there any aspects that I should improve my knowledge than others? I'll be taking 1/2 next year so is there anything I should put more work in to?

[drake]

Hey Drake, how would you tackle the answering in CHinese section of the reading part, say for last years I seemed to answer with the points, but there would be stuff I added that wouldn't be on the answers (but still thought was relevant). How do you know what information to add and what to leave out. Also, for this section is copying the text to answer ok? I'll attach my answers (I underlined the parts that I added but weren't supposed to be added).
Thanks!

hi splashtackleflail,

that is a very good question. probably the best advice that i got from someone during VCE chinese was that by the end of completing reading and responding, you should have copied out the entire text in your answers. it is difficult to know what to keep and leave out. one important thing is that there shouldn't be overlap between your answers in the questions. for example, in part a) if you copied a sentence from the text to answer the question, you shouldn't have that same sentence in part b). also, i don't believe it hurts to put too much information. so in regard to your photo, i believe it would be fine to add those additional sentences even though they are not in the answers. i think i did the same thing. and, from when i did it, copying the text was fine. if i could, i would change the sentence structure while maintaining the same meaning. but if you can't, copying the text should be fine!

hope that helps! thanks, drake