Are pre-prepared introductions frowned upon?

[JaidynM]

I was looking through literallylauren's annotated 2014 examiners report and something that was really stressed was that formulaic, pre-prepared essays were generally marked down. I've noticed this before in other examiners reports too and as a result have always tried to minimise the recycling of any phrases or sentences that might come across as pre-prepared.

That got me to thinking though, what is VCAAs stance on pre-prepared introductions? The first one or two sentences to start off my intro are generally pre-prepared, followed by more prompt specific stuff (unpacking of the prompt, signposting, contention etc.). Should I continue to do this or should I have a strictly prompt specific intro?

[literally lauren]

Are pre-prepared introductions frowned upon?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, because they're usually done badly.
No assessor expects you to look at the prompts/articles and suddenly be overcome with original, fully-fledged ideas (and if there are some that expect that, they're morons who vastly overestimate how enthusiastic people are to write essays.) In reality, you've practiced this to death, and if you study efficiently, you'll know what you're doing.
You are expected to tailor your knowledge to the stimulus (ie. either the L.A. material or the prompts. Since in L.A. intros are laregely just 'Following issue, author contends in his piece 'Title of Article' that contention...' etc. I'm assuming your question is mainly to do with Sections A and B.)

So when VCAA say 'formulaic,' then mean 'a piece that's so obviously adapted from something else that it stands out as irrelevant;' not 'anything that is quite general, or could potentially work for a different prompt.'

Excessive pre-preparation is limiting because you are mentally limiting yourself to only write what you've already written. Not everything in your exam piece will be totally new and original, but it should end up being a totally new piece in terms of how you present the ideas or frame the evidence. If you tell yourself 'I'm going to memorise three essays on the three big areas in my Context, and then I'll just write the one that fits best,' that's the kind of thing VCAA take issue with. And they're damn good at spotting it too.

But you seem to be doing something different:

...have always tried to minimise the recycling of any phrases or sentences that might come across as pre-prepared

and that's awesome, because you're expanding your foundations that you draw upon. The more different and challenging your practice essays are, the easier your pieces in assessment will be to write. Not only are you covering more ground, but you're developing a skillset for prompt adaptation, which is invaluable.

I think provided you're aware of the problem, you'll probably be able to avoid any serious repercussions just by reminding yourself to check your exploration for relevance, and keep it in mind while planning.

Intros are tricky things. I used to be of the mindset that unpacking the prompt form the start was the best thing you could do, because it immediately shows the assessor how capable you are of spontaneous analysis and sophistication. But I understand the security blanket of broad historical based background sentences like 'Written during an epoch of political tumult, Text Title is an explication of idea XYZ.' First paragraphs are for first impressions, and of course you don't want to look like a total spud writing 'This is a book written by the author who writes books.'

I definitely don't think the assessors would instantly be in a bad mood if you began more broadly, and I know for a fact that some teachers say doing this is compulsory, so you should be pretty safe. So long as the majority of your intro is spent unpacking the prompt itself, there's not much they can do to take marks off you

[JaidynM]

That certainly makes sense, I might try and cut my broad opening down to a single sentence so I can focus even more on the prompt in the intro. Thanks heaps for the advice, I appreciate the time you put in to write such a detailed response!

[M_BONG]

No one will ever know that it's pre-prepared if you make it relevant.
So the issue here is not whether pre-prepared intro sentences per se are good or bad, it's whether you fuse/integrate it in such that it feels like it's part of the essay, as a whole. For example, an awesome pre-prepared sentence might not be construed as pre-prepared by the examiner if what is in that sentence flows on well/provides a nice segue to what you're saying next. Conversely, if that pre-prepared sentence is amazing but the rest of your intro is crap, they will naturally think that it was pre-prepared

I recommend preparing two different sets of sentences so that you are not forced to make one up on the spot or add one that is not very relevant. To the extent that I feel pre-prepared stuff are categorically bad, I think the first one or two sentences are your chance to impress and I don't think you want to be making stuff up on the spot simply because of the risk involved and the time constraint.