At Wit's End for English

[just_jordan]

I've recently started running into so many problems when I'm doing English. The past two practice exams ran by the school I only finished 1 or 2 essays out of the 3 and sometimes not even to a high standard. I seriously have no idea how I have been doing well in  SACs (averaging 90%s) but I just cannot translate that success into exam practice. My focus is all over the place and things that seemed easy (integrating quotes/reading into the implications of the prompt) are now borderline hard... Should I just take a leap of faith and have 3-4 adaptable essays for TR and Context? Our last practice exam that was marked by an external examiner we did I got 6,6,7 for A,B,C respectively though I didn't finish Section B (only 1 1/2 body paras)  so I'm not feeling too confident.

[heids]

Hey Jordan!  First, I'm very sorry to hear that

How about you try focusing really solidly on one section at a time?  3 days TR, 3 days Context, 3 days LA (in whatever order, probably the one you're most confident with first), and then a couple of days of revision/pulling it together.  Why?  Because it'll give you a bit of focus and the chance to really get on top of a section, without panicking and fluffing backwards and forwards between sections and not really getting anywhere on anything.

The WORST possible thing you can do is panic.  Do not panic.  I'm sure you were getting 90s earlier for a reason!  You must have those solid skills, so don't let panic make you believe that you don't have them.

So, imagine you chose language analysis!  You might:
1.  Try to analyse as much as you possibly can from a few short texts, in dot-points (see literally lauren's advice and sample annotations here).
2.  Write a few analysis paragraphs on short pieces, e.g. letters to the editor.
3.  Practise annotating and generally planning a few language analyses on articles.  Plan how you'd break it up into paragraphs and what you'd discuss.
4.  Practise writing a few full LAs and getting feedback (you can post one on here).  Timed.
5.  Write a list of issues that you have in LA and things you need to constantly focus on improving - keep trying to do that.

By solidly spending just a few days working hard on language analysis (and not just writing full essays), I'm sure that you'll get back on top of it and find that you do know what you're doing!  I'm sure you do!  Start on easier things (my earlier steps) to prove to yourself that you CAN do it, because falling flat on your face on a full terrifying essay is the last thing you want to do - it will tear your confidence to shreds, when in reality you are perfectly capable.

If you've got even just one area under your belt, and can score pretty well, you can be confident that you'll also improve on the others.  Don't be scared that you'll completely bomb - just by answering the sections quite basically someone of your capability is guaranteed of a 5-6 minimum even if everything went wrong.  And if you're better with 1-2 sections, they'd lift your average substantially.

Take it slowly, and resist the urge to keep flying between different tasks - work solid and on tackling just one thing at a time.  Don't underestimate your power to fix things in the last few days - if you just don't let yourself panic and just keep working, miracles can be worked in a very short time.  It seriously isn't too late, so get cracking.

Sorry for the long waffle here

And P.S., I speak from the standpoint of someone who
a) literally broke down in tears and 100% gave up in my end-of-year Year 11 English exam (and by writing really basic junk in like an hour at the end of that exam pulled like a 60%)
b) gave up on English a month before this in year 12 and didn't write another essay
c) was half-expecting myself to give up and collapse in the exam.

[just_jordan]

okay thank you bangali_lok for your advice I'll try to focus on one at a time and see how it goes