English Advanced Question Thread

[jamonwindeyer]

Hey guys, is there a technique in this quote: “she breathed a quick prayer that life might be long” (from the short story The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin)?

Edit: and also this one "It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought."

You can add alliteration to that list above too!

Does anyone have like a pretty good list of discovery concepts??

Your best bet is the syllabus - It contains all of the Discovery concepts you could possibly be assessed on. Elyse does a great deconstruction of it here

[kiwiberry]

You can add alliteration to that list above too!

you could try something like lexical choice or diction, second person, tense
hope this helps

Thanks guys!!

[tissue]

Does anyone have any good resources on Julius Caesar / The Prince? Thank you   

[ssarahj]

Does anyone have any good resources on Julius Caesar / The Prince? Thank you   

Hey! I recommend checking out Spark Notes as well as Lit Charts as a good starting point for each text. If you can get a solid understanding of both texts and their context, it'll make it 1000x easier to make connections and ultimately write essays comparing them! If you're ready to dive into some academic articles and papers, AusLit is a good starting point too.

Also:
- Who's Afraid of Machiavelli documentary
- Machiavelli Was Right article
- Issues in Leadership paper (Julius Caesar)
- Why Machiavelli Still Matters article
- Machiavellian Precepts in Shakespeare's Plays paper
- Power of Persuasion paper (Julius Caesar)

[tissue]

Hey! I recommend checking out Spark Notes as well as Lit Charts as a good starting point for each text. If you can get a solid understanding of both texts and their context, it'll make it 1000x easier to make connections and ultimately write essays comparing them! If you're ready to dive into some academic articles and papers, AusLit is a good starting point too.

Also:
- Who's Afraid of Machiavelli documentary
- Machiavelli Was Right article
- Issues in Leadership paper (Julius Caesar)
- Why Machiavelli Still Matters article
- Machiavellian Precepts in Shakespeare's Plays paper
- Power of Persuasion paper (Julius Caesar)

thank you so much! 

[Snew]

Hi Elyse/Jamon/ any other awesome ATAR notes people! I was wondering how you broke down the Mod A rubric (similar to AOS?) cheers!

[jamonwindeyer]

Hi Elyse/Jamon/ any other awesome ATAR notes people! I was wondering how you broke down the Mod A rubric (similar to AOS?) cheers!

Hey! Module A is all about comparison - That's the key to everything in the rubric. How do two texts treat ideas differently, and then, how does studying those texts together give you a better understanding of the ideas within

That said, this guide provides a really great breakdown (with samples) of what Module A is all about. Definitely worth a read!!

[Neilab]

My school is doing the Great Gatsby and EBB for Mod A. I've been a bit stuck on what we are actually doing with it and was wondering if I could clarification about what to look out for when analysing the texts again - i've read them both once already

[jamonwindeyer]

My school is doing the Great Gatsby and EBB for Mod A. I've been a bit stuck on what we are actually doing with it and was wondering if I could clarification about what to look out for when analysing the texts again - i've read them both once already

Hey! I was going to link you to our Module A Guide, but you found it! Be sure to send any questions our way

[katnisschung]

hi!
i'm looking to start on my notes and possibly do as much of them as possible before i receive my assessment.

any tips and tricks for writing notes for module a (studying pride and prejudice and letters to alice)

for the discovery module i had sth like this in a tabular format which i found helpful

- Link to discovery
-quote
-technique
-effect/explanation
-discovery stage (departure, experiences, revelation, etc)

also how specific have they been in previous years in the essay question?
i've heard that they can quote a specific line and ask for details surrounding this particular
line/theme... i think from memory last year's paper's essay question was a little broader though

Thanks 

[elysepopplewell]

hi!
i'm looking to start on my notes and possibly do as much of them as possible before i receive my assessment.

any tips and tricks for writing notes for module a (studying pride and prejudice and letters to alice)

for the discovery module i had sth like this in a tabular format which i found helpful

- Link to discovery
-quote
-technique
-effect/explanation
-discovery stage (departure, experiences, revelation, etc)

also how specific have they been in previous years in the essay question?
i've heard that they can quote a specific line and ask for details surrounding this particular
line/theme... i think from memory last year's paper's essay question was a little broader though

Thanks 

Hey there! For starters, I suggest looking at this essay written by sudodds.

If you haven't already begun reading the texts, I suggest doing so with your notes at the ready (well, you'll create them as you go). This way you can take note of page numbers and quotes so that you can easily reference them when it comes to writing your essay or other notes. Rather than being organised by a very distinct rubric like in discovery, you may need to pick up themes yourself that feature in both of the texts and organise your notes accordingly. Perhaps love/romance could be a place to start, then the place of women in courtship or education (just ideas!). You could follow a little table structure in a Venn diagram style even, this might help you make the similarities and differences. Take note of significant quotes or pivotal moments!

With Module A, each text pairing receives an individual question, which is not the case with Discovery of Module C. So yes, they can in fact be quite specific with what they ask. I'd wager that when they are specific, they are specific about something significant in the text, or something that may not be a pivotal moment/scene in either text, but one that raises themes you may have studied. It's unlikely they would select a quote that doesn't have much relevance to any argument - the essays across the board wouldn't be quality. In saying that, it's difficult to guess questions, or patterns in questions, with texts that have been around on the HSC list for a while! A lot of the Module A texts have been used for years now so they've gone through specific and broad stages.

[legorgo18]

Hi guys got a few questions for creative

I am honestly horrible at creative, however, i do write killer essays. Teacher gave me the creative i did during holidays back today... 6/15, i have never felt this done my entire life. So i was reading the creative guide on atar notes and i was thinking about doing a feature article as me and stories dont click at all. So here are my questions, what type of discovery can be conveyed through a feature article, what topic can you write about and do you still need a lot of descriptive bs im so done with that show not tell thing. ty

[elysepopplewell]

Hi guys got a few questions for creative

I am honestly horrible at creative, however, i do write killer essays. Teacher gave me the creative i did during holidays back today... 6/15, i have never felt this done my entire life. So i was reading the creative guide on atar notes and i was thinking about doing a feature article as me and stories dont click at all. So here are my questions, what type of discovery can be conveyed through a feature article, what topic can you write about and do you still need a lot of descriptive bs im so done with that show not tell thing. ty

Hey! I don't mean to cloud your thoughts, but I want to put in my personal preference here too. I wrote a speech, and it was a lot of fun but still on the creative side. You could too, write a speech, and it could be about anything. You could write a eulogy for a famous person, a person you've never met, a person you know, or you could write a speech delivered in a dystopian world, or a speech you'd give on Australia Day as the recipient of a huge award. The great thing about speeches is, that at bare minimum, you just need to be creative enough to get into the head of a persona. Otherwise, you can use real, historical details rather than made up settings. Instead of showing and not telling the discovery, you can more or less just tell it. Because in a speech, that's your purpose.

Feature articles are what you'd most likely see in magazines, so longer form journalism that has a plot to it usually. Writer's Digest wrote this guide that's quite helpful! You can also take a more informative route, and do something like this SMH piece on FGM.

Find your passion, for me it was women's rights in the 1960s. My speech is here, so you can see how I turned that passion into a speech that does more telling than it does showing.

To answer your question about what type of discovery you could explore, well, any! If you can think of a context, or a cause, or a plot that you're passionate about, I can give you some suggestions about how to explore it in a feature article

[kb123]

How many words do you need in each essay in order to get full marks?

[ssarahj]

How many words do you need in each essay in order to get full marks?

Hey kb123! I think most would agree that there isn't an exact word count that will guarantee full marks. Some students can write a killer essay using 800-1000 words, others need more. I would recommend that you aim for the 1000 mark to start off with and then test if you can actually write your essay in 40 minutes.

Keep in mind that more words doesn't always equal better marks! I can still clearly remember my English teacher (also a HSC marker) warning my class about the countless scripts he had read that "wrote themselves out of a Band 6" because they waffled on for ages without clear direction.