English Extension 1 Question Thread

[Stephanie2020]

Hello

I have an assignment on Worlds of Upheaval, with a choice between Metropolis and Frankenstein, and a related text. I'm having a little bit of difficulty on choosing the element of upheaval, but how would you recommend structuring an essay for this topic?

Thank you very much 

[s110820]

Hi Stephanie!

I can definitely help if you would like! =

[Joelle F-J]

Hello! Do you by any chance have some suggestions for The Left Hand of Darkness related texts? (no films, as I am doing Pan's Labyrinth as well)

[angewina_naguen]

Hello! Do you by any chance have some suggestions for The Left Hand of Darkness related texts? (no films, as I am doing Pan's Labyrinth as well)

Hey, Joelle F-J!

Definitely got yourself a challenge there with that pair of prescribed texts for finding related texts but it's not impossible  I have previously recommended Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and any of the short stories from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber for people doing Re-Imagined Worlds so you might want to check those out! Some poems that I think will also work well with The Left Hand of Darkness include Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and any of the poems from Margaret Rhee's Love, Robot.

There are also some wonderful contemporary short films like Lily Darragh Harty's The Fringes or Catherine Bonny's Colony that might allow for some great connections to be drawn with your prescribed text too but do check if your teacher recommends it since they are technically the same medium as Pan's Labyrinth. I've linked them below for you to have a look at!

Hope they help in some way and let us know what you end up deciding to go with!

Angelina 

[BakerDad12]

Is it inadvisable to memorise an essay for the new syllabus? I wasn't initially going to memorise an essay, but having written practise responses in preparation for Trials and now HSC it seems all my responses follow essentially the same structure, so memorising an essay would probably allow me to capitalise on that fact. The only reason I'm debating this is because my teacher advised against it, saying that the new syllabus can be extremely specific in questions and so it may be hard to adapt a pre-prepared essay. Note this was only for Advanced though, so I'm not sure how it differs for Extension.

[angewina_naguen]

Is it inadvisable to memorise an essay for the new syllabus? I wasn't initially going to memorise an essay, but having written practise responses in preparation for Trials and now HSC it seems all my responses follow essentially the same structure, so memorising an essay would probably allow me to capitalise on that fact. The only reason I'm debating this is because my teacher advised against it, saying that the new syllabus can be extremely specific in questions and so it may be hard to adapt a pre-prepared essay. Note this was only for Advanced though, so I'm not sure how it differs for Extension.

Hey, BakerDad12!

If memorising an essay will help you feel more prepared for the exam itself, I would say go for it! There's really no harm to it as long as you're not solely relying on that to get you by in the HSC exam  However, I'm more in agreement with your teacher because it is much more worthy of your time to spend it on practising responses and gaining more confidence in responding to questions on the spot than it is to memorise an essay. Even if you end up writing similar things in all your responses, you have already learnt to keep each new question and its key words at the forefront of your mind when addressing it in the essay. If you memorise an essay and go into the exam with that, you will likely end up regurgitating it word for word because you're tempted to. It is a lot harder to adapt a pre-prepared response than it is to write an original one that actually answers the question. Extension I is just as unpredictable as Advanced, if not potentially more so, and I would definitely advise you to invest in deepening your knowledge of the texts, having backup themes and quotes in mind ready to use if the questions are more challenging and exposing yourself to different types of questions you might get asked in the HSC  Hope that helps!

Angelina 

[maddycalvert]

Hello,

I am going into year 12 and I'm unsure whether I should drop English Extension 1, I have 12 units which is a lot, most people don't have more than 11. My marks in it this year have been pretty good (100% and 94% on my assessments), however the prelims exam I completely screwed up, my mark hasn't been released but I know I did poorly. I am not sure whether it is worth sticking with or not and how I can bounce back from such a bad exam. In regards to how it compares to my other subjects, it is kind of in the middle but on the lower side of my 7 subjects total. My lowest subject is biology, however my career paths falls under the 'biology' branch. I know that extension is only gonna get harder and more work too, is it worth staying in it and having 12 units or dropping it and focusing on my other subjects?

[pine-apple01320]

Do we need literary critics for Literary Worlds if the first question is a critical? Who are some examples we would look at?

[jemma_tan]

Hi!

I've recently begun practicing for my Common Module Exam in Term 1 on Literary Worlds and am having trouble critically analysing my given extracts. The question given to us was: "Evaluate the extent to which these texts align with and extend your understanding of the ways various voices are given representation within constructed literary worlds. Your response should draw on your knowledge and understanding of the module Literary Worlds. (10 marks )" and I am struggling with the structure of my response. Do you have any advice on what to do?

Thank you!

Jemma

[angewina_naguen]

Hi!

I've recently begun practicing for my Common Module Exam in Term 1 on Literary Worlds and am having trouble critically analysing my given extracts. The question given to us was: "Evaluate the extent to which these texts align with and extend your understanding of the ways various voices are given representation within constructed literary worlds. Your response should draw on your knowledge and understanding of the module Literary Worlds. (10 marks )" and I am struggling with the structure of my response. Do you have any advice on what to do?

Thank you!

Jemma

Hey Jemma!

Welcome to the forums  Hopefully this response isn't too delayed! The structure of your response for the unseen section really depends on what the mark allocation is. In this case, you have 10 marks to work with so I would structure your response with perhaps a short two sentence introduction, two mini body paragraphs for each extract and a two sentence conclusion which gives you the right amount of room for discussion and analysis.  If you were working with a smaller mark allocation, you could generally pull it off with just one mini body paragraph and if you were working with a higher mark allocation, you might want to do three mini body paragraphs. What I mean by mini is having around three examples of textual evidence and writing up to around 200 words for each, rather than a full length body paragraph in a typical HSC essay which might have up to five examples and around 300 words in total. You will be able to sufficiently deal with all the parts of the question with this rough word count (it's difficult to gauge in exam conditions but when you're writing practice responses, you can figure out how much you've written by typing it up again and checking). Hope this helps and feel free to ask any clarifying questions if you have any!

Angelina 

[Emily Adams]

Hey!

I've been really struggling with Extension this past year, and was pretty disappointed getting 66% in trials

Being this close to the exams, I've been finding it extremely overwhelming to study for, and it's led to further procrastination. I find doing integrated paragraphs really hard to do between my texts, is it still possible to get high marks if I don't do this?

The other thing I feel really lost on is how to study when there's SOOOOOO much content. Since my texts are 2 novels ("Frankenstein", "Gentleman in Moscow") and 2 sets of poetry (Heaney and William Blake- who each have their own 4 poems I'm looking into), I feel as if there's too much to even start with. How would you recommend beginning to study for these, or extension in general?

Thank you in advance!
Emily