Thats fine if they don't want students to memorise essays (even though thats not what I did for that module). Are they going to expect less of a word count then? Because if they want people to actually work around the question rather than constantly writing (regurgitating often, information not built around the particular question itself), their should be changes to the exam in other parts as well. Whether thats in the way its marked or the actual length of the exam.
Imo its unreasonable to expect most people to be able to write 3 essays containing 1000, maybe more words in the limited amount of time given. The current form of the paper and just the way the subject of English is assessed in general simply encourages rote learning and memorisation. Not much different from the other subjects taught and tested either actually.
Just to mythbust a little;
BOSTES doesn't expect you to write 1000 words. Like, they don't expect anything in terms of length. They expect you to answer the question effectively, that's it. Now the way you do that is up to you; it can be done in 650 words if the writing is absolutely insanely wonderful. Most students would need more, probably around the 800-850 mark, to answer it properly. As you go up in word count, you are putting more into your answer and thus increasing the power of your answer. Some people do need 1000+ to answer the question well, and that is cool, but BOSTES doesn't require/expect it. Mainly want to put this out there because anyone out there who wrote <1000, no biggie
Now that's no comment on my views on the setup of Paper 2; I'd still personally think it would work better as an exam setup closer to that of EX1 (two pieces in two hours, but slightly more expected). I'm no English expert though, I'm sure they have their reasons
So I guess what I'm saying is (and none of this is targeted directly at responding to you either daatarz btw, just got myself into a flow aha), students already have everything they need to be able to answer this stuff. They have the time to deliver the answer if they have the knowledge. So under the current system, a change in expectation is probably a tad unlikely, and personally, I'd argue unnecessary. It will be interesting to see how the Band cut-offs for English go this year though, and that could influence their choices next year
However what that leads into is this; the exams are changing in a few years.
The syllabus draft shows a few key changes, two of which are:
- Creative writing will be assessed as a separate module, but may or may not be assessed in the HSC (I believe that remains undecided). The alternative would be through internal assessment only, and
this would bring Paper 2 down to 2 essays/pieces, not 3.
-
No related textsI'd love to see them make Paper 2 a 2 hour exam with two essays, both with question styles that reduce the effectiveness of regurgitation. The lack of Creative in the HSC is definitely intriguing
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Topic: Paper 2 Exam Discussion (Advanced) (Read 27460 times)