VCE English Exam - Text Response Discussion

[Striddawg]

Which texts were new this year? I wrote on Island: Collected Stories which is new to text response and I felt like the prompts were surprisingly pleasant (esp. when you think about last years burial rites ones for example)

Spoiler

I chose the second prompt, "clan and family ties dominate the lives of the characters in these stories" in relation to the desires to understand/have/escape these relationships but idk if it was any good 

Furthermore, for these collections of stories, which did people pick and which were studied in class? I discussed the Boat, the Return, the Vastness of the Dark, Island and the Golden Gift of Grey, the latter being the only one not studied. Probably my weakest of the three essays, however at the end of the day I am tremendously proud of my growth as an English student in the past year and the fact that I finally managed to write three not ~too bad~ essays in three hours 
Thanks to everyone who has helped those improvements on here too, mwah x

[has400]

Which texts were new this year? I wrote on Island: Collected Stories which is new to text response and I felt like the prompts were surprisingly pleasant (esp. when you think about last years burial rites ones for example)

Spoiler

I chose the second prompt, "clan and family ties dominate the lives of the characters in these stories" in relation to the desires to understand/have/escape these relationships but idk if it was any good 

Furthermore, for these collections of stories, which did people pick and which were studied in class? I discussed the Boat, the Return, the Vastness of the Dark, Island and the Golden Gift of Grey, the latter being the only one not studied. Probably my weakest of the three essays, however at the end of the day I am tremendously proud of my growth as an English student in the past year and the fact that I finally managed to write three not ~too bad~ essays in three hours 
Thanks to everyone who has helped those improvements on here too, mwah x

Hey! we basically tackled the question from the same stance! However i focused on the boat, the return, the lost salt gift of blood and finally the closing down of summer. I found this intresting though, my teachers stressed to us that WE had to include closing down of summer, funny how other teachers from other schools didnt put that much emphasis on it

[Glasses]

Did anyone do Brooklyn? Those prompts were pretty great in my opinion!

[rhanda10]

Hi guys,

I did This Boy's Life in Section A and I'm a bit worried. Looking for some reassurance/clarification...

For the last line of my conclusion, I wanted to finish with a quote. I did do this, but due to time and the lady taking my exam book from me I only got to write a bit of it...I will write what I MEANT to say below...

Ultimately, Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams of freedom and dominion and taciturn self-sufficiency."

And this is what I got down... (grammar and word order is exactly the same as I remember...

Ultimately (may or may not be there I can't remember), Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams

So on the end, I crossed out dreams but forgot to add quotation mark on the end in panicked state...

Will VCAA assessors be strict on me because I technically didn't finish the quote? But it still reads well I think so just need some opinions...maybe they will treat it as me just ending quote there and forgetting quotation mark...thoughts?

Thanks guys 

[NerdyPi]

I, too, wrote about the first one and found it pretty straightforward, however lost some direction three-quarters in - which can probably be attributed to a lack of planning.

My thesis was that the audience is compelled to sympathise more with Medea, than Jason. That is, as a result of Jason's betrayal of her (quite superficial, I know) -- we lose sympathy for him and more for Medea, the deus ex machina at the play's end which confirms the act of 'justice', as well as her unjust treatment in the patriarchal and Athenian society. I felt like I went a bit off-topic and it wasn't my best work all year. I did also come up with a quotes index prior, but couldn't recall a good deal of them (only using about six or seven all up, with the majority being short descriptions). Will this quantity suffice or is it too little? (I suppose it depends on their use and relevance, right?).

What do you think? If I may ask, what was your thesis and which points did you use?

Thanks NerdyPi & everyone else

Yours sounds a lot more sophisticated than mine to be honest, so I'm sure if you're showing an understand/deeper ideas it will conteract not having too many quotes. I basically said
1) audience has no sympathy for Jason due to his lack of emotion (especially compared to Medea), and talked about Euripides' characterization of him arrogant, and emotionless (talked a bit about that contraband love quote)
2) audience sympathies with Medea due to Jason's betrayal (talked about how everyone who didn't profit from marriage from nurse to Aegeus found it despicable)
3) audience sympathies with Medea as she is a victim of her society (patriarchy, xenophobia, exile)
4) but by end of play, no sympathy for either as Medea allowed her emotions to consume her

Afterwards, I was a little worried as I thought the prompt might be asking us to actually compare them in every paragraph, but overall I'm happy

[knightrider]

Just one question guys.

on the TR section where you had to tick what text you were doing + whether you chose i or ii)

i did AAEeve and ticked that i was doing that text, but i am kinda getting scared i forgot to tick whether i was doing topic i or ii)

Would the examiners be able to work it out if i forgot

Thanks  Hope everyone killed it today !!!!

anyone pls 

[postera]

Yours sounds a lot more sophisticated than mine to be honest, so I'm sure if you're showing an understand/deeper ideas it will conteract not having too many quotes. I basically said
1) audience has no sympathy for Jason due to his lack of emotion (especially compared to Medea), and talked about Euripides' characterization of him arrogant, and emotionless (talked a bit about that contraband love quote)
2) audience sympathies with Medea due to Jason's betrayal (talked about how everyone who didn't profit from marriage from nurse to Aegeus found it despicable)
3) audience sympathies with Medea as she is a victim of her society (patriarchy, xenophobia, exile)
4) but by end of play, no sympathy for either as Medea allowed her emotions to consume her

Afterwards, I was a little worried as I thought the prompt might be asking us to actually compare them in every paragraph, but overall I'm happy

Thanks a lot Nerdy, I appreciate the assurance. Very well done to you.

anyone pls 

I didn't do All About Eve but assuming your text response had some relevance to the prompt- which I'm sure it did- they should be able to work it out which one you selected. I wouldn't stress.

[meganrobyn]

anyone pls 

Well, I don't want the wording of this to be unnecessarily confrontational... but if you did a good introduction with a clear contention, it should be obvious. If there's a problem, it won't be with whether you ticked it or not, you know what I mean? But, if no problems, then no problems.

[knightrider]

I didn't do All About Eve but assuming your text response had some relevance to the prompt- which I'm sure it did- they should be able to work it out which one you selected. I wouldn't stress.

Well, I don't want the wording of this to be unnecessarily confrontational... but if you did a good introduction with a clear contention, it should be obvious. If there's a problem, it won't be with whether you ticked it or not, you know what I mean? But, if no problems, then no problems.

Thankyou so much 

[rhanda10]

Hi guys,

I did This Boy's Life in Section A and I'm a bit worried. Looking for some reassurance/clarification...

For the last line of my conclusion, I wanted to finish with a quote. I did do this, but due to time and the lady taking my exam book from me I only got to write a bit of it...I will write what I MEANT to say below...

Ultimately, Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams of freedom and dominion and taciturn self-sufficiency."

And this is what I got down... (grammar and word order is exactly the same as I remember...

Ultimately (may or may not be there I can't remember), Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams

So on the end, I crossed out dreams but forgot to add quotation mark on the end in panicked state...

Will VCAA assessors be strict on me because I technically didn't finish the quote? But it still reads well I think so just need some opinions...maybe they will treat it as me just ending quote there and forgetting quotation mark...thoughts?

Thanks guys 

Could someone please give me a response to this?

[argent]

Hey! we basically tackled the question from the same stance! However i focused on the boat, the return, the lost salt gift of blood and finally the closing down of summer. I found this intresting though, my teachers stressed to us that WE had to include closing down of summer, funny how other teachers from other schools didnt put that much emphasis on it

I did the second topic for Island too! Looking back on it I probably could have done the first one as well, I feel like both of the prompts were pretty good considering it's a first year text. But yeah, I focused on The Boat, The Return, The Closing Down of Summer, The Tuning of Perfection, Island and The Vastness of the Dark

[literally lauren]

Thank god John Donne prompt was about love!! It was the only thing I wrote on before my exam~
I'm just hoping my topic sentence didn't misinterpret the prompt, which was: "love in its many forms is explored in Donne's poems' So glad it's over and now...onto lit </3

Seriously can't believe that prompt came down to 'Discuss the most obvious theme in the poems' They went nice and easy on you this year! Maybe next year they'll ramp things up with a bit of 'How does Donne explore the importance of the metaphysical in his poetry?'

anyone else do Cloudstreet?

Seriously laughed when I saw that first Cloudstreet one cause I had something that was almost word-for-word as a draft for one of the practice exams (quote and all!) But ended up changing it to: “Men looked at her the way they looked at horses.” Winton’s novel critiques the role of gender in Australian society. Discuss. Still, thought a gender-based question was likely this year, so I'm claiming that one as a partial prediction

I hope you're right, that I'm just stressing over nothing! I've done this all year with my SACs actually - I tend to imagine the worst possible outcome until I get my results back and find out that I went better than expected haha. And, like you said, it's probably a good sign that I found them easy. It actually took me a while to decide which prompt to write on, because I had a lot of ideas for both of them. I ended up writing on the second one, discussing how Arthur, Roy, Dwight and Mr Howard all mould Toby's ideas of masculinity and fatherhood in various ways.

Don't worry, having ideas for both is also a great sign and it means you probably would've done really well no matter which prompt you wrote on! I reckon the second probably offered more room for discussion anyway

Just one question guys.

on the TR section where you had to tick what text you were doing + whether you chose i or ii)

i did AAEeve and ticked that i was doing that text, but i am kinda getting scared i forgot to tick whether i was doing topic i or ii)

Would the examiners be able to work it out if i forgot

Thanks  Hope everyone killed it today !!!!

Dw, this happens every year! The assessors will work it out (as meganrobyn mentioned, if the assessors get to the end of your essay and are like "OH! YOU WERE WRITING ON THAT PROMPT!?"... you've probably done something wrong ) The contention would have presumably been clear enough from the outset, so you should've been solid

I feel like I wrote something really weird for Stasiland

I did the second prompt and I said:
1) People cannot destroy the past, but because they want to dwell in it and it makes you nostalgic
2) People cannot destroy the past because the pain haunts people
3)  People cannot destroy the past, but some people change the power of the past into a catalyst that prompts you to do something better

do you think it's valid?

Sounds valid to me! I think the overall emphasis was on how the "pain haunts people," in your words, so it would've been problematic if you'd only talked about the different reasons why characters couldn't destroy the past. "...nor what it does to them" was a big deal, and it seems like you've unpacked that in P2 and 3 especially, so rest assured!

Hi guys,

I did This Boy's Life in Section A and I'm a bit worried. Looking for some reassurance/clarification...

For the last line of my conclusion, I wanted to finish with a quote. I did do this, but due to time and the lady taking my exam book from me I only got to write a bit of it...I will write what I MEANT to say below...

Ultimately, Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams of freedom and dominion and taciturn self-sufficiency."

And this is what I got down... (grammar and word order is exactly the same as I remember...

Ultimately (may or may not be there I can't remember), Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams

So on the end, I crossed out dreams but forgot to add quotation mark on the end in panicked state...

Will VCAA assessors be strict on me because I technically didn't finish the quote? But it still reads well I think so just need some opinions...maybe they will treat it as me just ending quote there and forgetting quotation mark...thoughts?

Thanks guys 

The assessors are quite used to running out of time. I'd actually be interested to know what percentage of essays are unfinished in the exam each year, since I reckon it'd be at least half. That doesn't usually feed into the marking scheme in a big way unless a piece is 'unfinished' in the sense that it's missing two body paragraphs or something You made the right call choosing to end it there by crossing out the extra stuff though, as that may've been confusing. But the quote you're referring to is such a central one, so they'll definitely know what you were getting at. AND the point that you were getting at is essentially the core of this prompt, which is a really good sign for the focus of your piece as a whole!

[rhanda10]

The assessors are quite used to running out of time. I'd actually be interested to know what percentage of essays are unfinished in the exam each year, since I reckon it'd be at least half. That doesn't usually feed into the marking scheme in a big way unless a piece is 'unfinished' in the sense that it's missing two body paragraphs or something You made the right call choosing to end it there by crossing out the extra stuff though, as that may've been confusing. But the quote you're referring to is such a central one, so they'll definitely know what you were getting at. AND the point that you were getting at is essentially the core of this prompt, which is a really good sign for the focus of your piece as a whole!

Well bad news is I think I remember that I left it like this...because the supervisor took exam from me...it would have most likely been the following...

Ultimately, Toby is propelled further away from the boy he desperately desires to be in his "dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams dreams

I chucked on the extra dreams, at which point she unexpectedly came from behind and took the exam from me...

Because of the extra "dreams" I have put, it now looks like I did run out of time rather than just neglecting the quotation mark...am I in strife now??

Thanks

[Mintk]

Sounds valid to me! I think the overall emphasis was on how the "pain haunts people," in your words, so it would've been problematic if you'd only talked about the different reasons why characters couldn't destroy the past. "...nor what it does to them" was a big deal, and it seems like you've unpacked that in P2 and 3 especially, so rest assured!

Thanks!!! I feel so much better now