How much of the text is needed in a context essay?

[Joey94]

Here's the situation:
It's Sunday night and our school starts on Tuesday. I've neglected English work over these holidays to the point where I haven't even thought (and therefore stressed) about it until now.

Despite my internal motivation at the beginning of the holidays to simply knuckle down and get shit done, nothing has happened.
I haven't read our second context text "The Crucible" because:
1) I found the opening pages boring as fuarrrrk.
2) I was under the impression that as long as I get the "gist" of it via online summaries I should be fine.

After reading some sample essays on TSFX, I'm now shit-scared of the amount of Crucible content they have in them. We're talking 2 main bodies worth; give or take a little.

This has prompted me to think about whether or not I'm royally screwed. The first context piece I managed to pull a 27/30 from briefly mentioning the text in one of my ideas and leaving it at that. But I don't think I'll be able to get away with that this SAC or the exam.

Sooo yeah. How much is really necessary, particularly in the persuasive format?

_{inb4"aslongasyouanswertheprompt"}

[saheh]

Heey so I'm doing crucible too, haven't read it and our work is due tomorrow :p
We did watch the movie and that helps to understand the start...as well as read your summaries etc

I got 30/30 for my last context one, and mentioned the text maybe twice, and linked the parts i mentioned to the other ideas..,

i guess it depends on the complexity of the ideas you present, and how well you integrate them

[pi]

Ideally for any context piece, you'd want a good balance of internal textual references and external stuff, best fit is 50-50 or even 60-40 from experience

[soccerboi]

Context- Referring to set text

[VivaTequila]

Very, very, very little.

I did ASND last year and didn't discuss anything about the protagonist or anything that actually happened in the text other than a small side-scene in the play which took up about 10 seconds, and it came out beautifully. I'll link to the discussion if anyone is interested; I've explained it on these forums before.

[pi]

Ideally for any context piece, you'd want a good balance of internal textual references and external stuff, best fit is 50-50 or even 60-40 from experience

To clarify (I probably should have), what I mean by "textual references" isn't something you'd use in a text response, but rather ideas and themes that are obviously from your set text