English Extension 1 Discussion - 2017

[paigek3]

Hope you guys don’t mind me making this I just had to write something before it completely went out of my mind

Soooo how’d everyone go?? I do Module B, After the Bomb and I thought this year was sooooooooo much kinder than last year!!

For the essay, the questions I raised included what is the purpose of life, whether the media should be trusted more than ones own government, where on the political spectrum one should lie, the question political compliance against its opposite (thanks Elyse for that idea ) and the power v the powerless of the individual and whether that be superficial or truthful. I linked this as provoking the audience to renewing their perspective/generating new ways of thinking

For the creative, I stuck to my original about a former east Berlin Olympic athlete speaking to the 2016 refugee Olympic team about hope and freedom, and added in at the end the question “But what is freedom to you?” And then went on to speak about how everyone’s idea of freedom will differ as it is an answer that is very personal

For essay I wrote nearly 10 pages, and for creative I wrote 9

Hope everyone did well!! I’m not too sure if my arguments were clear enough to get into the e4 range but I know I didn’t completely fail hahah!!!

[carolinewang206]

I was so happy with the questions!! For essays I talked about the Romantic subversion of religious rigidity in favour of pantheistic values- this alters the way of thinking through redefining the individual existence through spiritual unity, the transformative propensity of the imagination which allowed them to transcend the barriers of reality- new and pinoneering perspective of consciousness that contrasted the englightenment rationality, and the dispute between the verge of idealism and expropriation- the value of subjectivity and individual interpretation.

Then for creative I did my story that was about two sisters during the French Revolution and it changes between their perspectives, had the unresolved question about the importance of a cause for the greater good or value of individual relationships, but that regardless of the solution, neither of the sisters can achieve genuine freedom

Ended up writing way smaller than I usually do, so 11 pages for the creative and 15 for the essay. No idea how they're going to mark or what I'll get but I'm happy with how it went!!

Congratulations everyone on being done with English!!

[Em444]

Hey!
I was super happy with the essay question, I do Romanticism so I talked about how they questioned inequality, questioned the Industrial Revolution/restriction to promote the need for a connection with nature and freedom in emotion and thought, challenged Neo-Classical conventions surrounding nature and how later romantic texts questioned the views of earlier romantic texts because of revolutionary disillusionment. Wrote 8 and a bit pages (yeah I'm a slow writer but I think 1500 words is enough?)
Creative question was a little weird, mine was about a person who used to be super-pro-revolution and their reaction to the reign of terror, my question was about how could he get back to his innocent past but he couldn't because of his experience and he felt like all of his values were bad, and he wishes he could go back in time and build his life on foundations of beauty like his friend had done (its a little convoluted, I started with a dairy entry, then sandwiched it in-between reflection, then turned the whole thing into a letter). Wrote 7 and a half pages (about 1300 words)

[theyam]

I'm the 2018 HSC Cohort, doing Mod B: After the Bomb and I'm realising how sad it is that I'm going to be in this position next year ;-;

[TheFreeMarketeer]

My short story was easily adaptable and fit perfectly.

The essay was pretty okay. The ideas I explored were fairly decent and my analysis was pretty good. My only concerns were that my last paragraph was really rushed as I was falling short of time but I think I covered a good amount of it and also, I never explicitly stated 'new ways of thinking' - however, I did sort of mention it euphemistically.

Is this a big deal?

[Primallis]

I honestly thought this paper was really good!

Did Sci-Fi as my elective. I talked about how subversions and manipulations within the genre provoked questions relating to the consistent dichotomy between an over- acceptance of technology versus a rejection of humanity and how these questions cause a change in the audience's contextual thinking of the time depending on whatever text I was analysing.

Creative worked well, I set it in a dystopic world and was able to have a large sense of ambiguity at the end and provoked a question relating to humanity's survival and left it unresolved at the end and was largely ambiguous.

Overall, I can't complain! I thought I adapted the question well to my overall thematic concern across the four texts and was able to effectively answer the question.

[dancing phalanges]

Internet's been down all day at home so was only finally able to get on now! What an absolutely perfect paper that was! I owe NESA my life. The essay question essentially about ways of thinking/values being challenged by composers which is broad as anything and perfectly fit in Romanticism easily. And the creative was unbelievably easy to adapt to since at the end of my story there is still no freedom from slavery and the protagonist basically questions if man will ever realise his wrongdoings. You can tell that the creative prompt was easy because if you ran out of time and didn't have a conclusion - you are answering the question haha! 

[Mary_a]

Hey!
I was super happy with the essay question, I do Romanticism so I talked about how they questioned inequality, questioned the Industrial Revolution/restriction to promote the need for a connection with nature and freedom in emotion and thought, challenged Neo-Classical conventions surrounding nature and how later romantic texts questioned the views of earlier romantic texts because of revolutionary disillusionment. Wrote 8 and a bit pages (yeah I'm a slow writer but I think 1500 words is enough?)
Creative question was a little weird, mine was about a person who used to be super-pro-revolution and their reaction to the reign of terror, my question was about how could he get back to his innocent past but he couldn't because of his experience and he felt like all of his values were bad, and he wishes he could go back in time and build his life on foundations of beauty like his friend had done (its a little convoluted, I started with a dairy entry, then sandwiched it in-between reflection, then turned the whole thing into a letter). Wrote 7 and a half pages (about 1300 words)

Our essays sound really similar! I too spoke about the questions of individual potential and importance (ie through equality-Wollstonecraft), the question about authentic knowledge and the human mind (imagination-related/Hazlitt), pantheism/importance of nature (Col.) and the questions about emotion and human experiences (Keats-La Belle-Related)! So basically my overall thesis was baout provoking questions about the individual and the individual's comprehension.

My creative was about some guy in the French Rev. who realised what the world was coming to and decided to run away from the revolution to go live at the farm with his pregnant wife. So questions were about tradition vs revolution, conformity vs individual, and questions about knowledge

I liked the questions

[paigek3]

Woah sooo many Romanticism people on here! Cmon ATB folks, where you at 

[Nate311298]

Woah sooo many Romanticism people on here! Cmon ATB folks, where you at 

The questions seemed like such a gift! Problem with that is that it probably won't scale as well as it usually does this year...

[elysepopplewell]

I think this year's exam paper was soooo much kinder that in previous years.

It seems like everyone thought it was great too!

[paigek3]

I think this year's exam paper was soooo much kinder that in previous years.

It seems like everyone thought it was great too!

Yay was waiting to hear what you thought!!!

How would’ve you answered it for after the bomb, like what questions would you say they raise?

And what do you think the E4 raw cut off will be because of its broadness in comparison to others???

[elysepopplewell]

Yay was waiting to hear what you thought!!!

How would’ve you answered it for after the bomb, like what questions would you say they raise?

And what do you think the E4 raw cut off will be because of its broadness in comparison to others???

I think I would've talked about questions of truth, for one part - because in Waiting for Godot and Dr Strangelove, that's what I talked about. So questions about who is telling the truth, where these truths come from, etc.

Then for the remainder of the essay, I think the questions I'd have focused on must be about questioning and challenging the systems that provide the framework for living. For Plath, I would've had to twist my analysis a bit to render it towards the framework of gender and capitalism I wanted to explore, and then the questions of socialism and democracy of the Kitchen Debate.

As for the cut off - I'm a bit clueless. I never have much of an idea about this. I wonder if because they made it broad, they'll be looking for the people who managed to bring it in quite narrowly and uniquely - therefore the bar is pretty well set to the same as other years? I'm not sure!