How to get a 40 in English in 3 weeks???

[jaja]

*Write as many practice essays as you can. Make sure you do some unseen and in timed conditions as this is how you will be doing the exam.
*Make sure you know your books, their characters, themes etc. back to front.
*Have a good word bank that is sophisticated and verbose so you can show the markers that you have a fluent and developed vocabulary.

Good luck trying to get 40 in 3 weeks, unless you are extremely talented in the field of English you will struggle to be able to develop the required succinct and sophisticated writing style in this time.

That's pretty stupid. Anything is possible within 3 weeks.

[kendraaaaa]

It's definately possible, depending upon how much effort you put in. You, and all of us, are lucky that the scope of what we have to do in this subject isn't that wide and we know exactly what we have to do. We know the text we have to discuss, the context, and language analysis is simple to practice.

The answer to your question is to simply practice. Download a study guide for your text (available here), research your context, then start writing essays, and language analysis pieces.

[ninwa]

Good luck trying to get 40 in 3 weeks, unless you are extremely talented in the field of English you will struggle to be able to develop the required succinct and sophisticated writing style in this time.

That's a little defeatist. Unless you have done zero work all year, it is entirely possible. You just have to work out where your weaknesses lie, and what your studying style is. A week of study can result in more improvement than half a year's, as long as you make effective use of the time you have.

I got 46 with my above-mentioned 4 days of intensive study because it was customised to my personal learning style and needs.



EDIT: and no I'm not "extremely talented" in English.
... I'm extremely talented in cramming though

[NE2000]

Although it's often easy to tell when people just take stuff off study guides compared to when they read the text and develop their own ideas

[xXNovaxX]

*Write as many practice essays as you can. Make sure you do some unseen and in timed conditions as this is how you will be doing the exam.
*Make sure you know your books, their characters, themes etc. back to front.
*Have a good word bank that is sophisticated and verbose so you can show the markers that you have a fluent and developed vocabulary.

Good luck trying to get 40 in 3 weeks, unless you are extremely talented in the field of English you will struggle to be able to develop the required succinct and sophisticated writing style in this time.

I agree with last 2 posts. Not everything/if anything is about TALENT. VCE isn't contructed like that. People who, Like Ninwa said, have put in the effort, gotten good SAC marks (B and above), even with C's, can still perform very well in the exam.

I hate it when people think its about "talent". Nobody who has asked for help to do well in exam in these 3 weeks has said "I did no work in the year". It's not like it's a magic trick they're tryong to do, which even THAT you can learn in a short period of time, its English, they speak it, write it, read it, there you go.

[xXNovaxX]

Although it's often easy to tell when people just take stuff off study guides compared to when they read the text and develop their own ideas

dam.

[khalil]

Although it's often easy to tell when people just take stuff off study guides compared to when they read the text and develop their own ideas

No. There isnt an infinite amount of ideas and themes in context or in text response. Getting ideas from study guides means theres less thinking to do.
Unless, your essay uses simplistic ideas and writing, then RANDOMLY you have this really effective paragraph with really hard words and indepth exploring of the text. This is copy paste.

[NE2000]

Although it's often easy to tell when people just take stuff off study guides compared to when they read the text and develop their own ideas

No. There isnt an infinite amount of ideas and themes in context or in text response. Getting ideas from study guides means theres less thinking to do.
Unless, your essay uses simplistic ideas and writing, then RANDOMLY you have this really effective paragraph with really hard words and indepth exploring of the text. This is copy paste.

Suit yourself.

I'm mainly talking about text response. And I'm serious when I say that you only ever skim the surface with many study guides (maybe not all). A thorough reading of the book will give you so much more material and in turn so much more natural complexity. And it's not just that. When examiners come across multiple papers using similar vocab and ideas being structured in similar ways they can tell.

Also less thinking to do isn't a good thing. More thinking (and it's still not too late) is often what makes you good at English. Not necessarily natural skill.

[khalil]

But what's the point of repeatedly reading a book, your ideas are not going to change.
If you look out for other perspectives and opinions reagarding a text, your own ideas expand and you can 'borrow' their ideas if the need comes. Just like people, we need friends to give us feedback and criticism so that we can be within normal human social standards. Without this reference point, we are lost and repeatedly do the same thing without realising our mistakes.

This is just my 2 cents.

[kendraaaaa]

Khalil it's not about your ideas being changed, it's about discovering new ones. The first time you read something, it's comprehension. Subsequent readings allow you to analyse the text more closely since your brain isn't necessarily working on absorbing the information, so there is more room for critical thinking. That's how I work, not sure about others.

[xXNovaxX]

+1 kendraaaa

But using study gudies to get ideas is perfectly alright, as it ADDS ONTO your own ideas. Like it can be 50/50

[khalil]

That's true. But REPEATEDLY reading a book will not enable the generatation of new ideas, well at least for me it won't.

[xXNovaxX]

That's true. But REPEATEDLY reading a book will not enable the generatation of new ideas, well at least for me it won't.

for me too. But I think people are saying that you said (lol, its a tongue twister), that u use study guides as a basis of ur thoguhts. But I don't think you do that, so its okay.

Urgh, lol, they're study guides they are there to guide you, haha, so do w/e to them/ with them

[mba]

Generally I would believe that the everyday student would not be able to obtain a score above 40 when I read this:

have unfortunately "sacrificed" studying for english during the year to concentrate on pretty much everything else.

I take this as having probably obtained internal scores in the middle of the cohort.

For the normal everyday student strong essay writing skills I don't believe can be developed so quickly. I highly doubt that if you cannot be motivated through out the year to study English you will be able to do it "intensively" for three weeks too.

Ninwa well-done on doing well in English from four days of "cramming". I think you would be in the minority who could do that. You are obviously a natural, most people are not and my comments are directed to those who are not.

Good luck with your paper, and please I'd be very happy if you proved me wrong magnum.

[TrueTears]

Although it's often easy to tell when people just take stuff off study guides compared to when they read the text and develop their own ideas

No. There isnt an infinite amount of ideas and themes in context or in text response. Getting ideas from study guides means theres less thinking to do.
Unless, your essay uses simplistic ideas and writing, then RANDOMLY you have this really effective paragraph with really hard words and indepth exploring of the text. This is copy paste.

Suit yourself.

I'm mainly talking about text response. And I'm serious when I say that you only ever skim the surface with many study guides (maybe not all). A thorough reading of the book will give you so much more material and in turn so much more natural complexity. And it's not just that. When examiners come across multiple papers using similar vocab and ideas being structured in similar ways they can tell.

Also less thinking to do isn't a good thing. More thinking (and it's still not too late) is often what makes you good at English. Not necessarily natural skill.

I second that. It's like watching a movie, the more you watch it the more subtle things you will notice.