Memorising essays

[vitir]

would high achieving students suggest memorizing essays? vcaa doesn't like it, but will i get you what you want?
how about writing up templates for written explanations, language analysis and stuff like that?

[vitir]

bump

[m@tty]

You mean memorising WHOLE essays?

[redmosez]

For context I pretty much wrote a creative piece which could be manipulated into any prompt

For Text response I just wrote allot of essays. You'll find that you pretty much keep using the same 10 or so paragraphs and choosing which one fits the prompt best.

[shinny]

For those who aren't naturally talented, it's perfectly viable to memorise essays and change perhaps the first and last sentence of each paragraph, and slightly alter the introduction and conclusion to fit the topic/prompt. I pretty much did this and it served me well. But note that when I say memorise, you don't necessarily sit down and rote learn entire essays. After having written a lot of essays, you will be able to recall your points and phrasing for just about any idea that you want to write about. The thing with writing a 'memorised' essay is that it still has to be relevant to the topic, so you basically just copy and paste a few paragraphs that you've done before which are relevant to the topic. Under no circumstances should you ever go off topic though because your marks will just plummet once the examiner knows you're writing a memorised essay.

[turley]

ummm memorizing essays is BADDDDD --- cause you wont fully link to the topic (examiners will notice if ur ideas become tangential)

[EvangelionZeta]

What shinny said.  If you're going for top scores however (high 40s/50), definitely write mostly from scratch (even if you have some idea of what kind of points you're going to make), because in the words of most English teachers such essays will have a certain "zing" to them.  Don't know how it works rationally (even though I believe it), but most 50-achieving students I've talked to agree.

[m@tty]

...most 50-achieving students I've talked to...

How many do you know? that you can say 'most'

[kenhung123]

Xavier has some pretty good english students...

[EvangelionZeta]

...most 50-achieving students I've talked to...

How many do you know? that you can say 'most'

About a dozen or so...I know a lot of random people.  xD

[redmosez]

Hmm I got 49 for English with pretty much memorised essays for context/text response.

I did get lucky with text response though and got a question that was very similar to one I had done the night before the exam.

Context though, I was pretty sure I could manipulate the same creative piece to any prompt by just changing the ending.

I think for English there's no real "secret best way" to do things, it's more about what works for you.

[kyzoo]

Memorizing essays isn't fun. Coming up with stuff is, but it has to be practiced spontaneity. I choose what is more enjoyable.

[ItsSKC]

Xavier has some pretty good english students...

OMG i wonder if Miss Stone is still there. She is a legend of an english teacher. She gave me the rude finger once(and did a whole bunch off other stuff that makes her legendary )

[TrueTears]

Yeah memorising essays are good, or else I would have been screwed (46 in English purely from memorising essays LOL)

[Souljette_93]

But how can you guarantee that the exam would have similar Q's to what you have studied? Just imagine memorising so much and in the end you get something totally different?

i haven't done the english exam before, but im just assuming.
does memorizing work with all the contexts?

Thank you,
Souljette<3