The biggest shock of my life :(

[Christiano]

A couple of weeks ago, our school begun the 5 period English SAC on our context which is identity and belonging. After hours working on it over the weekend prior and getting it perfected and memorized throughout the week (never worked so hard on one assessment, besides the Legal exam), and getting it checked and graded by several people (notably EZ, who gave it 'a solid 8/10') and getting previous practice sacs marked by my teacher (and receiving A's and A+'s), I felt like I got slapped in the face when I received my mark for it.

I got 70%, with the comments from my teacher, as well as 2 other teachers that crossmarked it, that the language I used was overboard and caused me to lose the majority of my marks; they promoted simplification and relating your own subjective personal experience to the prompt in a pure expository essay that was aimed at an educated audience, something that I lacked. Should I be penalised for that?

I believe I have been robbed, because many others who used 'simple language' (and i mean very basic) with simplified ideas got higher (not take away their efforts). The cohort and school in general is extremely weak in English (only one 40 in the past 5 years), which means that I need to work harder to attain a decent score. The previous practice SACs I got back from my teacher was met with positive feedback, using the same 'developed' language that I used to express my ideas. So to utilize that same language and lose marks for it on the SAC because it was 'overboard' .. I'm not sure what to make of it.

So what do I do now? .. I feel physically sick.. it has hit me hard and I believed English to be one of my strongest subjects. Is there anything that I can do about it? and How do you bounce back from this sort of thing..

The essay I memorized for the SAC can be foundhere What do you guys think of it?

[ninwa]

relating your own subjective personal experience to the prompt in a pure expository essay that was aimed at an educated audience, something that I lacked. Should I be penalised for that?

I did English before context was on the syllabus so I can't comment on this.

However, after glancing through your essay I would have to agree that your language was in places overly convoluted. It's good to use complex vocabulary where appropriate, but not when it means sacrificing clarity of expression. I don't think it was bad enough to justify losing 30% of your mark, though.

If you want a more detailed critique I'm happy to look over it more closely.

[nacho]

A couple of weeks ago, our school begun the 5 period English SAC on our context which is identity and belonging. After hours working on it over the weekend prior and getting it perfected and memorized throughout the week (never worked so hard on one assessment, besides the Legal exam), and getting it checked and graded by several people (notably EZ, who gave it 'a solid 8/10') and getting previous practice sacs marked by my teacher (and receiving A's and A+'s), I felt like I got slapped in the face when I received my mark for it.

I got 70%, with the comments from my teacher, as well as 2 other teachers that crossmarked it, that the language I used was overboard and caused me to lose the majority of my marks; they promoted simplification and relating your own subjective personal experience to the prompt in a pure expository essay that was aimed at an educated audience, something that I lacked. Should I be penalised for that?

I believe I have been robbed, because many others who used 'simple language' (and i mean very basic) with simplified ideas got higher (not take away their efforts). The cohort and school in general is extremely weak in English (only one 40 in the past 5 years), which means that I need to work harder to attain a decent score. The previous practice SACs I got back from my teacher was met with positive feedback, using the same 'developed' language that I used to express my ideas. So to utilize that same language and lose marks for it on the SAC because it was 'overboard' .. I'm not sure what to make of it.

So what do I do now? .. I feel physically sick.. it has hit me hard and I believed English to be one of my strongest subjects. Is there anything that I can do about it? and How do you bounce back from this sort of thing..

The essay I memorized for the SAC can be foundhere What do you guys think of it?

You have to take this up with them, don't let it slide. They can't take marks off an essay for it being "too good", writing is supposed to be formal.
Do not let your school screw your SACs over, it happened with my sub last year, if they let the weaker students get a higher ranking in SAC, you have to practically ace your exam (not sure how it works for english) to have a living chance of 40+, especially because English SACs contribute 50%.
There is a difference between embellishing your writing unecessarily and writing formally/appropriately though, i've been told not to in previous years by many teachers, (including a tutor)

[Russ]

I got 70%, with the comments from my teacher, as well as 2 other teachers that crossmarked it, that the language I used was overboard and caused me to lose the majority of my marks; they promoted simplification and relating your own subjective personal experience to the prompt in a pure expository essay that was aimed at an educated audience, something that I lacked. Should I be penalised for that?

What was the SAC prompt? If it was to write a personal-reflective piece than it was inappropriate to write an expository essay, even though in the exam you can write whatever you want. I think that 70% is not a bad mark; getting a 7/10 in the October exam is a reasonable achievement and something that you can build on. That said, I don't like the idea that you memorized your essay...was the practice topic and criteria identical to the real SAC?

You can ask your teacher (and you should) why your marks were out of line with the practice pieces and I'd expect him/her to have a good response to that. I got marks I didn't like in year 12 and the best way to deal with it is to ignore it and move on to the next piece of work. In all my years of education I've never had a mark reversed or revised solely because I didn't like it (it's only happened when there are actual reasons)

With respect to the "developed" language, I've said a few times not to use buzzwords or use "advanced" vocab inappropriately. Writing with a simplistic vocabulary is not "bad" as long as your expression and development of your arguments/ideas is appropriate. Phrases like "a plethora of facets" are just going to annoy whoever is marking your essay. You didn't go overboard but I wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that strong language = strong essay.

[Water]

I just skimmed through your SAC, and it could be, that if the intention was "pure expoisitory style" you perhaps were leaning a bit too much on one side, which could have undermined your marks somewhat and is what I saw in your introduction and conclusion. Though, 70% abit too harsh. Do you have the absolute comments of the teachers, maybe we can analyze what they said.

PS: Your vocabiness in your essay put me off, slowed your writing down.



Btw, Simple Language is good, using ideas that appear to be simple, but are very in depth is also very good as well. Take that in consideration, complex ideas, but not expressed properly, can just come and kick right back up your ass  :tickedoff:.


But you have my sympathies >;

[Eriny]

You should definitely talk to your teacher about this, not the internets, she/he will be able to you far more accurate comments in what the assessors were looking for in that SAC.

Additionally, your essay does read as though it has been memorised. And even though it isn't a personal essay, they were probably looking for clues that the topic was something that you considered about very closely. If you're writing from your true opinions, it reads differently than if you've memorised a big lump of text. Again, I'm not sure what the criteria were so I can't comment on that aspect much further.

As for your vocabulary, I rarely found it a problem I don't think the language you use is troubling in the slightest (I may not be the best person to ask though, I was only just reading Bourdieu this morning...). I do think though you seem to pay more attention to expression than to structure. For instance, I don't think you clearly engage with the question in your first paragraph, which is a no-no. You come very close to answering it, but just reading that paragraph, I don't really have any idea about what you think on being different entailing a struggle to belong. In the second paragraph you do refer to struggle and answer the question, but it's not clear what you mean by 'struggle' and I think you do have a problem here in relating all of your points to the concept of 'struggle' in a way where the relationship between difference and struggle is very explicit. That said, you do a wonderful job of exploring what it means to 'be different' which shows that you are capable of more fully developing your discussion on struggle.

[HERculina]

solution: move schools. In my old school which was also a low cohort one, the teachers were always biased against smart Asians and gave like 60s or even 50s on my english essays... and then when i looked over to my friend who was so crap at english and didn't even put full stops in her sentences got higher than me.... but look at me now at macrob and i get at least in the 80s. Its jst the way life is.

[burbs]

solution: move schools. In my old school which was also a low cohort one, the teachers were always biased against smart Asians and gave like 60s or even 50s on my english essays... and then when i looked over to my friend who was so crap at english and didn't even put full stops in her sentences got higher than me.... but look at me now at macrob and i get at least in the 80s. Its jst the way life is.

Moving schools as a yr12 is not an easy task.

[HERculina]

true that. lols.

[shinny]

The foreword I say to all my students I tutor: follow whatever your teacher says when writing SACs. There's no fighting it. English is subjective as hell and that's the most you can do. I've been through this as well and the only time I hit the A+ mark on a SAC was on the SAC I didn't try on and didn't study for because that forced me to use simple language and ideas. Put simply, my teacher preferred that and I ironically did best on the SAC I put the least effort into. Yes, you might've been robbed, but point is, ignore it, learn from this experience and then cater your next SAC to exactly what they want next time. The first SAC is always going to be a bit hit and miss, hence why I generally recommend handing in pieces prior to this to gauge what they want from you.

[HERculina]

yea hand in pieces to ur SCHOOL English teacher since they are the one marking it

[EvangelionZeta]

100% agreed with shinny.  When I marked it, I was marking it from what I would like to believe is a fair standard from a "good" examiner; however, different people are going to want different things, and part of the skill behind succeeding in VCE English is to adapt to what teachers want, and what "bad" examiners may potentially want.

[shinny]

All this said, the VCAA examiners are generally much more...open minded. So follow your teacher for now and then do what you think works best in the exam because examiners will just judge your piece on its own merits rather than having every student follow their own idiosyncrasies in writing.

[Christiano]

What was the SAC prompt? If it was to write a personal-reflective piece than it was inappropriate to write an expository essay, even though in the exam you can write whatever you want. I think that 70% is not a bad mark; getting a 7/10 in the October exam is a reasonable achievement and something that you can build on. That said, I don't like the idea that you memorized your essay...was the practice topic and criteria identical to the real SAC?

The SAC prompt was 'Being different almost always means struggling to belong'. The practice SACS were marked with the same criteria as the real SAC. The essay format was our choice, but needed to be stated in the written explanation. I even lost 2 marks out of 5 on the written explanation - they stated that use of 'overkill' words like 'encapsulated' and 'illuminate' was unnecessary and was lost me the marks. I used the exact same template for previous practice SACs and was told it was great because it still covered the elements of 'FLAPC'. This is it:

Written Explanation
For my sustained piece, I have chosen to draw on ideas encapsulated within this context study to explore the notion that the differing qualities of an individual’s identity may entail a struggle to belong to groups. To fully explore this concept in its complexity, I’ve attempted to address the prompt by giving evidence to ideas that are expressed in Alice Pung’s anthology ‘Growing up Asian in Australia’, with a particular focus on individuals who are different and their struggles to belong. I have also utilized supplementary material - such as the film Gattaca, - to give my ideas credence.

My purpose is to inform readers of the ideas that I will illuminate. I am primarily writing for an educated audience, while explaining my ideas clearly and accessibly enough to be suitable for a general audience. To reflect my intended audience, I’ve chosen to write in an essay format of an expository form, maintaining a formal tone to add substantiality to my writing.

I spoke to one of the English teachers at my school who will be marking english exams later this year and she said it should've received higher .. talk about inconsistency.. Is it possible to argue with the teacher to get some marks even after they have already marked it? I don't want to cause too much fuss over this, but I'm already in an extremely weak cohort and have one of the lowest SAC ranking at our school 

[nacho]

I spoke to one of the English teachers at my school who will be marking english exams later this year and she said it should've received higher .. talk about inconsistency.. Is it possible to argue with the teacher to get some marks even after they have already marked it? I don't want to cause too much fuss over this, but I'm already in an extremely weak cohort and have one of the lowest SAC ranking at our school 

Yea, it should be, i did it for chem because i hadn't received consequential marks. Also, they have not sent off your rank/scores to VCAA as of yet, so no biggie.