2003ers- Memorized Essays vs Adaptive Knowledge of Text (1 Viewer)

[Loz#1]

I didn't memorise anything and i'm glad I didn't. I got 76 on my own accord and i'm happy with that.

 

[ND]

Originally posted by Loz#1
I got 76 on my own accord

That sounds as if people who memorized are less deserving than people who didn't.

 

[oriole]

It's really terrible isn't it. You can get a really good mark, without really knowing anything about the text itself, or without being able to analyse and form an opinion or judgement on a text. Not that I'm complaining, because that's what i did. I got a mark of 94, and all I did was steal information from various sources, whether it be the internet, books or teachers. As long as your able to express information with a reasonable amount of elegance, you can do well with the current format.

 

[holl]

I memorised paragraphs so i could just use the appropriate ones in my essay. And covered all question types, like for newspaper articles i made sure i had a few pre-prepared headlines to use. In the creative writing i prepared some imagary like similies and metaphores to put into my story. I woudn't recomend memorizing essays because if your essay doesnt fit the question your screwed. Also my teacher is a hsc marker and she says its really easy to tell who has just memorized essays.

 

[Skywalker]

Originally posted by holl
Also my teacher is a hsc marker and she says its really easy to tell who has just memorized essays.

And your point is?

 

[Butterfly_Wings]

Originally posted by scarecrow_of_oz
i sort of memorised my essays though the ones i wrote were broad enough to really be called notes... got 83 in the exam. teachers recommended writing many practice essays tho not memorising any one to coast the exam as the article suggests

Out teacher pretty much told us that it was actually quite a good idea to memorise an essay as long as we could make it fit the question and didn't look too obvious, and as long as we also studied the text more broadly in case our essay didn't fit...though he made a big point that he was saying this off the record.

 

[rukawasan]

how bt this... memorise essays.. but wen u write those essays.. make sure u cover everything... n in exams... just eliminate the paragrahps u dont need...

 

[iambored]

memorised it, and only went as well as i did because of it.

all the questions each year are the same anyway so why not?

although, i didn't memorise it word for word, i memorised main points, and then made up the wording in the exam.

 

[swangal]

89 - didnt memorise essays, altho kinda had the AOS one stuck in my head beause of its similarity to our trial n 1/2 yrly questions... Our teachers made a big point all year of saying not to memorise essays because too many ppl dont adapt them to the question and just write essays off the point. ( but it seems memorising didnt do any1 much harm on here!)

 

[AsyLum]

didnt memorise an essay but since the questions never really changed to much, it was more of a learned thing..but i never remember essays, boring and you are fuxx0red when you forget hahha

 

[Butterfly_Wings]

Originally posted by AsyLum
and you are fuxx0red when you forget hahha

Well, you would deserve to fail if you memorise an essay but don't actually the text in addition to what you've memorised!
The only problem I ran into when I did the HSC was when we had to write an interview...my memorised essay flew straight out the window. But I think it still went OK.

 

[AsyLum]

hehe its all good and well until someone forgets to refer to the source

 

[CHUDYMASTER]

Guys, I think you should all look at my post titled-

" English Tip From An Accompished English Student: "

All will be revealed and let's face it, if you stuff up english, you stuff up your UAI.

 

[Rahul]

i made pre-planned essays and regurgitated them out.
english IS bullshit...

 

[tempco]

That is so rigged... if only a knew all this at the beginning of the year :/

 

[freaking_out]

i got 78 exam mark (got dragged down from assessment marks though) and i memorised like crazy, my performance for me was very good, considering that i had got 51 for my trials, i could've got more but i didn't do a single practice essay under exam conditions at home..

 

[cro_angel]

hmm interesting tips.. thanx all

 

[Dhivya1]

I find its not so much memorising them but just writing a pile of practice essays, hey that still is kinda memorising because they have basically the same question over and over again, but then again, im no english buff

 

[Rekkusu]

Hmm, some very interesting views. I suppose memorizing an essay isn't all that bad, as long as your essay is like a broad type (don't remember it word by word, otherwise you might be screwed).

You can do an essay in either way:

1. memorise the issues, contexts, evidence to support that (techniques) through quotes,etc.

2. Memorise a pre-written essay, but this essay should attempt to cover most of the areas of your text. This way, for people who are fast writers but slow thinkers, you can do all the thinking before hand, try experimenting that with past questions, and apply it under exam conditions, this way you can see how much you can write through the memorised essay you have.

Overall, memorisation isn't bad, you just need to know how to alter it to suit your needs in the hsc. But if you are able to learn the text through its issues,etc it would probably allow you to cover a wider perspective of the hsc english.