2016ers Chit-Chat Thread (17 Viewers)

[mrstripedshades]

I am going into English with 4 essays that are very narrowly focused - I don't know what "narrowly focused" means to you all but what I'm talking about is that I have all my points polished and ready.

I think people who fail to get high marks, even with memorising essays, don't do well is not because they memorised a narrow essay, but because they lack skill in changing/adapting their essay to the question. In my trials, especially for AOS, I was completely thrown off by the question on "pleasure and excitement" (now people who studied Frank Hurley knows that, that documentary is some boring assessment of the validity of his photographs and what not, and 99% doesn't look at pleasure & excitement), and still adapted by adding a few extra words here and there, and still wrecked everyone in English.

Memorise if it works for you and you know you have the skill to adapt. (Otherwise do whatever everyone else who doesn't memorise does)

By the way, I did memorise 3 essays before Paper 2 the night before, it can be done - so if you start now, you'll be in a pretty good position

Yea. I do think I can memorise them still, like I have time and most of them should already be in my memory a little by little as I kind of unintentionally memorised for the trials. I never intended to memorise essays but they fit the questions well.

For discovery however, I'm pretty confident for The Tempest and almost every essay I wrote on it has a different second paragraph with different set of techniques. Its kind of a waste because i remember so many more techniques then I use but I guess it doesnt really hurt.

Anyways - who cares. If you go into the HSC with a memorized essay that is narrow you're only setting yourself up for poor marks. Ofc teachers will be opposed to memorization (cept some schools encourage it) and you just have to deal with it. But personally, I feel a generalised essay is good as you can adapt the links to the question usually and you have a good sentence structure as a safety net.

Lmao. Yea, I completely agree in regards to the sentence structure as well as just making sense in your argument and not writing incoherent arguments. I dont think my essay was that narrow though and she in fact wrote that it was too vague. Reason I lost marks in BNW in trials was also because the first para was a bit vague, hopefully trying to improve that. Going to get a 3rd perspective on the essay tho and hopefully its good.




also as opposed to other subjects where most people claim that HSC is easier than trials its pretty much 1-1 for English I guess, just a somewhat neg observation lmao

 

[BandSixFix]

I am going into English with 4 essays that are very narrowly focused - I don't know what "narrowly focused" means to you all but what I'm talking about is that I have all my points polished and ready.

I think people who fail to get high marks, even with memorising essays, don't do well is not because they memorised a narrow essay, but because they lack skill in changing/adapting their essay to the question. In my trials, especially for AOS, I was completely thrown off by the question on "pleasure and excitement" (now people who studied Frank Hurley knows that, that documentary is some boring assessment of the validity of his photographs and what not, and 99% doesn't look at pleasure & excitement), and still adapted by adding a few extra words here and there, and still wrecked everyone in English.

Memorise if it works for you and you know you have the skill to adapt. (Otherwise do whatever everyone else who doesn't memorise does)

By the way, I did memorise 3 essays before Paper 2 the night before, it can be done - so if you start now, you'll be in a pretty good position

Narrowly focused meaning you memorize an essay where all your links and evidence relate to such an obscure question that it is hard to adapt. It is much better memorizing an essay with broader examples and analysis so you can easily interchange words and phrases to suit the question on the day.

Pleasure and excitement can largely be attributed to Hurley's expeditions and desire to discover more about the world and more about the extent in which he can push his intellectual limitations on photography. I'd say that's a very nice question for FH - but I guess it's all about how you interpret the question.

 

[ml125]

Look, honestly it makes me so sad. The past few years we had amazing texts and then suddenly bam this - like why can't we do Heart of Darkness or Picture of Dorian Gray, or like, ANY OTHER BOOK THAT'S GOOD

OMG Y E S

Loved prelim EE1 so so so much bc DORIAN GRAY ughhh <3 <3 <3

 

[WrittenLoveLetters]

I think we did the same trials

That "pleasure and excitement" triggered me so much because Che Guevara definitely experiences neither and my related is an existential depresssing af monologue, so I was bullshitting my way through to get like 8/15 lol

I completely disregarded the existence of pleasure and excitement, I was able to turn it around and make it about the points I was doing/prepared for by saying "In comparison to the perspectives presenting the value of discoveries in stimulating new ideas...the aspects of pleasure and excitement within Nasht's documentary " " and Atwood's short story " " is insignificant..." and ended with a 14/15.

If you prepared an essay and memorised it, stick with it. You just need to adapt your introduction and answer the question. If you disagree with it, disagree with it!

Narrowly focused meaning you memorize an essay where all your links and evidence relate to such an obscure question that it is hard to adapt. It is much better memorizing an essay with broader examples and analysis so you can easily interchange words and phrases to suit the question on the day.

Pleasure and excitement can largely be attributed to Hurley's expeditions and desire to discover more about the world and more about the extent in which he can push his intellectual limitations on photography. I'd say that's a very nice question for FH - but I guess it's all about how you interpret the question.

Well, it was a terrible question for me as I was doing the rediscovery of artefacts being able to catalyse insights into new worlds & the need for reassessment in order to establish its validity as a source of discovery. My related too was a short story PURELY on the scientific uncovering of discovery and etc etc.

 

[pikachu975]

Bought? Doesn't the school provide?

Nah we have to buy them. They aren't providing english texts for 180 people

 

[WrittenLoveLetters]

Nah we have to buy them. They aren't providing english texts for 180 people

That sucks

What texts are you doing? I might just give you some of mine since I don't need them in my life ever

 

[pikachu975]

That sucks

What texts are you doing? I might just give you some of mine since I don't need them in my life ever

lol Motorcycle Diaries and Yeats Poems are the ones I don't have right now.

 

[Green Yoda]

Nah we have to buy them. They aren't providing english texts for 180 people

lol wot..you go to a rich private school. They provide textbooks and books to ~300 people in my grade and I go to a school where there are barely any AC's...pree poor public school.

 

[WrittenLoveLetters]

lol Motorcycle Diaries and Yeats Poems are the ones I don't have right now.

OMG is Yeats Poems the one for Module B? I heard anyone who needs to do poetry for Module B is 100% more fucked than any other text done for Module B

 

[mrstripedshades]

how many marks would you get if your creative is good but doesnt fit into the stimulus well? just asking incase.

 

[meDAawesome]

OMG is Yeats Poems the one for Module B? I heard anyone who needs to do poetry for Module B is 100% more fucked than any other text done for Module B

TS Eliot specifying a poem feelsbadman

 

[DatAtarLyfe]

OMG is Yeats Poems the one for Module B? I heard anyone who needs to do poetry for Module B is 100% more fucked than any other text done for Module B

i honestly think that, hands down, speeches is the most fcked for mod b

 

[ml125]

TS Eliot specifying a poem feelsbadman

cr i es ;-;;; completely fked if they specify hollow men or magi ._. Keep on forgetting my quotes for them ripppp

 

[KingOfActing]

OMG Y E S

Loved prelim EE1 so so so much bc DORIAN GRAY ughhh <3 <3 <3

we did Dorian Gray in year 10 and it was bae <3

I completely disregarded the existence of pleasure and excitement, I was able to turn it around and make it about the points I was doing/prepared for by saying "In comparison to the perspectives presenting the value of discoveries in stimulating new ideas...the aspects of pleasure and excitement within Nasht's documentary " " and Atwood's short story " " is insignificant..." and ended with a 14/15.

If you prepared an essay and memorised it, stick with it. You just need to adapt your introduction and answer the question. If you disagree with it, disagree with it!

Oh I wing essays but like, half way through I realised I was both agreeing and disagreeing with the question at the same time lol

I was like trying to argue something like 'pleasure and excitement to learn new things' but also like 'through lack of pleasure' or something and it was a mess

 

[KingOfActing]

how many marks would you get if your creative is good but doesnt fit into the stimulus well? just asking incase.

no more than 6/15

 

[mrstripedshades]

no more than 6/15

damn. most likely if its an image I'm going to go for the metaphoric meaning and hope that doesnt go a amiss.

e.g. i think it was last years and there was a picture with the balloon lifting up a wall revealing it to just be like a curtain or something. and I interpret it as 'not everything is as it seems'.

I guess I could a sentence near the end to make it a bit more apparent but hopefully it works.

 

[KingOfActing]

damn. most likely if its an image I'm going to go for the metaphoric meaning and hope that doesnt go a amiss.

e.g. i think it was last years and there was a picture with the balloon lifting up a wall revealing it to just be like a curtain or something. and I interpret it as 'not everything is as it seems'.

I guess I could a sentence near the end to make it a bit more apparent but hopefully it works.

I would advise against that. If you use it metaphorically, use it as the literal object for the metaphor - don't come up with a metaphor for it and not reference the original stimulus. I wouldn't see a connection between the two unless you pointed it out to me.

A sentence near the end isn't enough, since they usually ask to use "one or more" of the stimulus material as the "core focus of your piece". Practice adapting a story to fit different images and words.

 

[pikachu975]

OMG is Yeats Poems the one for Module B? I heard anyone who needs to do poetry for Module B is 100% more fucked than any other text done for Module B

Yeah gotta memorise 7 paragraphs for all his poems because you never know which two they'll specify or they specify one and you choose another.

 

[KingOfActing]

HoD is soo hard to read o_o

I read it on a flight, it was a great read <3 Some of the descriptions were too long for my liking, and the narrator interrupting in the middle was really weird for me, but over all it was a pretty good book

 

[BandSixFix]

lol Motorcycle Diaries and Yeats Poems are the ones I don't have right now.

you can just print out Yeats' poems lol