Essay Preparation: Entire Draft Essay vs Essay Plan (1 Viewer)

[Promise]

As someone who does English Advanced, English Extension and SOR 2, essays have unfortunately become a way of life (I feel sorry for those doing Histories + Legal + English(s))
One thing that seems to be point of interest for essays in general is how to prepare for them. Personally, I'm the type of guy who needs to write an entire practice essay (and then attempt to memorise it) at home to go well on the day of the exam, but some mates of mine have had great success by simply writing several dot points and compiling quotes.

I feel that writing an entire draft essay allows you to use that beautiful, well-flowing and structured language under pressure, for the mere fact that you have remembered it. At the same time, I've found that writing entire practice essays sometimes prevents you from successfully answering the question (which would obviously be unknown to you before the day of exams) because you feel the need to word-for-word reproduce what you had at home, and therefore not directly tackle the new question you've been asked.

What do you guys do? What do you think the pros and cons are of each method?

 

[loversinjapan]

Going in with a prepared response only works if: a) It's a damn good response, b) It's malleable, c) you have mastered the art of tailoring it to any given question/context/audience. I find that it is fine to go in with a prepared response if you do have a good understanding of the nature of the rubric for that particular module/AOS/topic and your prescribed text. If that is the case, no matter what the question asks of you, you will have the knowledge and confidence to answer it even if that means deviating from your memorised response. However it is unrealistic for me, come trials/HSC time I'm going to have to write 15+ extended responses. Obviously for some of those subjects you can't really walk in with memorised responses and quite plainly, I can't remember that much crap. (for others that can, you lucky bastards)

Note that on top of the pre-assessment preparation I am consistently writing practice essays for each subject.

Advanced/EE1 are easier to prepare for: all that is required is a strong understanding of what the rubric is ACTUALLY saying (bloody BOS, screwing around with language) and of your text. I go in with prepared theses and quotes that can answer just about anything the paper throws at you.

Legal/Modern: Harder to prepare for because there is such a massive amount of content to cover and only one essay to show them how much you really know. E.g. Holycrapballs Modern's national studies are so fat and overloaded with content... then you get one measly essay.
Go in with a very detailed knowledge of content. Know how to answer different types of questions. I go in with detailed essay plans and possible arguments for questions/topics.

SOR: Go in with prepared everything. This subject is a joke lol

Hist Ext: Know the historians and what they represent, know what you think, have knowledge of the different types of history, go in with the mindset that you have to answer the question. (lol, state the obvious why don't you?)

Cons of my method: If you're actually an idiot in denial and in reality, don't know anything about the text or the module/topic: you're screwed.

I'm just lucky enough to enjoy writing essays.

 

[SuchSmallHands]

Have a malleable introduction template for any subject. Then, for any level of English, don't remember whole essays. Instead, remember five to seven paragraphs and then choose the most pertinent to the question and manipulate them to suit it even better. Also, refer directly to the question in your introduction/topic sentences so that it's clear you're correctly addressing it.

 

[GoldyOrNugget]

I got through HSC english with only essay plans. My friend did the same with only memorised responses. We both got 95+. Do what works for you.