How do I get an "A" grade without reading my texts (1 Viewer)

eyeseeyou

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
4,125
Location
Space
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
I hate english and I hate reading texts. Could anyone please give me advice on how to scrape an "A" grade mark for my english assessments without reading my texts

Thanks in advance
 

BandSixFix

Disillusioned
Joined
Apr 20, 2015
Messages
1,510
Gender
Female
HSC
2016
Use past essays and lots of google. It's possible. Don't listen to the people who say, "If you don't read your text blah blah you will get shit" - You need to know your text and grasp it, but this can be done without reading it all.
 

buckskinbrumby

social misanthrope
Joined
May 19, 2015
Messages
64
Location
New South Wales
Gender
Female
HSC
2016
Be deep and philosophical while still answering the question, a mate at school does this in literally every discussion/essay/speech that we have, making everything up as he goes, and he still gets pretty decent marks because he can relate so much to his answer and dig a lot deeper than what most can, including me. He's just like that generally tho. Otherwise yeah google, read other people's work and even listen to texts on audiobooks or see if there's a movie or something (be careful tho, some movie adaptations change the plot heaps and I'm sure you're aware) if you really don't want to read the texts. Reading it helps, but it's not the be-all-end-all (I only read Hamlet when answering questions and still know it really well because I took an interest in it and actually enjoyed it, which helps aha)
 

MBTMaster

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2015
Messages
35
Gender
Male
HSC
2016
Deeply disappoints me that people do this. English is about fostering a relationship with English literature and its influences not only superficially in the artistic sense, but in the political and philosophical.

From a purely academic perspective. If you do the same amount of work as someone, and they read the book, and you don't. My money is on the one who reads it nine times out of ten. Take the book with you everywhere and every opportunity you get, read a little. Most of my reading gets done on the bus (granted I have a long trip).
 

MBTMaster

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2015
Messages
35
Gender
Male
HSC
2016
You have to remember that for the HSC, it's ultimately a numbers game. A lot of students don't see learning in English or in any subject for that matter as the end goal, they only see year 12 as the means to enter their dream uni course, so they won't bother 'understanding' the material properly (but let's be real, does the HSC really promote critical thinking as BOSTES posits?). Thus, you will naturally notice quite a few students exploiting the system; be that in the practice of sparknoting your texts, memorising essays made beforehand to adapt on exam day, etc. Because in the end, most of us really care more about the mark we got in the exam as opposed to the actual learning process - sad reality, isn't it. But that's the way it is, to be honest.

Not that I'm discouraging reading your prescribed texts in any way (I actually endorse it for Mod B especially because the scope of possible questions are much higher than that of the other modules).
I find that the subjects I am doing very much promote critical thinking, depends a great deal on what you do.
 

strawberrye

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2012
Messages
3,292
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
Uni Grad
2018
'I hate English and I hate reading texts'-unless you change this attitude, you will need a miracle to get an A, because simply put, sure you can adopt some of the above suggestions such as reading other people's critiques/essays and essentially either making up ideas or copying, but you will never be able to do that sufficiently to a high standard if you don't even like English at all-how are you going to have the patience to connect ideas and link them and then remember them with this attitude? Change your attitude, and then maybe you have a chance, and frankly, to expect getting a high mark without putting a decent amount of effort in is a really bad and more importantly, unrealistic attitude to adopt that won't serve you that well at all later on in life beyond your HSC.

Note: If you are unwilling to change your attitude, perhaps your only hope is to find an extremely engaging English tutor or an otherwise moderately expensive one so that you will actually listen and not want to waste the money your parents spend on the tutor if you share that consciousness.
 

parad0xica

Active Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2016
Messages
204
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
It seems that there does not exist such a method but only those in the underworld know it and have figured it out themselves
 
Last edited:

cookie_dough

Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2016
Messages
78
Location
don't look up
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
hi i have done this because i did not want to read a 300 page poem from the 17th century
Look up the main themes, look up quotes. Make sure you have your thesis and some profound things about whatever you are writing about- which can be obtained online. E.g. if its discovery, already have an idea on what you think discovery is (read rubric). Then just talk about how the quote illustrates the deep ideas. If you have written some really profound things in a previous essay, feel free to reuse it (if it fits), because things like "humanity's dual nature" are really generic and can be applied to almost anything. I got a 14/15 by doing this so yes it is possible
 

MBTMaster

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2015
Messages
35
Gender
Male
HSC
2016
Well, that's good to hear and I respect that (your opinion only comprises a minority of the state though). But the whole point I was getting at was whilst all subjects (admittedly) promote critical thinking to some extent, in the context of the HSC, memorising is seen as the easy way out and it normally work outs nicely. There are exceptions to this where people survived on 'critical thinking' and did well relative to other students, but rote learning is sadly a part of the HSC and I can't picture a way the syllabus can be changed to totally limit this. There is simply knowledge that must be known.
Not all subjects promote critical thinking to any degree, some are almost entirely rote.
 

eyeseeyou

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
4,125
Location
Space
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Use past essays and lots of google. It's possible. Don't listen to the people who say, "If you don't read your text blah blah you will get shit" - You need to know your text and grasp it, but this can be done without reading it all.
Why use past essays? It's not like I wanna plagarise them. I think what's important is that you know the themes relating to your rubric rather than all the unnecessary shit that happens in your story
 

eyeseeyou

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
4,125
Location
Space
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Be deep and philosophical while still answering the question, a mate at school does this in literally every discussion/essay/speech that we have, making everything up as he goes, and he still gets pretty decent marks because he can relate so much to his answer and dig a lot deeper than what most can, including me. He's just like that generally tho. Otherwise yeah google, read other people's work and even listen to texts on audiobooks or see if there's a movie or something (be careful tho, some movie adaptations change the plot heaps and I'm sure you're aware) if you really don't want to read the texts. Reading it helps, but it's not the be-all-end-all (I only read Hamlet when answering questions and still know it really well because I took an interest in it and actually enjoyed it, which helps aha)
That's actually a great idea though I don't really like audibooks so much as I seem to lose track from time to time and movies...well it's hard to exactly quote them so yeah. The thing is I already fcked up my first 2 prelim assessments for english but I really wanna do well in my next ones but don't wanna read the text (but at the same time I'm thinking I have to read the text because I don't wanna risk not reading the text and doing the assessment when I've already screwed up 2 prelim assessments)
 

eyeseeyou

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
4,125
Location
Space
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Deeply disappoints me that people do this. English is about fostering a relationship with English literature and its influences not only superficially in the artistic sense, but in the political and philosophical.

From a purely academic perspective. If you do the same amount of work as someone, and they read the book, and you don't. My money is on the one who reads it nine times out of ten. Take the book with you everywhere and every opportunity you get, read a little. Most of my reading gets done on the bus (granted I have a long trip).
Thing is I dislike english because I'm bad at it and it's so hard to prepare for because the subject itself is so broad you're not going to know what you're going to get. Also at times it can be really hard (i.e. creative writing)
 

eyeseeyou

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
4,125
Location
Space
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
'I hate English and I hate reading texts'-unless you change this attitude, you will need a miracle to get an A, because simply put, sure you can adopt some of the above suggestions such as reading other people's critiques/essays and essentially either making up ideas or copying, but you will never be able to do that sufficiently to a high standard if you don't even like English at all-how are you going to have the patience to connect ideas and link them and then remember them with this attitude? Change your attitude, and then maybe you have a chance, and frankly, to expect getting a high mark without putting a decent amount of effort in is a really bad and more importantly, unrealistic attitude to adopt that won't serve you that well at all later on in life beyond your HSC.

Note: If you are unwilling to change your attitude, perhaps your only hope is to find an extremely engaging English tutor or an otherwise moderately expensive one so that you will actually listen and not want to waste the money your parents spend on the tutor if you share that consciousness.
Good point here but ppl have scraped band 6s without reading their texts (i.e. crobat)
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top