That is true, it does state that you need to understand other people's opinions in time and context etc. But the problem is when you team that with everything else you have to know, there isnt enough time to actually consider everything, so a very superficial skim ovre most of it - with what seems to be a trend in many overtly descriptive adjectives - appears to acheive high marks. Look at the standards packs for proof - i am not lieing!
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Low averages for english exam (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter IceBreaker
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IceBreaker
Member
im sorry, can you please explain your point more clearly?Cab31 said:
IceBreaker
Member
i generally cant express myself clearly in englishwrong_turn said:
wrong_turn
the chosen one
i'm the type who can express themselves better in words, than in speech. i sound like a stutterer when i speak. however, i have to agree with cab. most of the people often quote, as evidence, and then use descriptive analysis of their evidence in essays.
IceBreaker said:
Sorry, It is a little hard to understand. OK using King Lear as an example (critical study of text and context). The Old HSC (i.e. Before 2001) used to look at the actual text. By this i mean, what the play was about, the themes, the issues, the techniques used by shakespeare to portray a particular message etc. This would have required each student to study the play in depth - to understand what was really happening, the layers of each character, the heart of each theme and the structure of the plot etc. This theoretically would have been quite nicely fit into a 40 minute time slot, and when you think about it, in 40 minutes to only be writing about the play, you would really have to understand it.
When the new HSC was introduced for the class of 2001, a distinct change was made to English. The Advanced English course had become more like the first year of uni that our teachers had done. The students are now expected to understand post modernism (without being taught it mind you) in order to understand the course which has post modernistic roots. By this i mean (basically) that instead of studying a text, we are now studying the text and its interpretation(s) and why it has been interpreted this way. In King Lear we are also expected to identify a particular interpretation (e.g. an existentialist interpretation) just by the techniques used by the director/film maker. This is a ridiculous expectation because only the very top students (and even many of them would not fully grasp the concept) would be able to have the background knowledge to understand how a production is portraying this idea.
Now that you can see how much there is to put into the 40 minutes, you should be able to understand how some students are 'fooling' markers into beleiving they have a profound understanding of the text and its interpretation. If you look at standards packages (particuarly the Blade runner/ Brave new world answer from 2003) you'll note that the student uses an unnecesary amount of adjectives, which makes the answer appear fuller and shows off the students vocab. However, when you consider how many times the student has used two words that ultimately mean the same thing, it becomes clear that each paragraph lacks information, but is cleverly disguised by the use of all the descriptive words. The same with other examples from other years of students with high/full marks. Because there is limited time, they tend to touch on an interpretation and then move onto another one because that is all that time allows. The result is that you get students, who may not completely understand some ways of viewing a text, that are able to appear as though they do. They are able to mask a lack of knowledge with a superficial description of a way of viewing the play, backed up by some examples they memorised from the internet.
Hope that explains my post a bit better
IceBreaker
Member
i understand so like semi- bullshitting your way through the essay,but representing to make it sound smart, clear & justified with all these BIG words with no full required understanding of the text,this is hence the reason why students can basically memorise a essay and then adapt to the question in the exam. is that right?
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