Memorise essays? (1 Viewer)

mqixdjexx

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I only memorise quotes and analysis and it seems to do me good, but I've heard people say memorising essays is essential to do well?
 

pikachu975

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Not 'essential' but it's good if you can't think of a brand new idea in 40 mins or can't write well under pressure.
 

ml125

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I personally only remember quotes and analysis as well, would be unable to remember a whole essay anyway. :p Just do whatever works fine for you :)
 

mqixdjexx

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I personally only remember quotes and analysis as well, would be unable to remember a whole essay anyway. :p Just do whatever works fine for you :)
Yea my theory is that if you know quotes and analysis you can make up topic sentences on the spot (just need to know some synonyms of the key words) which makes it much easier to relate to the thesis. Also, if you write a generic essay it has to account for all possible questions and themes etc. so I feel like it would be like 1500 words long?
 

pikachu975

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Yea my theory is that if you know quotes and analysis you can make up topic sentences on the spot (just need to know some synonyms of the key words) which makes it much easier to relate to the thesis. Also, if you write a generic essay it has to account for all possible questions and themes etc. so I feel like it would be like 1500 words long?
1500 is too long, probably around 900-1100 depending on writing speed. Try go under 1100 so you have time to adapt and stuff.
 

mqixdjexx

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1500 is too long, probably around 900-1100 depending on writing speed. Try go under 1100 so you have time to adapt and stuff.
Yea but what if your text has 6 themes and the question will only ask about 1-2. Doesn't your essay need to have all 6 themes?
 

pikachu975

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Yea but what if your text has 6 themes and the question will only ask about 1-2. Doesn't your essay need to have all 6 themes?
Nah you can adapt your 2 themes to whatever the question asks.
 

Martin_SSEDU

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I memorised all my essays and written responses for the HSC which was about 13 in total (3 economics, 3 legal studies, 5 English Adv, 2 English Ext) only because I knew for sure I'd have a lot of difficulty in the exam room remembering how I wanted to structure my essay. So I'd say personally, that memorising does definitely help. As everyone has said above, once you know what you're going to write, the last skill you need to apply is actually answering the question which is a big relief from writing from scratch.

HOWEVER, for economics and legal studies I focused more on structure. I sort of just memorised quotes, cases, statistics and facts and was able to perfectly put together strong essays under timed conditions.

In all, just memorise your work, but remember that you have to actually answer the question
 

mannxv

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I memorised all my essays and written responses for the HSC which was about 13 in total (3 economics, 3 legal studies, 5 English Adv, 2 English Ext) only because I knew for sure I'd have a lot of difficulty in the exam room remembering how I wanted to structure my essay. So I'd say personally, that memorising does definitely help. As everyone has said above, once you know what you're going to write, the last skill you need to apply is actually answering the question which is a big relief from writing from scratch.

HOWEVER, for economics and legal studies I focused more on structure. I sort of just memorised quotes, cases, statistics and facts and was able to perfectly put together strong essays under timed conditions.

In all, just memorise your work, but remember that you have to actually answer the question
hi ! could you provide some tips on how you prepared your master essay for the 'options' essays in legal ?
 

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