One thing I don't understand. (1 Viewer)

[thommy]

There's one thing I don't understand in regards to the external exam that we do.

Some people have the film contact as their prescribed text, and others have Coleridge's poems. That's 1 film vs 4 poems.

A friend of mine did her HSC in 2006, and from memory, she said they had to talk about their prescribed text, one text from the stimulus BOS booklet, and one related text.

The BOS booklet is now gone though, so I presume that's why we had to choose two related texts.

Sorry if my post sounds confusing, I guess the general gist of it is asking how many of his poems we are to include?

If it's more than two, isn't that unfair, seeing other schools have just one set text, eg Contact.

Yes, all the Coleridge poems have similarities, but they also have their differences.

 

[o.bi.sess]

I assume that if you do poems, you should do 2. Even though it seems as if you're doing "two" texts instead of one, my teachers were always like "you need two poems to compete with those who are doing books and films".

Even though I did Skrzynecki, the Advanced class did Coleridge and they were told the same thing. It's because the people who do novels and films have so much more to talk about than people doing poems so those students have to supplement the lack of material in the poetry with quantity.

I'm not familiar with the 08 HSC - you have to choose two related texts? As in, Coleridge will only count as one?

 

[thommy]

I assume that if you do poems, you should do 2. Even though it seems as if you're doing "two" texts instead of one, my teachers were always like "you need two poems to compete with those who are doing books and films".

Even though I did Skrzynecki, the Advanced class did Coleridge and they were told the same thing. It's because the people who do novels and films have so much more to talk about than people doing poems so those students have to supplement the lack of material in the poetry with quantity.

I'm not familiar with the 08 HSC - you have to choose two related texts? As in, Coleridge will only count as one?

Thanks for your reply. I had a feling it would be two for some reason.

As for the 2008 course, they've ablolished the BOS booklet, and we had to choose two related texts. How exactly was the 2007 course?

 

[o.bi.sess]

The 2007 course was one text from BoS Stimulus booklet, another set text (eg Skrzynecki) and at least 2 related.

I take the 2008 course has more set texts to choose from than those available in 2007?

 

[thommy]

The 2007 course was one text from BoS Stimulus booklet, another set text (eg Skrzynecki) and at least 2 related.

I take the 2008 course has more set texts to choose from than those available in 2007?

I'm doing Advanced, and my set texts are the four Coleridge poems. We also had to choose two related text, one visual, and one non-visual. I have a friend doing Standard, and they're the same, but just had different poems. I think the ones you did, Skrzynecki.

So from what you said, it must be like this:

2007. 4 total texts, include:
1 from 4 of the set poems.
2 related texts.
1 from BOS booklet.

2008. 4 total texts, include:
2 from 4 of the poems.
2 related texts.

Does that seem right?

 

[o.bi.sess]

So from what you said, it must be like this:

2007. 4 total texts, include:
1 from 4 of the set poems.
2 related texts.
1 from BOS booklet.

2008. 4 total texts, include:
2 from 4 of the poems.
2 related texts.

Does that seem right?

Lol, no. I meant that I chose two poems for the 07 HSC as well as one from BoS and 2 related. If your set text is poetry, you have to do at least two. Basically I talked about 5 texts in Section III of Paper 1.

Since you only have one set text (Coleridge only counts as one, no matter how many poems you do), maybe you should be aiming for 3 poems? How many do you have to choose from all together?

 

[thommy]

Lol, no. I meant that I chose two poems for the 07 HSC as well as one from BoS and 2 related. If your set text is poetry, you have to do at least two. Basically I talked about 5 texts in Section III of Paper 1.

Since you only have one set text (Coleridge only counts as one, no matter how many poems you do), maybe you should be aiming for 3 poems? How many do you have to choose from all together?

That does make more sense, it didn't seem right that you would only talk about 1 poem. But wouldn't 5 be too much, like the paragraphs would be huge, wouldn't they?!

There's 4 Coleridge poems in total.

 

[o.bi.sess]

That does make more sense, it didn't seem right that you would only talk about 1 poem. But wouldn't 5 be too much, like the paragraphs would be huge, wouldn't they?!

There's 4 Coleridge poems in total.

Hell yeah, the paragraphs were massive. Since my writing went hideously big in the exam (you tend to write bigger as you write faster), one of my paragraphs took up about one and a half pages... I don't think I want to know what the markers thought of that. I did one paragraph per text, so I had seven paragraphs all up (that's plus intro and conclusion).

If there are only four Coleridge poems then it's best to aim for two. If you find that you have time in the exam, you might want to just mention another poem, but it isn't vital and if you do a good job on your other texts, it doesn't really matter.

Don't forget to link the texts by idea, not techniques/imagery/setting or whatever. The focus of the paper is on journeys and not how the texts are presented.

 

[thommy]

Hell yeah, the paragraphs were massive. Since my writing went hideously big in the exam (you tend to write bigger as you write faster), one of my paragraphs took up about one and a half pages... I don't think I want to know what the markers thought of that. I did one paragraph per text, so I had seven paragraphs all up (that's plus intro and conclusion).

If there are only four Coleridge poems then it's best to aim for two. If you find that you have time in the exam, you might want to just mention another poem, but it isn't vital and if you do a good job on your other texts, it doesn't really matter.

Don't forget to link the texts by idea, not techniques/imagery/setting or whatever. The focus of the paper is on journeys and not how the texts are presented.

Woah, 1 and a half pages?! I know what you mean though, my writing can be absolutely massive i pressure situations. What is there to do to prevent from writing such long pragraphs?

And thanks for the helpful advice on the poems, that does clear it up somewhat, because now I think I will commit myself to KK and Lime=tree, and skim over FAM.

 

[o.bi.sess]

Woah, 1 and a half pages?! I know what you mean though, my writing can be absolutely massive i pressure situations. What is there to do to prevent from writing such long pragraphs?

It actually doesn't matter that much if your paragraphs are huge. If you're setting your essay out to be one paragraph per text, then the markers expect huge paragraphs. However, if you really want to break it up, you can break it up to one paragraph per technique per text. I really don't like doing that because the focus is on journeys and not the techniques, which the paragraphing makes it seem like. And if you do the one technique per paragraph, the paragraphs become too small (about two sentences), which is also bad.

Besides, the spacing between lines in BoS booklets is huge. One page of a BoS booklet is equivalent to about 1/3 of a white page. And if your writing gets big, then you'll only fit around 100-150 words per page, which is not a lot. So whilst 1 and 1/2 pages sounds like a lot, it really isn't when you see the BoS booklet. Don't fret about this aspect too much. The markers care more about the content of the essay. Just make sure you break the essay into reasonable number of paragraphs (greater than 6) and it's all cool.

EDIT:

And thanks for the helpful advice on the poems, that does clear it up somewhat, because now I think I will commit myself to KK and Lime=tree, and skim over FAM.

Be careful not to over do it. It is much better to do a really good analysis on your two set texts and two related than to take away from any of them by doing a third set text. If you run out of time/find yourself skimping on your other texts to fit in your third one, that's an indication to just let it go.