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Physical Journey: Unexpected Detours (2 Viewers)

xxJTxx

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It was a "to what extent" question - I don't see why all you people who think you studied nothing about "detours" are whining...you could have said that as a result of the understanding of physical journeys that you have gained through your study of your prescribed text, related and BoS that while the world of physical journeys may involved unexpected detours, these are not central because (points here).

Though I do have some difficulty understandning why some people are saying to all of us who argued obstacles, are wrong?
Obstacles might not equal detours, but they are certainly unexpected facets of the journeys, and cause a 'change of plan' if you will.

Like i said before, and some other people have said, you could have also argued emotional growth as an unexpected detour - do people set out on a physical journey and say YES IM GOING TO BE A DIFFERENT PERSON WHEN I GET BACK!!! Or is it unexpected? The world of physical journeys means that it doesn't end when the actual journey ends, its forever.

Lets test some of the other concepts I had studied, and see if we can force fit them..:
-"often a physical journey commences from the desire to fulfill a dream" - maybe as a result of a physical journey, there is an unexpected detour in the sense that the traveller realises they may have had different motives/intentions for the journey? dunno..
- "people have different attitudes torwards the physical journey". Erm tough again...maybe the unexpected detour could be that people realise their attitude can change from a physical journey, and i dunno.

I guess I can see why if you studied concepts like those, you may have had difficulty fitting them? though again you could disagreed, and argued from there.
 

raev

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K well some of you said that unexpected detours just = challenges, but the thing is, that's looking at detours in an abstract sense, not a physical sense. AND BASING THE ESSAY ON ABSTRACT CONCEPTS BELONGS AS AN IMAGINATIVE/INNER QUESTION, NOT PHYSICAL JOURNEYS. Of course it's fine to bring those elements into a physical journeys essay, but that's not really the main thing our topic's about, so they shouldn't expect us to make it the basis of our essay.:bomb:

Oh well, I think I actually tweaked everything ok so that it answered the question and made sense, I just think it was a dumb question.
 

pattii

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the poems i choose were 'relfection' of the physical journey
and in a drive in the country nature acts as a catalyst.
 

Fish Sauce

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lol, I kept seeing people refer to unexpected detours and almost died till I remembered that the questions for inner and physical were different :p
 

mangonaley

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yeap i aggree... it just didn't quite sound right in my essay whenever i put it in.. but you kno.. you gotta answer the question... i understood unexpected as the theme of 'uncertainty' within journey, the bleak future kinda thing. so yea... it applies to all journeys depending how you look at it.
 

sebtacular

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The extent refers to the impacting effects it had on the protagonist i.e Jesse Martin's Lionheart:

"my mood went up and down as the wind picked up and died again",

jesse is at the mercy of nature, relying on the wind and the ocean to get him home. The unexpected detours of how the wind may blow him off course or into dangerous waters depicts the inner frustration and tremendous lack of control he has over his future at this moment.

So again this could mean life and death hence the extent to which these unexpected detours impact upon the physical journeys is again tremendous. The hardest part of the question of the Physical nature. As my stimulus text 'Journey to the Interior' encapsulated an emotional realm i had to comment on how the emotional impacts on the physical state of the adventurer to get around that obstacle.

"Journey to the interior is a representation of the complexities of one's brain and it's inconsistant series of thoughts" i had to link how the meantal and physical effect each other as that was my original preprepared opener.

But hey not a bad paper overall hope you all did well and GL with paper 2 a lovely 2hrs of 3 essays (cough).
 

Arsenic

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Macquarie School Dictionary year 2000 version says:

'Detour' - a different way round, used when a road is closed.
'Obstacle' - something which is in your way or which delays you.


Question for Physical Journeys, 2007 English AOS HSC Exam:
"Texts may show us that the world of physical journeys involves unexpected detours. To what extent fo the texts you have studied support this idea?"

These are the facts...
 

jbai

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I thought the question was a pretty general one, u cud interpret it as u wanted. I moulded my essay and forced it in; it didn't seem really natural but it still made sense. My essay was based upon challenges and changes, the "moulding" consisted of adding the prefix of "unexpected" to both =P.

"unexpected challenges" win
 

Steth0scope

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My view: (what do u think?)

The question is about the unexpected detours that occur in/after a journey. A detour is a transition, a movement, a change, an alteration. It's not an obstacle - although the obstacle may initiate the movement.

You had to talk about how the journeys alter something about the person taking them in an unexpected manner for e.g. in Skrzynecki a Drive in the Country, his physical journey to Blue Hole with the freedom of the nature presented before him, causes him to reject his life that is restricting/suffocating etc. Thus, he unexpectedly has been moved...his perception has been unexpectedly changed when compared to what it initially was .. that's an unexpected detour.

Don't know if obstacles have anything to do with it really apart from possibly initating it like i said.

anyway thats wat i think
 

Hairey

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that question was lame. (yeah and thats only partially because im shit at english anyway)
but seriously, the skrzynecki poems were all so static, none really described what i would call detours. also, i see a detour as being a change of route but with the same destination in the long run. so many texts talked about how it was the changes of course which made the eventual destination totally unforeseeable.
either way, im a slow writer and managed my time poorly so i didnt get to write much at all anyway
 

simonelye

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I too felt like cheering in reading time,
I read the creative and essay first =]
Then read Section One and was like 'oh okay, ill leave that til the end'
The question 'unexpected detours' was perfeccccccctttt =]
i was stoked.
our teacher prepared us perfectly =]
He constantly talked about obstacles/barries/outcomes etc on the journey.
I did
Skrynecki - "Leaving Home" and "CTRS"
"Journeys Over Land and Sea"
and Robyn Davidsons "the Getting There"
I was so happy,
filled 2 exam books =]
Section One screwed me a bit but
=[
I think the The question was so good for physical journeys but =]
Lets hope modules isnt hell...
 

Butterfly23

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OMG!! That was the best question!! By 'unexpected detours' it meant the challenges that arise that sometimes you wouldn't think would or could..It fitted my essay perfectly..thank goodness..
My prescribed text was Away and I used Journey to the Interior and Don't Let Her See Me Cry...

On Monday Paper 2 I've got BRUCE DAWE, RAW AND WITNESS!!!
I'm so screwed for Witness..LOL :bomb::haha:
 

marcquelle

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I loved the question cause i got to explain how i felt the Skrzynecki's poetry had very little about unexpected detours.

(i hated his poems)

at this forum thing he was the guest speaker and spoke about his poems and at he said that they were well aware of everything that was going to happen when they arrived in aAstralia and saying he is the only person who knows whats it's like to travel from a war torn country and being detained (he was really arogant about his journey not caring about others). The only 2 poems that had a slightly unexpexted detour was Felix with the cancer, and leaving home which i said was an expected and unexpected detour for he applied for the job so he knew it was a possibility. i got 6 pages on it with moderate sized hand writing. i contrasted his poetry to my stimulus and ORM saying that they had expected things thrusted upon the journeyer unlike skrzynecki's poems.
 
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ellex

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When reading time started. . i went straight to question 3 and almost cried when i read it. . iv had a prepared essay that i've used for my trial and practice papers from previous years and i was always able to adapt it to the question. . but what the hell unexpected detours? i was so cut with the question i hate hsc it should die and the retards who create it!
 

christinebean

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did everyone really interpret detours to mean challenges?

because i thought "unexpected detours" really meant like diverting the journey away from the purpose like the migrants in "migrant hostel" stuck in a period of stasis when there original purpose was to settle in australia.

and a detour didn't necessarily have to be a negative thing like a challenge.

anyone else answer this way?
 
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christinebean said:
did everyone really interpret detours to mean challenges?

because i thought "unexpected detours" really meant like diverting the journey away from the purpose like the migrants in "migrant hostel" stuck in a period of stasis when there original purpose was to settle in australia.

and a detour didn't necessarily have to be a negative thing like a challenge.

anyone else answer this way?
i incorporated both throughout my discussion
i talked about the challenges and positive/negative growth each challenge provides along of journey, but i also brought in the 'diverting' aspect when i discussed 'migrant hostel' and 'heart of darkness'

i'm just happy that people are intepreting detours as challenges, that's how i read it, i threw the unexpected part in to make sure i was answering the qu well
 

jayadore

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I talked about unexpected detours as obstacles/challenges and that, through these detours, the person gains knowledge about the self. I was somewhat tempted to write "knowledge about the self, others and the world around them" which was the wording of a previous question. I didn't write it as I was worried the markers assumed I was answering a different question.
 

xoxo

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it was ok
i struggled to really talk about detours for 'wind in the willows' but i pulled some stuff from my ass and twisted it the way i want....journey of the magi fir quite well but skrzynecki again i kinda could only talk about a little for each poem
but whatever
its over now, thankgod
no more journeys ever again!
 

bear869

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I went into the exam with a general thesis on physical journeys: "All journeys have an emotion, psychological and spiritual effect". I then modeled my response to the question around that saying something like, it is the emotional, psychological and spiritual effects of physical journeys that cause unexpected detours.. and it is the challenges faced which cause the emotional psychological and spiritual effects. I think i went completely shit though, my structure was so bad and i kept forgetting to add quotes and important techniques which would have really added to my argument.. Oh well.. better start studying for paper two.. it starts in 18 hours and 34 minutes.. YIKES!!
 

missburwood

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MyLoveIsPure said:
No. Obstacles and detours are completly different things. They would of wrote obstacles instead of detours if it was about the challenges faced. Detours were about the unexpected things that happened in the journey, and how the characters were effected by a certain theme/character. For example, in "The town were time stands still", people find their "geni loci" after a certain even takes place( which acts as a detour). In Away, the "geni loci" for gwen was the storm, which was symbolised as reconciliation and rebirth.

I hope i made my point clear.
That is exactly what i wrote. the storm being the unexpected detour for Gwen YAY~
 

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