Plea for help - How to improve my english skills for english advanced (1 Viewer)

[flyingotter63]

Hi all,

I'm currently in year 12, and over my junior years, I have completely flopped in English. I have consistently gotten average or below-average in every assessment. My rank was in the bottom 20% of my cohort for year 11. However, now that it is year 12, I am aiming to get top 20 (big goals, I know), but I am unsure how to improve. I understand that my most common fault with my essays is my phrasing and clarity of expression, but I do not know how to effectively balance clarity with sophistication. My English teachers have never been too clear about what they are looking for and how to improve, especially for multimodals and creatives. Additionally, my English teacher told me that my most recent essay was quite good. Come to assessment time, my essay was completely criticised by the marker, even the parts that I thought were quite well written. I ended up receiving a terrible mark. My grade is quite competitive too which has made my rankings decline. To give some context, I go to a top 4 school and really need to do well in each assessment as the marks will probably be quite close at the end of the year.

Ultimately, this has made me fear the worst for mod b - I can't tell which teacher's words to take.

I can never tell what mark I will get and the mark that I receive always feels randomised - can anyone help me distinguish good writing from bad writing for essays and creatives? I don't seem to understand ...

What can I do to improve? Could anyone give me some advice?

sorry for the long rant

 

[MoeyNeeds90+]

Hi all,

I'm currently in year 12, and over my junior years, I have completely flopped in English. I have consistently gotten average or below-average in every assessment. My rank was in the bottom 20% of my cohort for year 11. However, now that it is year 12, I am aiming to get top 20 (big goals, I know), but I am unsure how to improve. I understand that my most common fault with my essays is my phrasing and clarity of expression, but I do not know how to effectively balance clarity with sophistication. My English teachers have never been too clear about what they are looking for and how to improve, especially for multimodals and creatives. Additionally, my English teacher told me that my most recent essay was quite good. Come to assessment time, my essay was completely criticised by the marker, even the parts that I thought were quite well written. I ended up receiving a terrible mark. My grade is quite competitive too which has made my rankings decline. To give some context, I go to a top 4 school and really need to do well in each assessment as the marks will probably be quite close at the end of the year.

Ultimately, this has made me fear the worst for mod b - I can't tell which teacher's words to take.

I can never tell what mark I will get and the mark that I receive always feels randomised - can anyone help me distinguish good writing from bad writing for essays and creatives? I don't seem to understand ...

What can I do to improve? Could anyone give me some advice?

sorry for the long rant

If your phrasing and clarity of expression is unclear it probably means that your either not engaging with the question or stimulus enough, or your anyaltiical statemnts are not covering enough scope for what the question asks. This is how you should structure a paragraph for example:
Throughout her elongated essay, Virginia Woolf proposes the reconceptualization of historical time as a means of reorienting feminist historiography, and through this iconoclasm of society consequently promotes an affiliation of individuals, communities, and historical epochs . During the second wave of feminism, women intentionally suppressed their intellectual autonomy, held back by societal aphorisms and misogynistic beliefs of their epoch. Woolf's feminist discourse critiques this limited discernment of women, arguing that once they acknowledge their freedom, there are no spatial constraints extant to conceivably restrain them. Enunciated in Woolf's depiction of "the room...as a large square with three windows looking on the street," Woolf creates the metaphor of the room as a “laboratory” wherein women can engage in intellectual inquiry and push the boundaries of knowledge, thus enabling them to cultivate their voices and challenge patriarchal norms. Furthermore, the “caged bird...beating its wings against the bars, " serves as a metaphorical manifestation symbolizing the confinement and limitations imposed on women's freedom and autonomy within the second feminist waves of Woolf's epoch. Moreover, the passive-aggressive and quasi-sardonic humoristic tone that Woolf employs throughout her work, “their incapacity to play football women are not going to be allowed to practice medicine!”, effectively positions audiences to adjudicate and syllogize the prejudiced and bigoted treatment of women of her epoch; and through this proposes a affinity of values of individuals traversing divergent eras . Therefore, Virginia Woolf's critical assessment of the patriarchal structures of her society effectively creates an interconnectedness of cultures, beliefs, and values across varying historical periods, underscoring the prerogative essence of a woman's intrinsic autonomy within a sexually bigotry society. Thus, Virginia Woolf's feminist perspective positions me to critique the patriarchal configurations of society, and the limited autonomy of women, consequently connecting cultures and values of divergent eras, and accentuating the complex interplay between power, gender, and culture in shaping women's lived experiences throughout history.

​

What's your essay structure manifesting as?

 

[flyingotter63]

Hi, thank you for your comment. It's possible that my phrasing and clarity are off because my analytical statements don't have enough scope. However, I'm honestly a bit confused about how to have a large analytical scope while having "precise" language and good "control of language". I'm unsure whether English teachers are looking for simplicity and conciseness or breadth and sophistication.

My structure is just the normal progressive and chronological argument.

 

[MoeyNeeds90+]

if you want dm me a draft of your bp and i can discuss it with you
having clarity doesnot mean refining your arguments at all - its rather just understanding that your argument cant elongate into some whole elaborative and thus "unsophisticated" piece, its got to remain concise, basically slicing the question into figments and answering each part perfectly in every sentence. Your arguing not telling....

 

[flyingotter63]

Thank you, I think its starting to make sense theoretically, but still difficult for me to put into practice. I have sent an old bp in your dms, so it would be great if you could check that out and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

 

[fdkgje]

Hi all,

I'm currently in year 12, and over my junior years, I have completely flopped in English. I have consistently gotten average or below-average in every assessment. My rank was in the bottom 20% of my cohort for year 11. However, now that it is year 12, I am aiming to get top 20 (big goals, I know), but I am unsure how to improve. I understand that my most common fault with my essays is my phrasing and clarity of expression, but I do not know how to effectively balance clarity with sophistication. My English teachers have never been too clear about what they are looking for and how to improve, especially for multimodals and creatives. Additionally, my English teacher told me that my most recent essay was quite good. Come to assessment time, my essay was completely criticised by the marker, even the parts that I thought were quite well written. I ended up receiving a terrible mark. My grade is quite competitive too which has made my rankings decline. To give some context, I go to a top 4 school and really need to do well in each assessment as the marks will probably be quite close at the end of the year.

Ultimately, this has made me fear the worst for mod b - I can't tell which teacher's words to take.

I can never tell what mark I will get and the mark that I receive always feels randomised - can anyone help me distinguish good writing from bad writing for essays and creatives? I don't seem to understand ...

What can I do to improve? Could anyone give me some advice?

sorry for the long rant

Hello, honestly to do eng well you need to get the basics right and be able to think of phrases/ terms teachers like on the spot. If you let me know what text your studying right now and if its a text that I have also studied I can private tutor you. For reference I have so many notes and always gotten 19 or 20 / 20 for my english essays.