You’re in the final stretch of your English exam revision now – in just a few short hours, you’ll never have to think about your Context examples or your Language Analysis structure ever EVER again.

And this is the time of year where you want to be consolidating what you know and giving yourself the best shot on Wednesday. That three hour exam can be both a physical and metal challenge, and the next 48 hours can have a big impact on your overall performance, so read on for some English exam tips (and let us know if you have any questions or if there’s anything stressing you out!)

Note: you can also check out our (super difficult!) English practice exams here! *sinister grin*

Don’t sweat the small stuff

STORY TIME! I did my English exam back in 2013, and the Language Analysis piece that year had a rather important title. As soon as I opened to that page, I read it and thought ‘omfg I can say soooo much about this metaphor; this is going to be awesome!’ Then… fifteen minutes worth of reading time later… I’d totally forgotten about the title completely. Like, it didn’t even cross my mind until I got out of the exam and my friend was like ‘hey Lauren, what did you say about the title for Section C?’ And I was like… ‘oh yeah, titles exist.’

A very similar thing happened in my Text Response piece. I got a kinda tricky prompt, and there was a particular quote I knew I wanted to use, but I couldn’t think of it in reading time. When it came to writing the essay, I still couldn’t quite remember it. And it was frustrating the hell out of me, because I knew it’d be a perfect quote to use for this piece… but it never came to me. So instead, I just concentrated on using the evidence that I did remember as best I could.

Those scenarios could’ve gone very differently though.

Let’s say I realised – halfway through writing my Context piece – that I’d forgotten to analyse the Language Analysis heading. Then I panicked and scrambled back to Section C in the writing booklet and tried to cross some stuff out to force a bit of extra analysis in. Or maybe I started tacking on extra analysis after my conclusion to ensure I covered everything. Then, I have to go back and try and pick up where I left off in my Context piece whilst trying to stop my brain from freaking out. Doing all this would’ve been a total waste of around 5 minutes of precious exam time. There’s no need to analyse the title in Language Analysis – it’s totally optional. So obsessing over it and compromising your performance in other sections would be a dumb thing to do.

Likewise, imagine if I’d sat there for twenty minutes trying to remember that bloody Text Response quote. Maybe I’d have ended up remembering it after that amount of time. But I’d also be sacrificing 20 minutes of writing time, which is absurd. And there’ll never be any one particular bit of evidence that you’d HAVE to mention to score highly; it’s all about what you do cover and how well you cover it. So it’d be ridiculous to lose your marbles over something so small, right?

Right. And that’s why you shouldn’t let panic get the better of you in test conditions. There’s no tiny mistake you could make that could cost you a tonne of marks. The English exam just isn’t like that. Yes, you do HAVE  to mention the visual in Language Analysis, and you HAVE to have some link to your set text in your Context piece. But beyond those basic requirements, there’s not a list of ‘instant-fails’ that the assessors will be running through.

Do some low-intensity revision

At this point, completing another handful of practice exams probably isn’t going to tell you anything you don’t already know. Maybe complete a couple of paragraphs or intros + conclusions if you’re feeling up to it (and if you know you learn best by writing and articulating your ideas). But for the most part, you should be doing low-intensity stuff at this point.

Or, more specifically, low-effort; high-reward activities!

The best thing you can do for each of the sections is:

A) go through lists of prompts, revise your quotes, and maybe do some essay plans.

B) go through lists of prompts, revise your examples or frameworks, and maybe do some essay plans.

C) go through past/sample exams and consider what you’d analyse, revise lists of vocab, and maybe do some essay plans.

That’s it! No need to write a hundred pieces between now and Wednesday! Simple, small, basic things will keep you calm whilst still ensuring you’re consolidating what you know and familiarising yourself with potential exam material.

And as always, (my golden rule for your English exam): know what your weaknesses are! You’ve got less than two days to try and tidy these up, so you need to either be fixing these problems (if there is an easy, quick-fix) or working on strategies to help you get around these problems.

Prepare for weirdness!

This is just a hunch… but because this is the last year of the current English study design, there’s a chance you could get something weird and wacky on Wednesday. Maybe it’ll be a weirdly structured Language Analysis piece (like an interview, or a collection of several comments), or some left-of-field Text Response prompts like ‘How does the author create a sense of foreshadowing?’ or ‘What lessons do readers learn from the text?’

Whatever the case, there’s one thing I can guarantee about this year’s exam – THEY’LL BE TRYING TO SCARE YOU!

VCAA will almost definitely be throwing out some bizarre words or ideas to try and throw you off balance. They don’t want you to be able to look at the prompts and think ‘omg this is perfect!’ (If that is the case… congratulations… you’ll be luckier than I was…) Instead, they want you to be surprised because they’re trying to separate the students who can deal with unseen material effectively from those who panic and just churn out irrelevant stuff they’re memorised.

Relevance is key. Writing a decent response that targets the prompt directly is WAAAAAAAY better than writing a really sophisticated discussion of something that has nothing to do with the prompt! So whilst you should absolutely draw from the essays you’ve written previously, NEVER just jump for a familiar argument or example without thinking: ‘wait… is this actually going to help me address this prompt?’

What’s more, there’s very little VCAA could give you that you won’t be able to overcome with a couple of minutes of careful thinking and planning.

The best case scenario when dealing with a difficult prompt is that you’re able to look at it and say ‘huh. That’s weird. And difficult. But this word in the prompt is basically a synonym for this concept that I’m more familiar with. And I know I can talk about this character and this scene. So basically, the prompt is saying: (reword the prompt in its simplest terms). Cool. Let’s get started!’

The worst case scenario is being like ‘huh. That’s weird. And difficult. Oh my god. I’ve never even seen that word before. WTF does this even mean? How the hell am I going to write an essay on this!? How come my goddamn teachers didn’t prepare me for this? Holy shit. I’m going to fail English. This is the end. I’m so done. Who cares, I’ll just write a bunch of shit about some themes and quotes and hope I can scrape a pass.’

Don’t be that guy. Planning a response is easier than you think, provided you keep a clear and level head.

A little something to keep in mind

The essays you write on Wednesday will be worth more than any of your SACs. I’m not saying that to freak you out. I’m saying that because no matter how unhappy you might be with your current results or rank, NOW’S YOUR CHANCE!

A decent exam result can make a significant difference to your study score, so you should see this as your opportunity to demonstrate everything you’ve learnt this year. So you should walk into the exam room with confidence and rest assured that the effort you’ve put in will shine through.

Need some last-minute help and advice?

Come on down to the English boards and ask away on the Q and A thread! I’ll be hanging around here till the early hours of Wednesday morning, so don’t hesitate to swing by. No matter how big or small your concern, you don’t want to regret asking about something that you might need to know for Wednesday, so let us help you out!

Good luck everyone!

And have fun burning all your notes and essays once you’re done!