1) What would you personally regard as the broad topics for Whose Reality? that could come up on the exam?
Is, for example, something like imagination possible? Seems to be quite 'restrictive' prompt where it's only really relevant to Spies IMO.
It's a vague question so there's nothing to provide but a vague answer. The broad topics for Whose Reality will be the ones which aren't specific, and (without wanting to go into a major philosophical discourse) there's no real answer. This is because people find certain prompts objective and some people find them restrictive. For instance last year's exam prompt from recent memory (I looked at it while I was tutoring someone) would have been very similar to, if not exactly:
Shared experience doesn't mean people see things in the same way.
I thought it was very broad - it just says that people have different realities of events that they share. That can be as broad or as closed as you make it - do people physically have to be sharing the same event in the same room and have different realities of it? Or can people be seeing their experiences, which people before them have undoubtedly also engaged in (therefore they share the experience), in a different way to that of others?
However, some people got locked in on this "shared experience" thing and couldn't get past it.
So my point is there's no answer - what's broad to someone is closed to someone else.
The whole thematic pun of saying that "everybody sees prompts differently" is kind of funny considering that we're talking about "Whose Reality?", no?
2) Would it be better to memorize individual paragraphs or whole essays for the exam? Whole essays may be a bit more restrictive but are easier to memorize and recall under exam pressure
Again, this depends.
I had a pretty concrete, solid idea for an essay which could be justified using about 5 different paragraphs.
(Read: How to write a 20/20 English piece). That is, I had 5 or 6 different well-thought-out, pre-reasoned, adaptable arguments that could fit my essay mould depending on the general themes that came up in the prompt.
For instance - the whole "Your reality depends on where you come from" (i.e. parents, upbringing, culture) style would have better suited "The Blind Side" (by Michael Lewis) for me, but...
Another prompt, dealing with how "Shared experience doesn't mean people see things the same way" (i.e. difference in opinion / understanding of one's environs) style would have perfectly matched "A Streetcar Named Desire" for my purposes (read the sticky if you want to see why, it's fully explained there).
If you have memorised an ESSAY, then I highly recommend you prepare a whole host of paragraphs that deal with the different general themes in Context prompts you get for "Whose Reality?" so that you can apply them one at a time.
If you have no concrete essay, but instead brainstorm your
different contention in every sitting, then make sure you are simply capable of dealing with any style of prompt you might face in the exam.
Here is a whole host of Context prompts you might get. Brainstorm a contention and 3 justifying points (which would become your paragraphs) for each and every one, and you
will most definitely not get anything unseen in the exam. Pay special attention to the ones you struggle with, because there's no point writing what you are comfortable with - you won't learn anything. If one is particularly challenging, then stop what you're doing and actually write an essay on it. You will thank yourself later, no matter if one of the prompts is incredibly obscure, because it will force you to practice coming up with good ideas to even the stupidest, most obscure of prompts - a talent which will come in handy in the exam. This is despite the fact that the exam prompt should be broad. People might say "You don't need to practice stupid, particular, obscure prompts that won't be like the ones in the exam" - but it's exactly those people who go into the exam and then accuse the VCAA of giving highly obscure prompts. Practice now, and it won't be for nothing.
"Whose Reality?" Prompts