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Author Topic: extra study reference materials  (Read 649 times)  Share 

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geek123456

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extra study reference materials
« on: December 04, 2018, 05:02:53 pm »
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Hello,
I was wondering if someone could comment below the extra resources they found useful for English throughout the year aside from their textbooks and drop some tips for scoring high throughout the year
« Last Edit: January 26, 2019, 05:51:24 pm by geek123456 »

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Re: EAL extra study reference materials
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2018, 09:28:59 am »
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Hi there!
I think you might find yourself quite isolated as an EAL student in terms of access to resources, since it's such a small subject and the study design is so new. But fear not, the course is somewhat similar to the mainstream course, so any English language analysis resources might come in handy. Depending on if you pick an EAL text for text response (I did Invictus), you could find yourself struggling to find specific, detailed single text resources as well, but any text guides for the paired text studies can be helpful to an extent. I'd say pearson and insight text guides are some of the better ones. The listening task would be the hardest section of the exam to find practice material for. Don't neglect it, but don't stress either since the rest of the cohort will find themselves in the same situation. Apart from taking listening tasks from the Insight textbook, make sure you make good use of your teacher and your peers. Bug your teacher to write you new listening tasks. Listen to Radio National in your free time (do it!). Get an EAL study group and take turns writing up original listening tasks from random excerpts.

As with any English subject, there's no real hack to it. Just make sure you're clear what you're being assessed on, what the marks are awarded specifically for, and target your weaknesses. Focus on the parts that actually matter to save yourself time and effort, ie. nail the one text you're planning to write on for the exam and pay only superficial attention to texts that you only write on during SACs. Bounce ideas off your peers, any EAL or mainstream student doing the same text could be of great help to you.

When you need motivation, just remember that EAL is probably be the biggest blessing to your ATAR. You write on 1 text in your final exam while others write on 3. You won't have to work nearly as hard as the mainstream kids, and so will have a lot more time for your other subjects. You are scored against a significantly less competitive cohort, and yet you will get scaled up. So take it easy and good luck!
2017: Mathematical Methods [48] | Chinese (SLA) [41]
2018: English (EAL) [50] | Chemistry [50] | Physics [50] | Specialist Mathematics [48]
ATAR: 99.95
UMAT: 100
2018 Australian Physics Olympiad Summer School participant

2019: BMedSci/MD @ Monash
Looking to tutor in 2019!

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Re: EAL extra study reference materials
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2018, 04:46:17 pm »
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Since this is such an obscure subject, I guess I should also talk about the more difficult aspect of EAL. While you might find it easy to do well in the external exam, considering the reduced level of competition, depending on the school you go to, maintaining a competitive SAC rank could be quite challenging. SACs count for 50% of your study score. As most EAL school cohorts you find out there are so small compared to mainstream ones, dropping even one rank on your SACs could be quite devastating to your final result. EAL is not like large subjects such as Chemistry where you could probably dropkick your way through SACs and significantly boost your score by cramming for the final exam, so make sure you schedule time for targeted studying before each SAC and get all the help you need beforehand. It would also make end of year revision a lot smoother.
2017: Mathematical Methods [48] | Chinese (SLA) [41]
2018: English (EAL) [50] | Chemistry [50] | Physics [50] | Specialist Mathematics [48]
ATAR: 99.95
UMAT: 100
2018 Australian Physics Olympiad Summer School participant

2019: BMedSci/MD @ Monash
Looking to tutor in 2019!