Hoping someone can clarify this for me:
On the examiners report for English, provided are student examples from the exam that are labelled as "high scoring responses".
What exactly does this mean? Are the examples always a 10/10 - or are they anything from about an 8/10 to a 10/10.
I ask this because example 10/10 pieces seem to be a fairly useful way of identifying the standard of work I should work towards (I understand that english isn't a science and that I'm not following a formula for a perfect essay, but it would still be nice to have some examples of what the examiners like).
As an extension to this, are the example responses on ATAR Notes roughly a 10/10?
The 'upper-range'/'high band' essays at the end of the year can be anything from an 8 upwards. For the record, 'upper-mid range' usually means between 6-8, though sometimes the exact numbers are debatable. You can occasionally get 'borderline' responses that could be either a 7 or an 8, for instance. In the exam this just evens out to 15/20.
The important thing when working with examples is to work with multiple. There's an obvious danger in only using one or two essays as your point of reference; there are 101 ways of scoring 10/10, so by only studying a few of them, you're severely limiting your abilities.
The essays on ATAR Notes (the ones in the Resource thread at least) usually have their marks listed. If it's a fairly recent piece with a still-active user, you might be able to PM them if you really wanted to find out, but speaking from experience, you can learn just as much from an 8/10 piece than you could from a 10/10. So long as you have a well-developed sense of what separates a god essay from a bad or mediocre one, you'll be able to take what you need from other people's work and incorporate it into your own
Hi Lauren,
After doing a practice Context SAC for Encountering Conflict, I've found that I've having difficulty finishing a piece under the time limits because I'm struggling to think of relevant external examples. Do you think it's just a matter of practicing to improve on this?
Also, I also find that my paragraphs are basically being written as arguments for my contention. (My intro is basically like "This is my contention" "Because, X, Y and Z".) Is this the way to go or should I be doing more exploration of the prompt?
Thanks!
Like JackSon said, knowing your stuff will help cut down on time significantly. Are you practicing to an essay-per-hour time limit? Because unless your SAC is under those conditions, there's no reason why you should aim that high at this stage of the year. I know it's easy to get caught in the 'how the hell am I going to do this in an hour, this one essay took me three hours over a week' mentality, but trust me, it's a necessary process.
Look at it this way: in other subjects, you're not expected to complete an exam-level task in February/March. The SACs are modified to suit what you've learned thusfar. English isn't really like that. The prompts you get for a T.R./Context SAC could feasibly be on this year's exam, but that doesn't mean you'll write the same way. Everything leading up to the exam is a formative process, and you should be more concerned with developing your skills than conforming to strict limits.
Yes it's a matter or practice, but you won't be practicing 'cutting down on time.' You'll be practicing how to write well and hit the criteria efficiently; the timing is incidental for now.
The other thing I'd recommend is to work out
why you take so much time (idk if you're 10 minutes or an hour over, but this applies either way.) Do you take ages to get started, or spend 15+ minutes on a plan? Do you get stuck after the first few paragraphs and run out of ideas/examples to use? Do you spend ages just putting your thoughts into words, and have to reread every sentence to ensure it makes sense?
Answering 'yes' to any one of these questions gives you a totally different path of study (ie. efficient brainstorming and preparation; idea development and example collecting; and vocab/expression respectively.)
For your second question, it depends what sort of piece you're writing. Your ''Because X Y Z" arguments could work well provided they're fleshed out enough. But you don't want to have three paragraphs that are all arguing the same thing.
eg. Prompt: 'Conflict changes how we view the world.'
--> B.P.1: It changes how we view other people.
--> B.P.2: It changes how we view our environment.
--> B.P.3: It changes how we view ourselves.
^A tad oversimplified, but you'd be surprised how many essays could be boiled down to something that plain. The trick is to have a complex contention that is based on, but not limited to the prompt.
Hey Lauren,
Just another quick question about comparative LA - how would you structure one with 2 articles of the same length?
I just read one that someone else posted and they had their intro, 6 body paras and conclusion..
This seems like a bit too much, is there another way of doing this?
Structure for L.A. SACs should be geared to whatever your teacher wants. Some love many paragraphs that cover as much of the article as possible, others prefer a standard essay format with 3-4 body paragraphs and clearly outlined focus points. I tend to advocate for the bigger paragraphs since the assessors seem more concerned with depth than breadth recently, but both are still important, so go for whatever you feel would give you the best opportunity to demonstrate your skills.
Roughly 800 words is the guideline. How you break this up is totally up to you (...and your teacher)