Study Score of 40+ in English Language

[tinkerbell101]

Hey everybody,

I am in year 11 and will be doing Unit 3/4 English Language next year (2018). I was just wondering whether any past students had any advice on completing the subject/tips for studying it throughout the year. I also wanted to know what I should do or what would be really beneficial I do at the start of the year during the summer holidays to get ahead?

English is not my favourite subject (I am a mathy person). I averaged around an 80% this year but my teachers are quite harsh. I really want to get a study score around 42 but anything above 40 would be so wonderful! I really want to work hard in English. Any tips/advice would be greatly appreciated!!

THANKS SO MUCH!! XX

[cookiedream]

Hey everybody,

I am in year 11 and will be doing Unit 3/4 English Language next year (2018). I was just wondering whether any past students had any advice on completing the subject/tips for studying it throughout the year. I also wanted to know what I should do or what would be really beneficial I do at the start of the year during the summer holidays to get ahead?

English is not my favourite subject (I am a mathy person). I averaged around an 80% this year but my teachers are quite harsh. I really want to get a study score around 42 but anything above 40 would be so wonderful! I really want to work hard in English. Any tips/advice would be greatly appreciated!!

THANKS SO MUCH!! XX

Hello!

Considering that you're averaging 80% with harsh marking, that's pretty good!! I'll put down a few tips of my own, but I was thinking of writing a full guide to 3/4 Eng Lang sometime in the near future. Lol, I might adapt a few of the points below into this guide.

1. Metalanguage! This is often a point that many students can get quick marks for (and examiners can easily give marks towards) but most forget to use this to its full potential. If you see any sort of language use, see if you can name it! "Lexeme" is often not enough, so make sure you learn terms like "noun phrase", "adverbial", "phrasal verb", "prepositional phrase", etc etc. I think it's especially useful if you could describe the nature of such specific language use in conjunction with your metalanguage (e.g. denoting usage of swearing as "pejorative noun phrase")

This is absolutely essential for Section A, because this section is so specific and rigid. By that I mean, for instance, a 4 mark question could have a mark allocation of 2 marks for correct metalanguage usage and identification then 2 marks for correct explanation specific to the given text. This also applies for Section B, the analytical commentary. For me, I think metalanguage is what compensated for my frequent expression issues in my essay, so there's that bonus too!

2. Have regular practice! This doesn't mean cooping up in your room for 8 hours trying to memorise all the metalanguage and linguistic concepts. Rather, it's applying the many skills that comes in each of the three sections of the exam - some of which include: labelling word choices, having explanations specific to the given context, etc. A very good way to do this (which isn't as intensive!) is to look at the language use around you! Eng Lang is such a subject that you can apply almost everything you learnt to the speech and writing that occurs wherever you go (especially since this is a predominantly English-speaking country! ). An exercise my friends and I did was that we listened to the conversations that our larger friendship group had during lunchtimes and whisper to each other interesting language use and try to explain it exam-style. For example, Person A employed the expletive "shit* in "Man, I did so shit in my Specialist SAC" (Line 34 - yes I sometimes made up lines lol) in order to emphasise their hopelessness regarding their Specialist assessment, supporting the primary phatic function and allowing them to build rapport with their close friends.

3. Use names of people, places, etc.! A simple rule which is also often overlooked. This can really help put any of your explanations, particularly for Section B, into context and indicate to the examiner that you know what you're talking about and that you're being specific to the given text. That is, instead of saying "interlocutors" or "locale", say what they actually are in the transcript (e.g. "cookiedream", "ATARNotes", "Melbourne").

4. Expose yourself to a range of different texts of different styles! Most Eng Lang students are afraid of analysing formal texts, but you never know whether this kind of text will actually appear in the real exam. So try to actively look for texts that come in different spots on the register continuum, from the Terms of Condition to a transcript of three colleagues chatting over a coffee to an intimate letter between a husband and wife. I recommend treating these kinds of texts as Section A or B texts, hence printing out a copy of their transcripts and annotating them as you would for texts for these sections. For example, what I did about a week or two before the Eng Lang exam, was that I took a VCAA Information magazine given by my school and flipped over to the rules and regulations page. Without timing myself, I started analysing by looking at what the function and social purpose was, then noting these down at the top corner of the page. Then I went on to looking for features supporting the function and social purpose, as well as features supporting register, cohesion and coherence (e.g. declaratives for informative function, elevated lexemes for authority/expertise and sophisticated tone, etc.)


It's around 12:00AM and I'm kinda tired, so I'll stop here for now (instead of reaching to a satisfying 5 tips )

Enjoy the subject, because whilst it may be hard, it is certainly fascinating and the concepts taught are really hard to forget!!

Hope that helped!

- cookiedream

[exit]

One thing is sure from my experience: people do not practice enough for EngLang. (or English in general)
 

[Bri MT]

As someone who got less than 40, I would be saying make sure to do a lot of practice throughout the year and get it marked by a teacher if at all possible.

I didn't do units 1&2 (so this should be easier for you) but found that I was still able to learn the metalanguage over the holidays and felt that that really helped me during my studies.

I did around half an hour of news reading each day at the start of the year and found that this was overkill - it's more important to develop your writing skills.

Apply your English language skills to posts on ATARnotes, textbooks,  conversations with your friends, conversations with strangers,
 product packaging, advertisements etc. This "soft practice" is a great way to prepare without taking up study time.

Good luck! 

[tinkerbell101]

Hello!

Considering that you're averaging 80% with harsh marking, that's pretty good!! I'll put down a few tips of my own, but I was thinking of writing a full guide to 3/4 Eng Lang sometime in the near future. Lol, I might adapt a few of the points below into this guide.

1. Metalanguage! This is often a point that many students can get quick marks for (and examiners can easily give marks towards) but most forget to use this to its full potential. If you see any sort of language use, see if you can name it! "Lexeme" is often not enough, so make sure you learn terms like "noun phrase", "adverbial", "phrasal verb", "prepositional phrase", etc etc. I think it's especially useful if you could describe the nature of such specific language use in conjunction with your metalanguage (e.g. denoting usage of swearing as "pejorative noun phrase")

This is absolutely essential for Section A, because this section is so specific and rigid. By that I mean, for instance, a 4 mark question could have a mark allocation of 2 marks for correct metalanguage usage and identification then 2 marks for correct explanation specific to the given text. This also applies for Section B, the analytical commentary. For me, I think metalanguage is what compensated for my frequent expression issues in my essay, so there's that bonus too!

2. Have regular practice! This doesn't mean cooping up in your room for 8 hours trying to memorise all the metalanguage and linguistic concepts. Rather, it's applying the many skills that comes in each of the three sections of the exam - some of which include: labelling word choices, having explanations specific to the given context, etc. A very good way to do this (which isn't as intensive!) is to look at the language use around you! Eng Lang is such a subject that you can apply almost everything you learnt to the speech and writing that occurs wherever you go (especially since this is a predominantly English-speaking country! ). An exercise my friends and I did was that we listened to the conversations that our larger friendship group had during lunchtimes and whisper to each other interesting language use and try to explain it exam-style. For example, Person A employed the expletive "shit* in "Man, I did so shit in my Specialist SAC" (Line 34 - yes I sometimes made up lines lol) in order to emphasise their hopelessness regarding their Specialist assessment, supporting the primary phatic function and allowing them to build rapport with their close friends.

3. Use names of people, places, etc.! A simple rule which is also often overlooked. This can really help put any of your explanations, particularly for Section B, into context and indicate to the examiner that you know what you're talking about and that you're being specific to the given text. That is, instead of saying "interlocutors" or "locale", say what they actually are in the transcript (e.g. "cookiedream", "ATARNotes", "Melbourne").

4. Expose yourself to a range of different texts of different styles! Most Eng Lang students are afraid of analysing formal texts, but you never know whether this kind of text will actually appear in the real exam. So try to actively look for texts that come in different spots on the register continuum, from the Terms of Condition to a transcript of three colleagues chatting over a coffee to an intimate letter between a husband and wife. I recommend treating these kinds of texts as Section A or B texts, hence printing out a copy of their transcripts and annotating them as you would for texts for these sections. For example, what I did about a week or two before the Eng Lang exam, was that I took a VCAA Information magazine given by my school and flipped over to the rules and regulations page. Without timing myself, I started analysing by looking at what the function and social purpose was, then noting these down at the top corner of the page. Then I went on to looking for features supporting the function and social purpose, as well as features supporting register, cohesion and coherence (e.g. declaratives for informative function, elevated lexemes for authority/expertise and sophisticated tone, etc.)


It's around 12:00AM and I'm kinda tired, so I'll stop here for now (instead of reaching to a satisfying 5 tips )

Enjoy the subject, because whilst it may be hard, it is certainly fascinating and the concepts taught are really hard to forget!!

Hope that helped!

- cookiedream

Thank you SOOOO much for your very helpful reply. I am keen to get started and work my way up to a 45. I was just wondering, since I have a poor ability of getting my thoughts down on paper, if it would impact me a lot. I noticed you used such sophisticated language in your examples like 'phatic communication' and 'pejorative'. I am so bad at vocabulary and making my essays really sophisticated. As I type this, I am writing notes on the metalanguage for Unit 3/4. How did you go about during SACs and doing essays?

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!! MUCH LOVE X

[strawberry7898]

As someone who got a 40+, the replies you've had on this post are right on the money and I recommend all English Language students to give them a good read. Like seriously, some of these tips make the difference between a good study score and a great one. First of all, just showing interest in the subject this early on means you're already on the right track and if you keep the motivation up, English Language is definitely a subject which will reward you. Also 80%+ means you're getting some great marks already, keep it up.

I'll give you a list of things which I get all my students to do when they enter into the subject:

The first thing you want to do is open up the study design and just have a look at what this subject is like and what it requires of you, I would write down definitions to the metalanguage terms in it, with some examples. If you get stuck on anything, the forum is here to help! If you can get this done right, you're already halfway there. Metalanguage is the biggest component of this subject and if you want the high marks, brush up on the grammar you learnt in Unit 1/2

As the replies above mine have mentioned, now that your metalanguage is in place, start applying it. You are surrounded by language, start looking for metalanguage in it. If you can do this, you're beginning to think like a linguist (plus maybe later on if one of these texts catches your eye you could use it in an essay). If this subject doesn't eventually get your brain to the point where all you hear and read is metalanguage, you aren't doing it right. It got to the point where I couldn't listen to music without analysing it, Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold" was playing on the radio and all I could hear was a list of "antithetic parallelisms used to contrast and highlight the extreme and sudden changes Perry observes in her relationship". It will teach you to really enjoy this incredible subject

Look at a VCAA exam to get an idea of the questions asked. It may seem daunting to open up a past paper when you haven't gotten into the subject yet but knowing what the subject requires from the very start is useful because I feel like this isn't made clear to students in Units 1/2. Plenty of schools didn't start getting their students to write essays until well into Unit 4 and had just been doing short answers and commentaries so you've basically skipped what's probably the hardest section on the exam until it's too late. If you've opened up an exam, you know what sort of essays come up, and you can start compiling a list of examples from the start so you're not freaking out, regardless of what your teachers are doing. Btw if your school does this thing where they only have 1 essay sac the entire year and don't start telling you about the essay before that sac, please start at least thinking about essays before then. Have a look at the sample responses in the examiner's guide and think about what the examiner liked in it- good structure, contemporary examples related back to the topic with clear and insightful explanations. Also look at what sorts of places they're getting these contemporary examples from, it might give you some ideas for where to look, because they're not always from the news. Your examples really count towards your essay marks so take them seriously. 

Last but not least, don't forget about all the resources available to you and use this forum well- ask questions, put up essays, mark other people's essays, help each other out y'know. (You learn heaps looking at other people's essays, if you can find flaws in their essays, it helps you notice them in your own essays, and if you liked their essay think about what they did well)

Hope that helps, you and all other students who come across this part of the forum I will repeat it again, the replies on this post have some real gold in them that a lot students in my class didn't start realising until after the first few sacs and it cost them some easy marks. Putting all these replies together you start to get a good Eng Lang guide coming together. Honestly, this was my favourite subject in Year 12 and I hope you end up loving it as much as I did! Not exaggerating, this subject completely changed the way I looked at language around me.

[cookiedream]

Thank you SOOOO much for your very helpful reply. I am keen to get started and work my way up to a 45. I was just wondering, since I have a poor ability of getting my thoughts down on paper, if it would impact me a lot. I noticed you used such sophisticated language in your examples like 'phatic communication' and 'pejorative'. I am so bad at vocabulary and making my essays really sophisticated. As I type this, I am writing notes on the metalanguage for Unit 3/4. How did you go about during SACs and doing essays?

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!! MUCH LOVE X

To put it simply, it comes with practice! At the start, I definitely had trouble in putting my ideas and thoughts into words on paper. But this is why planning is so crucial - even if it is only a few words, an example or even a quote, just jotting them down is really useful in relaying your train of thought through your writing. For me, when it came to essay SACs (and even in the exam itself!), at the very start of writing time I would jot down these points that I had in my head whilst reading time.

Remember that when it comes to writing essays/analytical commentaries for English Language, they don't have to be nearly as flowery as in Literature and perhaps Mainstream. The main priority is that you come across as clear and balanced in your approach. Although, in saying this, if you do happen to develop an ability to write like this while being clear and coherent, bonus points to you!

Just to be clear, 'phatic communication' is metalanguage and is a useful phrase when describing a casual conversation between two friends (or something like this) where the entire purpose is merely to catch up or hang out, etc. Descriptive words like 'pejorative', 'derogatory' and 'discriminatory' are helpful when specifically describing taboo language choices.

What I did was that I had a separate document (a whole OneNote page) where I had a list of useful words to use in my essays, to help my expression and bring some form of sophistication. The more you read through sample essays and essays from your friends and peers, the more opportunities you have to further build upon these lists to use in the essays of your final exam. Thesaurus.com also helps, but use with caution!

I had a glossary for my metalanguage terms as well, where sometimes (if I could be bothered) I'd write a random practice paragraph (not even a para, just a few sentences) using that term. I had a column called 'Effects' where I wrote down the general 'impact(s)' each term may have in a given context. For example, nominalisation can: de-emphasise the agent and put more focus on the action being done (may support an instructive function), help construct a more objective/impersonal/authoritative tone, etc. etc.

[MissSmiley]

Hello everyone!

This is my first time commenting on Atar Notes, I am really really excited!

Could I just ask what sort of sac results you would need to get a 45 in Eng Lang?

I love English!! So willing to take that effort!   (I'm also doing English mainstream)

Thanks for helping me out!

[Bri MT]

After the exam VCAA changes what your SAC scores mean based on how your class did on the exam (go to https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?board=2.0 for moe info). This makes it very difficult to predict what percentages you'll need.

For me, getting an A in the first SAC and B+ in the next two ended up becoming an A+ for unit 3. (This was in the DECV cohort)

If you want 45+ you'll need to end up with A+ in unit 3 SACs, unit 4 SACs and the exam. The A+s would also need to be in the top range of A+s, if you just scraped an A+ for all of them you won't hit your goal.


Congratulations of your first post and welcome to atarnotes!!!
Good luck for your studies

[cookiedream]

Hello everyone!

This is my first time commenting on Atar Notes, I am really really excited!

Could I just ask what sort of sac results you would need to get a 45 in Eng Lang?

I love English!! So willing to take that effort!   (I'm also doing English mainstream)

Thanks for helping me out!

Welcome to ATAR Notes!!

Great to see your enthusiasm!! This will definitely drive you to do well in this difficult subject (and for Mainstream too!).

I had around a 87% average across all my SACs this year and got a 49 raw in the end. I think it depends on the strength of your cohort and your performance on the exam, considering that the exam is worth 50% of your final study score. VCAA doesn't look directly at your SAC results - they look at your ranking in your cohort. To put it simply, if your entire cohort got 30% in a SAC, and you got 31%, all VCAA will see is that you are rank 1.

Although, considering this, you should aim for the top end and just do the best you can (especially for the exam)!! Don't be put down by bad SACs and never give up!! I got a 76% in one of my SACs and consistently got in the 80s for the SACs afterwards - this was crushing for me, especially since I got 100% in my first SAC and 97% in my second.

Best of luck for Eng Lang (and Mainstream)!!!

[MissSmiley]

Welcome to ATAR Notes!!

Great to see your enthusiasm!! This will definitely drive you to do well in this difficult subject (and for Mainstream too!).

I had around a 87% average across all my SACs this year and got a 49 raw in the end. I think it depends on the strength of your cohort and your performance on the exam, considering that the exam is worth 50% of your final study score. VCAA doesn't look directly at your SAC results - they look at your ranking in your cohort. To put it simply, if your entire cohort got 30% in a SAC, and you got 31%, all VCAA will see is that you are rank 1.

Although, considering this, you should aim for the top end and just do the best you can (especially for the exam)!! Don't be put down by bad SACs and never give up!! I got a 76% in one of my SACs and consistently got in the 80s for the SACs afterwards - this was crushing for me, especially since I got 100% in my first SAC and 97% in my second.

Best of luck for Eng Lang (and Mainstream)!!!

Thank you so much!! Congrats on a fantastic study score and ATAR!! Looking forward to being involved in question threads!
Would you suggest any particular way / website for finding contemporary examples for 2018?
Thank you!

[cookiedream]

Thank you so much!! Congrats on a fantastic study score and ATAR!! Looking forward to being involved in question threads!
Would you suggest any particular way / website for finding contemporary examples for 2018?
Thank you!

Ah, thank you!!
I recommend looking at the news for examples of doublespeak and PC, especially by politicians. Keep up with social media (particularly Twitter, Youtube and Instagram) for the latest of teenspeak, trends and memes (yes, in Eng Lang, it's completely legit to use memes as an example). Australian radio shows and advertisements are often good for examples of speech specific to the Australian demographic (particularly their phonology and slang).

Also, there's an ATAR Notes quote and example compilation here, which is very useful to look at and share your own examples with others (particularly to get feedback about how to use them)

[tinkerbell101]

Thank you so much everybody for your replies! I am so grateful to be apart of this amazing ATAR Notes community. Hope you all do well next year! xx

[MissSmiley]

Ah, thank you!!
I recommend looking at the news for examples of doublespeak and PC, especially by politicians. Keep up with social media (particularly Twitter, Youtube and Instagram) for the latest of teenspeak, trends and memes (yes, in Eng Lang, it's completely legit to use memes as an example). Australian radio shows and advertisements are often good for examples of speech specific to the Australian demographic (particularly their phonology and slang).

Also, there's an ATAR Notes quote and example compilation here, which is very useful to look at and share your own examples with others (particularly to get feedback about how to use them)

Thank you so so much! You're the best! Definitely will add to the compilation!!

[exit]

I'd like to mention that although the example compilation is helpful and will foster excellent ideas for essays, it is best to find your own examples. The best examples are the ones YOU know best. The better you know your examples and the context surrounding them, the easier it is to show YOUR knowledge to the examiners. Simply regurgitating examples from other people is definitely not ideal and will hinder the sophistication and depth of your essay for sure.

Analytical commentaries, just like maths, are all to do with practice. Make sure you know how you're going to approach it during reading time, it certainly helps. When reading an AC, make sure to note as much of the contextual/situational factors surrounding the text as you can. This way, you will not only write a more informed analytical commentary, mitigating errors, but you will also form an all-encompassing understanding of the piece that will definitely stand out to the examiner. While flowery English is not required in EngLang, you can also stand out to the examiner by using expression and vocabulary that is uncommon and interesting for the examiner to read. As a side bonus, this will also help with your expression, which is one of the criteria in the exam.

Hope this helps!