What to do between now and the exam?

[rachid.kam]

Hey everyone, there's 46 days left till the english exam.
I really want to achieve a score of 35+. What should I do between now and the english exam?

Thanks everyone.

[Quantum44]

Hey everyone, there's 46 days left till the english exam.
I really want to achieve a score of 35+. What should I do between now and the english exam?

Thanks everyone.

I'm not sure there is any one way to study, you just have to find what works best. For me, I'm planning on doing a practice essay every day these holidays to get used to the time pressure of 60 mins per section while rereading all my texts. Probably also going to write some more notes to get my interpretations of each text down pat.

[Coffee]

Hi Rachid.kam,

There’s still plenty of time and plenty of things to do until the English exam. What you should be doing will be different for everyone, so I’d consider thinking about your strengths and weaknesses, what you’re confident with, and what you’re not confident with, and start from there.

I always say that you should learn how to write well before imposing time constraints on yourself. So, if you feel like your essays lack quality, I’d start there. It would also be helpful to break down what you’re struggling with into smaller tasks. So, if you’re struggling to write ‘good’ essays, what is it about your essays in particular that need improving? Maybe you need to work on writing topic sentences, or better integrating quotes and evidence into your paragraphs.

On the other hand, if you’re happy with your writing but your worried about timing, I’d recommend writing a few, 60-minute long practise exams under exam conditions. This was definitely something I was worried about in Year 12, but once I did it a few times and realised I actually could write an essay for each section in less than 60 minutes, I felt a lot more confident about the exam.

There’s really no right number of practise exams you need to do either, so if you’d rather be focusing on something else, then go ahead! I can’t remember how many essays I wrote, but it definitely wasn’t a crazy amount, and I don’t think I ever did a full three-hour practise exam. I still got an A+ on the exam, and a 40+ SS.

From memory, some of the things I focused on were:
- Knowing the texts well, the key ideas, and so on.
- Memorising quotes and interpretations
- Writing well, and then focusing on timing.
- Getting feedback from my teachers, and really focusing on improving any weaknesses.
- Unpacking prompts – This was a big one, and I focused more on writing essay plans than I did on writing actual essays.

Again, what to focus on will be different for everyone. I found planning responses to essay topics was more helpful than actually writing essays, but other people might disagree. Work out what your weaknesses are, and practise perfecting them.