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March 29, 2024, 11:00:11 am

Author Topic: VCE English Question Thread  (Read 847464 times)  Share 

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Matthew_Whelan

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2535 on: November 09, 2019, 11:19:33 pm »
+3
Thank you!

Also one more thing, in a text reponse, how do you approach a question that ends with 'to what extent do you agree?'
Whats the best way to choose body paragraphs for this?

I understand that in a 'discuss' question youd talk for and against the topic, what different is this ^ ?

To what extent do you agree is different as it’s not simply discussing the topic but having to argue something. Eg. Love is more important to [character] than greed, to what extend do you agree? You take a stance which either refutes or supports the assertion in the prompt. It also shows more complexity of thinking to argue both sides but there will usually be one side that is more obvious so don’t sit on the fence.

Discuss gives more freedom in terms of you just analysing that theme/character/idea in the text. But you might disagree with the prompt which you can discuss (with evidence). I do mine by first paragraph supporting my contention, and the second or third paragraph offering a different insight to the prompt. They’re pretty similar but “what extent do you agree?” stipulates an agreement or disagreement.

So for example in Nine Days if the prompt asks about family’s importance to characters you could talk about characters that prioritise their family like Kip, then also discuss those that don’t prioritise family, and if this is a result of another motive such as self interest or love. And the implications what they prioritise reveals the values of the characters and even the author (characters sometimes reflect the views/values of the author). You don’t have to completely agree or disagree with VCAA’s assertion and as long as you back your argument up with textual evidence (quotes/scenes) then you’re fine.

(I think this was a bit repetitive I think I answered you’re question  :) )
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ArtyDreams

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2536 on: November 10, 2019, 03:40:25 pm »
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To what extent do you agree is different as it’s not simply discussing the topic but having to argue something. Eg. Love is more important to [character] than greed, to what extend do you agree? You take a stance which either refutes or supports the assertion in the prompt. It also shows more complexity of thinking to argue both sides but there will usually be one side that is more obvious so don’t sit on the fence.

Discuss gives more freedom in terms of you just analysing that theme/character/idea in the text. But you might disagree with the prompt which you can discuss (with evidence). I do mine by first paragraph supporting my contention, and the second or third paragraph offering a different insight to the prompt. They’re pretty similar but “what extent do you agree?” stipulates an agreement or disagreement.

So for example in Nine Days if the prompt asks about family’s importance to characters you could talk about characters that prioritise their family like Kip, then also discuss those that don’t prioritise family, and if this is a result of another motive such as self interest or love. And the implications what they prioritise reveals the values of the characters and even the author (characters sometimes reflect the views/values of the author). You don’t have to completely agree or disagree with VCAA’s assertion and as long as you back your argument up with textual evidence (quotes/scenes) then you’re fine.

(I think this was a bit repetitive I think I answered you’re question  :) )

thank you so much for your help. I think I get the general idea of it now!!

natalie03

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2537 on: January 12, 2020, 07:27:43 pm »
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Hi,
Has anyone studied the graphic novel Maus? I would love some help finding some notes to get a better understanding of the book
Thank youuu xoxo

SmartWorker

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2538 on: January 17, 2020, 07:18:12 pm »
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Hi,
Has anyone studied the graphic novel Maus? I would love some help finding some notes to get a better understanding of the book
Thank youuu xoxo

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Mudasser.abb

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2539 on: February 10, 2020, 06:07:19 pm »
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How do you get better at creative writing and any tips for studying English?

Sine

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2540 on: February 10, 2020, 10:26:53 pm »
+3
How do you get better at creative writing and any tips for studying English?
I didn't study too much creative writing in VCE so can't help too much with that.

As for overall English study, I believe practice essays are one of your most important techniques. So before sacs, I would be writing out a bunch of essays and getting them marked and receiving feedback from teacher's. Then use that feedback for your next essay. To improve vocab I would after writing essays see if I was using a word too much and then look for alternatives for that particular word - also if there was any area I found a bit clunky in expression I would try to rewrite more eloquently.

As for actually wirting your essays I think having a plan before you start is so important - even if you spend 5 minutes on this if you have this done you will have a direction for your essay. If you have written many essays before once you have the plan the essay basically writes itself as you will be reusing ideas from older essays you have written.

Some people will say to memorise essays - I didn't do this although I kind of unconsciously memorised paragraphs or parts of paragraphs which I used many times. So the memory would just come by me using a certain idea many times. However, students definitely do well with memorising essays - personally I don't recommend it though.

lr2020

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2541 on: February 18, 2020, 05:35:32 pm »
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Hello,

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but we're doing a creative piece on Peter Skrzynecki's Old/New World collection. Our prompt says to choose one of his poems and rewrite it as a narrative (story).

1. I'm not sure where to draw the line with this in terms of how much we can add to it (isn't that kinda the point of a creative?) and when it is too much of our own work to be considered 'rewriting' the poem.

2. Also, is rewriting the poem (still as a narrative) from another character's point of view incorrect in terms of responding to the prompt?

I'd really appreciate some feedback on understanding this prompt asap!
Thanks! :D

PranatiP

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2542 on: March 26, 2020, 09:42:59 pm »
0
Hey guys!
I am looking for an English tutor who is really experienced that can help me achieve a really high score, but affordable (preferably less than $60 per hour).
I am studying the movie 'Rear Window' and the texts 'The 7 stages of grieving' and 'longest memory'.
If your teacher, or a VCAA examinor is tutoring within the price range, please let me know!!

I really need help with writing my essays, as it lacks sophistication, making it hard for me to achieve a 40+ study score in English!
Thanks!!!

essynedj

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2543 on: April 09, 2020, 05:52:11 pm »
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hi! would it be better to split the visual analysis of one visual in two paragraphs or just all of the visual analysis into one paragraph? thankyou! :)

natalie03

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2544 on: April 17, 2020, 12:03:10 pm »
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For English, I have the choice of doing either a monologue or narrative towards a selection of poems from love dreaming. I was thinking of doing a monologue but I have no idea how to start it. if someone could give me a guide I would love that, thank you!!

whys

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2545 on: April 26, 2020, 02:48:21 pm »
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When we are saying that an author uses formal language, how do we use evidence for that? I usually get stuck on trying to quote formal language, because the entirety of the article is formal, so I don't know where exactly in the article I should quote from that displays overtly formal language.

Also, I was wondering how to incorporate tonal analysis in AA. In how much detail do we need to analyse the tone, and how do we do this?
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Bri MT

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2546 on: April 26, 2020, 03:03:03 pm »
+4
When we are saying that an author uses formal language, how do we use evidence for that? I usually get stuck on trying to quote formal language, because the entirety of the article is formal, so I don't know where exactly in the article I should quote from that displays overtly formal language.

Also, I was wondering how to incorporate tonal analysis in AA. In how much detail do we need to analyse the tone, and how do we do this?

Formal vs informal langauge is a big thing in eng lang so you might find it useful to look at some eng lang notes for features of formal vs informal. Off the top of my head here the main things to look out for:
- word choice (standard English words (e.g. dog not doggo) , archaic language, etc.)
- sentence structuring (more complex and/or complicated sentences, adhering to grammar conventions etc.)

If you have difficult finding those resources lmk and I'm happy to give you more detailed advice

hi! would it be better to split the visual analysis of one visual in two paragraphs or just all of the visual analysis into one paragraph? thankyou! :)

This is a hard question to answer on its own as doing a split/integrated approach depends on how you are structuring the rest of your piece and how you want to conduct your analysis. If you're looking for a generic rule I imagine that 1 paragraph would be more common than two but I'm not super familiar with VCE English assessment so hopefully someone else can chip in here for you :)

Hey guys!
I am looking for an English tutor who is really experienced that can help me achieve a really high score, but affordable (preferably less than $60 per hour).
I am studying the movie 'Rear Window' and the texts 'The 7 stages of grieving' and 'longest memory'.
If your teacher, or a VCAA examinor is tutoring within the price range, please let me know!!

I really need help with writing my essays, as it lacks sophistication, making it hard for me to achieve a 40+ study score in English!
Thanks!!!


I recommend you look in the tutoring section of the forums and post there instead of in the English section to help you find someone



I'm not English-focused generally but I hope this helps you all out :)

SmartWorker

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2547 on: April 26, 2020, 04:49:42 pm »
0
Formal vs informal langauge is a big thing in eng lang so you might find it useful to look at some eng lang notes for features of formal vs informal. Off the top of my head here the main things to look out for:
- word choice (standard English words (e.g. dog not doggo) , archaic language, etc.)
- sentence structuring (more complex and/or complicated sentences, adhering to grammar conventions etc.)

If you have difficult finding those resources lmk and I'm happy to give you more detailed advice

Hey Bri MT,

I find I have the same problem, can you please elaborate what you mean?

Thank you
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whys

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2548 on: April 26, 2020, 05:09:40 pm »
+16
Hey Bri MT,

I find I have the same problem, can you please elaborate what you mean?

Thank you
I'm not Bri MT, but a little discussion with my eng lang friends gave me this information:
- the use of honorifics is formal
- agentless/agented passive
For example: I ate the chocolates.
Agented passive: The chocolates were eaten by me.
Agentless passive: The chocolates were eaten.
This makes it more objective (the sentence structure is object, verb then subject/no subject instead of the subject first)
This is probably something you don't need to know for mainstream, but it's good to know :)

Other examples of formality (from uncle Google):
- third person
- lack of slang/colloquial language
- no contractions (i.e. do not)
- avoids abbreviating words/phrases
- avoids emotive punctuation

Btw still confused with the detail we need when analysing tone - if anyone has any info feel free to share :P
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Bri MT

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #2549 on: April 27, 2020, 12:12:36 pm »
+3
Hey Bri MT,

I find I have the same problem, can you please elaborate what you mean?

Thank you

Whys has some great things to look out for in their post so definitely recommend you read that. Some of what I'm going to go into here is too detailed for you to talk about well in VCE English but may help to inform your ability to detect and construct formality.

Let's take for example these:

1. "The green sea turtle chelonia mydas is a national icon and efforts to preserve this species must be undertaken by parliament. "

2. "Govt must SAVE the green sea turtle NOW! It's a national icon."

1 is more formal than 2 and there are a few features we could pull apart to look at that.

- 1 uses compound complex sentence structure whereas 2 uses simple sentences.
- 2 uses abbreviations ("Govt")
- 2 breaks standard English conventions on capitalisation
- In highly formal writing "!" won't show up much, if at all
- Very formal language tends to be less overtly emotive
- 1 uses more formal language
- As whys mentioned, passive sentences are more formal "Green sea turtle must be saved by parliament" is passive, "Parliament must save the green sea turtle" is active. My physics teacher used to say that to check if something is agentless passive, see if you can add "by zombies" onto the end. For example, "the chocolates were eaten by zombies" works as does "Green sea turtles must be saved by zombies" so that tells us that "the chocolates were eaten" and "green sea turtles must be saved" are both agentless passive.


Note: It's important to recognise that informal to formal is a spectrum with a bunch of elements feeding into it, so it's important to consider a range of elements when deciding how formal something is. Don't for example, just rule it out because it has a feature that's more informal than formal o vice versa - consider it holistically.

My advice would be to go for the most stand-out features first. For example, if I was reading "The purchaser must henceforth remove any materials comprising, derived from, or relating to the purchase and cannot reinstall any component thereof subject to the agreement (XI(iv))" I wouldn't use that "cannot" was written rather than "can not" as evidence of formality and would use stronger evidence instead.

Re: Tone thought I'd add in this piece here
Formal language might be used to add to a sense of authority or credibility, informal language might be used to create a sense of friendliness or humour. There's also many more ways formal and informal language can be used so don't think you're restricted to what I've mentioned here. Imo it's more important to "feel" to the tone and understand how that's constructed, why etc. rather than focusing on specific tone lists. That being said, tone lists can be a good resource if you struggle to intuitively feel tone or to find words that specifically and accurately describe it.


Again, I'm not overly familiar with VCE English assessment so take what I say with a grain of salt and pick out the bits useful to you :)