Just clearing up some questions that haven't been answered - let me know if I've missed any or just repost yours if they're further than three pages back and I'll try and get around to them
+ blanket reminder off the back of bangali+lok's that ESSAYS GO HERE: Submissions Board and this thread is for Questions only!! Way more people have started getting about the marking train, which is excellent - just keep your hands and feet inside the submissions board at all times; please and thank you I'm going to write a speech for section B and i'm unsure if its a good idea for my score to make my purpose etc as explicit as this-Transcript of speech delievered by...
At the ....
On the...
The given title of the speech is …
other than that, what else is a good way to elevate a speech and address different aspects of a prompt i.e. is it too simple to agree with a prompt and try to persuade the audience to that perspective or do I definitely need to go further. thanks
Re: making this explicit, you can integrate this within your piece by having the speaker say things like 'As the Chairperson of the Domestic Violence Prevention Committee, I would like to say...' or 'I would like to thank my fellow Members of Parliament for attending this afternoon's conference on...'
Alternatively you can just have an opening paragraph like 'The following is a transcript of a speech delivered by ____ following the recent ____ etc.' Both would be fine.
Regarding 'making speeches better,' try to do more than just completely agree or disagree. It's usually more effective if you can take a persuasive purpose, but a more expository contention. For instance, if you were doing a prompt like:
'Our identities are formed through conflict.'
And your purpose was:
A British Labor politician addressing his party following their loss at the last election explaining why the defeat is actually an opportunity to change and growThen your contention could be:
Sometimes conflicts can seem insurmountable, but in the end, they can be beneficial to our trajectory in life, and provide us with the chance to alter ourselves for the better.-as opposed to-
Purpose:
school captain saying students should keep strong in the face of bullying etc.& Contention:
Identities are formed through conflict.^which would be too simplistic.
So long as you've got a sufficient exploration of ideas, the assessors won't mind whether you're mostly agreeing or mostly disagreeing - just try to say something interesting and more complex than yes/no.
How do you incorporate an author's 'Bias' into the introduction? Like for the 2010 Biodiversity exam how is Lee biased, as he is a professor - he may contend etc.
How do you word this and smoothly weave it into the intro?
Any suggestions would be great as i am a bit lost Thanks
Bias isn't a technique, and you shouldn't bring this up as it can seem evaluative. Think about it: if you're calling the author biased, then you're suggesting that his arguments aren't persuasive, or otherwise you're using the background information and saying something about his role in the issue, which isn't what the task is meant to be about.
(I know this is kind of annoying, because I remember being told to talk about 'bias' as a technique for years and years. It doesn't really fit at a VCE level though.)
What I think you might mean instead is the author's authority - ie. the fact that Prof. Lee was a professor is meant to elicit a sense of respect towards him, and his views by proxy. However, I'd still say to leave that out of the introduction and just bring it up in the body paragraphs so that you can analyse it. The intro is really just for a brief bit of background info, and then an outlining of the contention.
I wanted to know that if I start a text response with a really long sentence is that a bad thing?
Here is an example: " Sketching a tale of the harsh and gruelling conditions endured by the indigenous Australians during Australia’s Great Depression, Jack Davis’ play ‘No Sugar’ depicts how some minority groups act out in communal defiance against the oppressive environment they lived in." And if there is any way I could word this in a more sophisticated manner, I would like to know.
Long sentences are fine, and I wouldn't even say that one was too long. So long as it's grammatical, the assessors have no problem with it. But I'd recommend having one or two of these malleable intro sentences instead of using the same one for every essay. Let's say you get a
No Sugar prompt about the importance of survival, or of power and family dynamics - are you going to begin with the same line about communal defiance every single time? It's best to engage with the prompt from the outset, if possible. Other than that, this is worded fine though, and I'm sure it'd work for a significant number of prompts, so it'd be good to keep up your sleeve.
Hey guys I'm kinda stuck- not sure which text response to do for the final exam.
I can do Henry IV, which I'm quite interested in though,but haven't really out much work in it, so will 2odd weeks be alright to study it?
Or the other book we did for unit 3, although I've done a lot of work on it, and don't want to waste it, it just doesn't seem that fun anymore (maybe because it was a long time ago)
Any advice please help?
Hopefully you've chosen by now, but I would absolutely recommend King Henry - there's heaps to talk about, and it's one of the few interesting texts on the list this year. Happy to help with this one since that was my exam text back in the day. There was a thread dedicated to HIV1 discussions last year, so you could hunt around for that if you were looking for some resources or interpretations. Otherwise, just knowing the prompt really well and being able to talk about wach of the characters both individually and comparatively will help a lot. Also, familiarise yourself with as many themes and combinations of themes as you can. Some structural evidence wouldn't go astray either, since it's a fourth year text and you'll likely get some tricky prompts this year, so looking into the symbolism of time, the presence of order, manipulation of language etc. would be a good starting point.
hi
I am hoping for some advice on vocab in text response.
In the past, I've found that the most effective way of weaving fancier, less common words into text essays is to read scholarly articles, literary reviews and alike.
But what if there is nothing available? My text is Burial Rites, and as it is so new there is effectively nothing online to read about it, other than just a couple of brief reviews which don't really help much.
I understand that the likely response here is something along the lines of 'thought counts more than vocab', and while I agree that that is unquestionably true, I think you also have to be realistic. The essays approaching the highest end of the mark spectrum always have an impressive collection of phrases and terms fairly cleverly embedded, and to get the high marks that same approach needs to be taken.
I would say that naturally, my use of vocab is strong and expressive; it; it makes sense, but it doesn't have that wow factor unless I have quite a bit of time to 'craft' a piece, as opposed to pumping out 3 in as many hours. I would also like to make the point that I only use words if I am confident with them; I don't build my essays around language in the hope to impress, because I know that doesn't work.
Having said that, the language I use in my text response probably won't get my the marks I'm hoping for at the moment, and I was hoping for some advice on how to work past this.
Is it a good idea to 'craft' some perfect sentences/paragraphs and memorise them, instead of smashing out essays as often as possible?
What sort of stuff should I read to pick up vocab? Literary reviews of other books, extracting relevant ideas where necessary?
I get where you're coming from, and I can't advocate going into the exam completely blind and just expecting that you'll be able to come up with the right words on the spot. In reality, there's a reason you study your texts all year (or half a year if it's your Sem. 2 text) and the assessors expect that you'll be familiar with certain elements.
By now you've probably realised that there are some points of evidence that will work for many (
--not all--) prompts, so going over that analysis and refining it would be a good idea. You've probably also seen a significant amount of overlap in the prompts, and that the general message (or "core") of the text is ostensibly the same each time, so having some rote learned 'views and values' sentences like 'Kent explicates the dangers of succumbing to delusions and false impressions of justice' that you can wheel out wherever relevant.
So long as you're aware that relevance is the priority and that you should only use what best fits the prompt, not what objectively sounds best in isolation, you should be fine
What do you guys think would be the optimal ratio between writing about your text and external examples in an expository essay for Context?
My standard recommendation is to talk about the text in a fair amount of detail in your first body paragraph, and then reference it again in your ~3rd B.P. just for a sentence or two. ie say something like 'Just as >character in the set text< was forced to confront the significance of their actions, so too did... >lead to external evidence<'
Try not to have it in every paragraph, and ideally your external discussion will make up the bulk of your essay.
^ Having said all that, you could do the complete opposite and still score perfect marks. Context is funny like that, and I can't wait for this time next year when I'll finally be able to say goodbye to it forever.
#1year&1week but who's countingI have read somewhere on this forum to write on every second line in an essay so that you can have space for editing. Is this for in exams or just for SAC's and practice essays. Like, do the assessors mind???
Also, I have got a problem where in the context section of the exam I always write my piece in 15-20 min. Then I get another idea, which i think 'hey that will be a lot better' and then i write that one for the remaining 30 min. What do you think i should do??? It seems pointless writing two, but I never seem to be able to get the other idea unless i write the first one.
Re: skipping a line, yes, it's completely fine, and I'm actually recommending it to students who have big/small/messy handwriting. If you're writing's big, it lets you space it out across the page and makes things easier to read - if you're writing's small, it kind of forces you to write a bit bigger and more legibly by virtue of having more space to do so. And if you're a messy writer, it gives you the room on either side of a line to make edits and corrections where needed.
For context: try to account for this in planning time. Rather than spending 20 minutes writing a mediocre or sub-standard (based on your estimations of your ability?) piece, spend 5-10 minutes coming up with a solid plan so that you can come up with ideas you're happy with, and then start writing your piece. Also, is there any reason why you can't incorporate your new ideas into the one piece, or into the first one you write? Are you coming up with completely contradictory contentions, or are you writing creative pieces that can't really be tacked on to one another? If it's just an expository/ hybrid piece, I don't see any reason why you couldn't just extend your discussion to incorporate a different viewpoint, but let me know if the style/format is affecting your decision.
Im having trouble doing an LA piece. I am doing it on the 2014 LA part. There is the main article and a comment section.
So far i got
1 - intro for main article
2- Body Par 1 about main article
3 - Body Par 2 about main article
4- Body Par 3 about main article
Im stuck here, what should i do?
5- conclusion about main article?
6- intro for comment section?
7- Body par 1 for comment section?
8- conclusion for comment section?
Alternatively, here's a structure I'd recommend
~~and one others should read because the chances of getting an exam similar to the 2014 one (ie main piece with a comment) again this year is quite high, but you didn't hear that from me *nudge nudge*---------------------------------
If you're getting one main article, two visuals, and a comment:Paragraph 1:
3/4: main article +
1/4 visual (1)Paragraph 2:
3/4: main article +
1/4 commentParagraph 3:
3/4: main article +
1/4 visual (2) +
(comment - if not sufficiently covered in other para.)---------------------------------
So each paragraph contains at least two 'texts' (ie. the main piece and one other; either visual or written) but no paragraph is burdened with having to deal with every single text all at once. This'll let you draw sufficient connections across the material and cover the whole scope of the thing without comparing at the expense of analysis.
That's how I'd do it anyway, and it probably suits a key player/ sub-argument method best, so if you have your own way of handling things, it might be best to stick with that at this point of the year. Ultimately the assessors care way more about the quality of your analysis anyway - the format and essay structure should be aspects that enhance (or at least don't hinder) your analysis anyway, so don't stress too much.
if the language analysis article has no named author, will we get penalised for referring to them with gendered pronouns?
Also, I was wondering if I can get a 40 raw if my GA's are 90, 93, and 49/60 respectively.
Thanks!
The 2013 VCAA exam had no author, and that annoyed me to no end because that was my exam and I'm pretty sure I alternated the phrases 'the writer'/'the author'/'the piece' so often that to this day my hand makes the motion of writing those words in my sleep.
It's possible you won't get an actual name, but it's unlikely if you get multiple authors since that'd get messy. I'd recommend just picking a gender and then being consistent with it - so go for either he or she and then just ensure you don't switch halfway through. They can't penalise you, but it could confuse them (again, especially if there are multiple authors.) Technically, even if you had a piece written by Brittany Girlson that was delivered at a Women's Rights Convention and you referred to the author as 'he,' they technically can't penalise you that much because you're being marked on your ability to analyse language
OKay so I've been trying to fix this problem of mine for a while now and I just keep doing it... I tend to overwrite in language analysis due to my innate fear of running out of things to analyse (I somehow feel bad if I don't analyse every good persuasive technique or connotations because it would feel like a waste to not analyse it-weird huh?) and because of this, I tend to spend too much time on L.A or spend half of my time analysing the first quarter of the text and the last doing a rushed analysis of the rest. Anyone have any tips? I tend to favour really large chunky paragraphs so maybe I should just start writing a lot of short paragraphs?
Cheers
Keep up with the longer paragraphs, as they tend to be stronger, but prioritise the stuff that you find most important, rather than just 'ooh! I can say
something about this part!' Is it a worthwhile 'something?' If so, keep it. Or, if it just seems like a bit of filler analysis/ something you've already said before and better, cut it.
Also, forcing yourself not to do things chronologically can really help. Attempting some kind of sub-argument structure whereby each paragraph focuses on one particular part of the author's contention can be much more beneficial, because you won't be limited to the structure that the author has chosen.
Every year since 2009, VCAA have deliberately scattered the worthwhile language across the piece, but given you a significant amount to talk about at the start and end so that anyone doing things chronologically would be inclined to spend way too much time talking about the beginning and would neglect the ending. That separates the people who can analyse well from the people who can analyse well AND select the points to analyse and present them in a more orderly fashion.
Ultimately, it's a good thing that you're writing too much, but going over your old essays and being hyper-critical about what's actually necessary and what's just filler can help you break things down the core of what needs to be there. Keep in mind that VCAA are testing what you choose to analyse just as much as they are your analytical abilities, so prioritise the important/'meaty' stuff over assorted bits and pieces that don't really advance the author's point by much.
Hi everyone,
Was wondering what the difference between a 9 and a 10 in an essay is? Is it just expression and cohesion?
Personally I've gotten 10s for text and 10s for context before, but keep getting 9s for section c :/ !!!!!
I've spoken to my teacher and she says I shouldn't be complaining LOL
Help would be much appreciated
Thanks
I hate your teacher. I had a Lit. teacher like that in Year 12 and I'm still kind of bitter over the way she dismissed students who were doing 'well enough not to warrant any attention' -.-
If you want to post one of your L.A. pieces on the
Submissions Board, someone (may or may not be me depending on how hectic the next week is) can give you some proper feedback on where you need to improve, but without having read your work, it's hard to tell.
A lot of things can separate 9s and 10s; it could be expression, but it could also be the quality (depth or breadth) of your analysis, or the scope of your discussion, or the quality of your visual analysis, or your essay structure, or your linking and flow... you see where I'm going with this? You might be able to find the problem yourself if you go through your own work really thoroughly and evaluate your own performance, but if you're not too certain about the criteria and don't know where you're going wrong, drop by the Markings Board and someone can send you in the right direction
#Atarnotes: making up for shitty teaching since 2007Is writing 3 body paragraphs in an exam dangerous? Should we aim for at least 4? (but with three paras, obviously the word limit will be reached)?
Not dangerous at all. Three or four is totally fine, no less, and no more unless you're really prolific and quick. Aiming for five+ is
usually deleterious to overall quality, but there's no inherent advantage or disadvantage to doing three instead of four.
Some prompts require more depth (ie. three would be better) than breadth (ie. four) so you can use your intuition. It might also depend on your writing style and speed, so don't stretch for an extra paragraph if you've only got five minutes left; just wrap up nicely and rest assured that three paragraphs is completely sufficient for a high score; (more so, in fact, than if you write three good paragraphs and then undo that good work at the end with a really slapdash paragraph.)
In a context piece, for the film that we are studying, are we able to use the actors, director etc and make up like a talk show interview session or a Q and A session for a magazine. The information however would be all made up and may not accurately reflect their own real personal views. For example for the film skin, I could interview the director - Anthony Fabian - and ask him a question such as his decision for directing the film, and the response from him would be completely made up by me and not actually real and or as to why he chose to direct the film. Would this be allowed?
Thanks, I hope you all sorta understand what I'm trying to say haha
Absolutely - I had a few students attempt something similar over the course of this year. Just try to ensure that you move beyond the text, ie. don't have Fabian talking about the significance of all the stuff in
Skin and nothing else, because that'd be more like an extensive text response from a weird perspective. Whereas, if you use his voice to talk about other things (eg. his inspiration, real world parallels, his own life- if relevant(?) or other points of interest) then it's totally fine. Just make sure whatever your doing comes across clearly to the assessor so they don't have to get 600 words in before realising 'oh I get it - he's the director!!' A brief bit of explanation at the start goes a long way
Heyy, for English Context- Standard Expository essay style. Can we have like a creative- personal story type of introduction that implicitly signposts the ideas later on in the essay? or is that changing the style of writing to much from the standard expository essay body paragraphs.
That's totally fine, provided it isn't too clunky à la:
Prompt: The consequences of conflict are often unforeseen.One time, on the bus home from school, I was sitting next to a kid whose girlfriend broke up with him over the phone. He totes flipped out and accidentally smacked me in the face, and I got a sore nose. So because his girlfriend broke up with him, I got a sore nose. Through this, we can conclude that the consequences of conflict are often unforeseen.I'm so glad I don't have to write real assessor's reports... I'd be such a troll...
But so long as you're aware of the different styles you're using and make some effort to blend them from your intro into your first paragraph, you should be fine. Creative/hybrid 'hooks' can be great ways of making your piece more readable and interesting, so I think it's a very good option for the exam, provided it fits the prompt on the day.
What do you guys think about memorizing essays. I'm really bad at English and will be happy with above 30, over the moon with 35. With the little time time in the exam, I'm thinking of taking a gamble and hoping that the prompts are similar to what I wrote a good essay on and modifying it with little effort compared to writing a completely new essay. What do you guys think?
I've spoken at length about this... somewhere on this board... but in short: memorise parts of essays, not whole chunks of essays. You're setting yourself up for failure if you just commit paragraphs to memory and churn them out on the day, but if you have set points of analysis that you're familiar with, and a good understanding of the overall message of the text + some sentences to demonstrate this, there's nothing wrong with using what's familiar to you and fitting it to your exam prompt. Just be aware that relevance rules everything, and you shouldn't compromise the integrity of your piece by just using half-baked bits and pieces from other essays and stitching them together. That's what's known as an Ugly-Frankenstein-Essay... which I'm going to have to find another word for since
Frankenstein is genuinely going to be on the text list next year
How would you start revising for the exam , I have no idea where to start.
Know what your weaknesses are, and start there. Once you know what those weaknesses are, then you can either work on them yourself if the path is obvious, or let us know in this thread what you feel you need to work on, and someone can help you along
for the english exam how many body paragraphs do you think is best to write for each essay. My english teacher has told my class to do 2 body paragraphs to make sure we fit into the time constraints, however some other english teachers at my school have said to do 3 so i'm not quite sure how many i'm meant to do.
At least three. ^See above advice in response to cosine's question
For language analysis, do we have to begin by introducing the issue and what sparked it or could we go straight into introducing the actual piece?
There's no requirement to include background info, but a lot of people do out of habit anyway. If you think it's relevant then go for it, but you're free to just jump in and outline the necessary biographical details (ie. author, title) and the contention if you want. If you are including the spark/issue though, be sure to keep it to one sentence or less - going overboard is typical of mid-range essays that have nothing better to do
I'd favour the more direct route, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of 'Following the recent...' to get you started.
For prompts such as this : “Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own”. In what ways is Agnes disempowered in Burial Rites?"
Is it OK to talk about both disempowerment and empowerment? Or is it just asking for the ways in which Agnes is empowered all throughout?
Only use empowerment as a reference point for talking about
disempowerment, which is the focus of the prompt (and the quote for that matter.) Having a whole paragraph devoted to empowerment would probably be too much, but you could bring it up in a few B.P.s just as a means of clarifying what you're talking about. Keep it close to the focus of the prompt though, and you should have plenty to talk about.
Also, just to clarify:
Depends i think, is it a 'Discuss' prompt? if so, then yes to your question.
But if a 'do you agree?' type question or 'to what extent?' then i would think no.
Different teachers will say different things, but there's not really much substantial different when it comes to the 'discuss'/'do you agree'/'to what extent' questions used in English prompts. Realistically, you're always 'discussing the extent to which you agree,' so it's just a matter of phrasing that they use to spice things up. The more definitive statements tend to get the 'Do you agree?' marking, but you can treat them as though they're the same.
This was pointed out to me long after I finished Year 12 by a teacher who said 'yeah, we basically just switch out the words if we feel like we've overused some on an exam - there's no difference' so although semantically they do mean different things, that doesn't translate to any real discrepancy in marks at the end of the year
This subject is so strange sometimes... "PAY ATTENTION TO LANGUAGE... oh no, not that language... that language doesn't matter... you should've known that..."
Sorry I haven't been around much to field some of these, but I'll endeavour to drop by more often in the lead up to the exams. Hope the study is going well for all of you!
T-6 days #gethyped
...just me who's hyping
...okay, that's fine... I'll just sit in a corner with my party hat on... with all the other cool kids...
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