Urgent Help Required

[Joseph Mekhamer]

Hi,
I know many people are against memorising pre-written responses for English Advanced, but it's just how I roll. Is it possible to memorise 4500 in a week, leading up to the HSC exams? Asking for methods, etc...

utterly screwed.

Cheerio.

[KT Nyunt]

Hi,
I know many people are against memorising pre-written responses for English Advanced, but it's just how I roll. Is it possible to memorise 4500 in a week, leading up to the HSC exams? Asking for methods, etc...

utterly screwed.

Cheerio.

I'm in the same boat as you. I tried going the conventional route and just made a tonne of essay plans etc. but I found in the exam I could never write quickly and eloquently enough. Given the time and preparation, I'm a pretty strong essay writer so I decided, like you, to prepare my essays.

Starting off with the essays themselves... I would make sure that the essay is mouldable to many questions. This means your thesis isn't too narrow and can be applied to a variety of questions you find online, in past papers etc. Also, in lieu of writing essay plans from scratch, I now write essay plans on how I would adjust my essay to the questions given.

To memorise my essays I follow a very rigorous method:
1. Write out the essay from the transcript a few times (some people I know can get off by just doing this 3 times and they'll remember it pretty well already, and this might work for you. I personally like to learn mine almost word for word, so I'm more fluent in the exam)
2. Write the essay in dot points (outline the essay, and this is probs what I'd look at right before the exam)
3. Write the essay using the dot points
4. Try writing the essay with the dot points
(another completely different strategy is to try to recite your essay or just talk it out to someone - this works too)

This process obviously takes time but I find it definitely works in learning an essay word for word. If this seems like a lot, especially if you're learning a fair few essays, don't worry, it would also work to stop at step 1 or 3, because learning your essay word for word may not be what you want and just having an idea of your key arguments is enough to help you write fluently in the exam. Also, you may not want to limit yourself in your ability to mould to the question by learning it by heart. Personally, I find I'm better at moulding to a question, when I know my essay by heart as I can visualise where I would tweak my essay etc. but this obviously varies from person to person.

Hope this was helpful! Good luck

[Caleb Campion]

Hi,
I know many people are against memorising pre-written responses for English Advanced, but it's just how I roll. Is it possible to memorise 4500 in a week, leading up to the HSC exams? Asking for methods, etc...

utterly screwed.

Cheerio.

Hey, I know for myself, I know its definitely possible to memorise that, but it is definitely not worth the time in my opinion, unless you think you are insanely incapable of writing one on the day?

In the same time it would take for you to memorise and practice several times those responses, you could easily remember all of your quotes, and get a good handle on the themes, whilst having less risk involved and maybe even have more time for other subjects!

[Jasmine Xie]

its definitely possible. I basically remembered 3000 words for extension 1 in one day.