Hi Elyse!!
I haven't posted on the site before so I hope I am doing it right... I am big fan of all your notes/lectures, love your work !!
My Legal half-yearly (yr 12) is in about 2 and a half weeks. My school has shifted around our topics and we are doing Crime and the Family Option first. I have a few questions particularly in regard to family essays;
Hey Rachel! You certainly are doing it right, welcome to the forums! I'm not Elyse (obviously
), but hopefully I can help with your questions (I took the first set of Legal lectures for your cohort in September, if you went)!
What is the best way to prepare for family essays without memorising content/arguments? I understanding memorising, especially at this early stage, is counter-productive. However, our class is no where near finished the Family topic and I'm unsure how to approach my study as I don't want to leave Family until the last minute. Should I go ahead in the content and practice essays earlier? And should I also practice essays open book, and then in exam conditions closer to the exam? I am a perfectionist and struggle to practice not thinking my work is perfect yet !
If you have time to get ahead and start practicing early, go for it! But of course if that isn't realistic that is okay too - Just do what feels right yo you! You can definitely practice open book too if you prefer - Just make sure you get
some practice under exam conditions. For Family, you should primarily be memorising evidence - Laws, cases, media, reports, stats, treaties, etc - You should make some summary sheets with that sort of stuff on them! I'd link you the ones I used that are available in our
Notes Section, but it is down right now (will hopefully be fixed very soon if you want to browse!)
- Since family only amounts to essays, once I have done comprehensive notes, should I structure the important parts under themes + challenges, and other parts of the syllabus? (ie evaluate sections)
I am a little flustered in structuring my essay struggle since they could mould questions into either broad or specific topics --> should I memorise thesis statements to likely questions as well as evidence?
You should memorise
lots of evidence, enough to cover you for any possible question, and then
practice writing Thesis statements/ideas in response to the question. You can of course memorise Thesis statements too, if you feel like you need too, but I'm a fan of just knowing your evidence
really well and then working your Thesis on the spot - And that takes practice!
Is it too early to be using HSC papers for study? Or is it appropriate for the content we have already covered..
You can definitely use them! Just ignore the Option you haven't done yet (or anything you haven't done yet really). That said, you might want to save the HSC Papers until the HSC itself, in which case you could use some
Trial Exams as practice!
With the two options for family essays, can they ask absolutely any 2 from syllabus? Is there any construct they follow? (ie recently they have covered all the contemporary issues in a question each)
They can ask pretty much anything, but 99% chance it will only come from either the contemporary issues, divorce, or domestic violence. Usually there is at least one contemporary issue, and you
can have an educated guess by looking at past exams (I predicted they'd ask about surrogacy in my Legal HSC lecture last year, just because as you say, the cycle called for it. Ditto for the Crime question and YA). That said, half yearlies definitely don't follow the trends, so you need to be prepared for anything, and you should be prepared for anything anyway
In regard to the syllabus requirement: 'Evaluate the effectiveness of the law in protecting victims of domestic violence' --> how appropriate is it to discuss the failure of preventative measures and stopping domestic violence initially? This is obviously one of the main concerns, however the wording of the question is problematic in terms of referencing 'victims'. Would this still be addressing the question?
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To my interpretation, you can definitely discuss the effectiveness of preventative measures! And I'm sure I've done it in essays before too
I hope this helps! Be sure to shoot any more questions you have our way