Essay writing tips.

All i have to say is if your exam is sooo close, like tomorrow, you should have already done multiple practise exams and also at least 2-3 essays a week handing into your teacher so you can fine tune your skills of essay writing. In the last two weeks i have already done 2x 3hr practise english exams where we have to write 4 essays (2x text responses, 1x language analysis (often a double and 1x point of view). The last few weeks should have been time where you have been fine tuning your skills of essay writing for the exam itself.

One word of advice also is dont try and adopt other peoples advice on essay writing the day before your exam as you will get into the exam and panic as you have all these different ideas with what you should be doing. My advice is just go over all the techniques you have learnt this year on essay writing (which should be in your notes) and just make sure they are clear in your mind. You dont want to cram everything in tonight as you will get into your exam and freeze. Just take it easy and do what you have learnt all year.

Also, every teacher teaches different techniques of essay writing so just go with what you have been taught.

Patto
 
flying high dh killer said:
Shit I can't believe you already know what the theme is.:eek: You should already have it written up.
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Both semesters in yr12 we focused on answering the HSC questions aswell as building up writing techniques. When I think about it, Enlgish HSC exams were a bludge. I was pretty fed up with hearing my teacher talk shit and completely turned away from English towards the end. Funny though, I still managed to pull out a mid 70.
 
leitch said:
I hate to say this, but if you don't know how to write a good essay after 12 years of schooling, what have you been doing at school, and what makes you think you will all of a sudden learn how to write well from stuff posted on an internet forum?
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Dude. What the fuck.
All he wanted were pointers, and no, not all of us sit in class bathing in the teachers' ambiance asking if you're their favourite.

On point, Just try to relax yourself and concentrate at the same time. (yes, sounds wierd.) and say big words, lots of them. (rest assured you know what they mean.) And just *go with the flow, but it really does depend on what subject you are learning, so with Maths I look at others work, English, just * Go with the flow. Science etc etc.. is easy peasy.
Well, hope this helped and good luck with your HSC.
Peace out.
 
Breaka said:
Both semesters in yr12 we focused on answering the HSC questions aswell as building up writing techniques. When I think about it, Enlgish HSC exams were a bludge. I was pretty fed up with hearing my teacher talk shit and completely turned away from English towards the end. Funny though, I still managed to pull out a mid 70.
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I don't really understand the NSW system, is the HSC the same as QCS in Queensland? If so, why isn't it the same format i.e. questions kept under lock and key??
 
Writting an essay to me is a simple formula.

Intro = thesis. + Answer the stupid question

Main body = State using your texts to back up your thesis and keep refering to your thesis. Also keep linking your texts together with some kind of commonality

Conclusion = Restate your thesis and conclude with "So thus proven by texts Wind in the willows and The road not taken by Kennith Grahamme and Robert Frost, what counts in a journey is not necessarily the end but what you learn that matters".

I have written up about 2 practice essays not much i know . And i already have a story planned out for Creative writting. I plan to write minumum 4 pages for each section.


Quick question how many pages do you plan to write?
 
flying high dh killer said:
I don't really understand the NSW system, is the HSC the same as QCS in Queensland? If so, why isn't it the same format i.e. questions kept under lock and key??
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After doing the HSC just last year, I should be able to answer this question no worries at all. But, I can't.

From memory, there are three areas of study - each area your given a text to study (plus you choose a few of your own to analyse). Whilst the exams are based around these there are short answer questions in-directly related to each module. Creative writing and text analysis is also a part of this.

In other words you pretty much know what the majority of the questions will be asking.

Don't quote me on this however as my memory is pretty farked.
 
Plow King said:
The questions are under a lock and key, but the question is about joruneys.
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The thing is Chris, you can pretty much adapt any story to any given question. Just play around with a few key words and Bingo - your questions are answered.
 
Breaka said:
The thing is Chris, you can pretty much adapt any story to any given question. Just play around with a few key words and Bingo - your questions are answered.
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Yah, I've already made up an essay. that I'm going to base my HSC around
 
Well Im doing 4 essays in 3 hours. 2 text response, one analytical and one persuasive.

My advice, if you don't know how to write an essay at this point in time, its too late. However if you write whatever you need to with a particularly left wing bias you should do fairly well. Examiners love it.
 
AngoXC said:
^^ What texts are you doing Ross?
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Studied 1984 (everyone will do), Look Both Ways (Lame Australian Movie), the Baghdad Blog (fairly boring blog made into a book) and The Kite Runner (such a pathetic piece of literature, but very easy to write on)

Ill be writing on Look Both Ways and Kite Runner, with Baghdad Blog as my back up. I couldn't even be bothered reading to the end of 1984. I think most of the texts were fairly crap and can't really see the reasoning behind why my school chose them.

My Media texts have been great but, Aliens 2 (Social value city!!!), X-Men 2 (Lots of narrative crap to talk about) and Unbreakable (Motif city!!! also good for narrative)
 
'Ross said:
I couldn't even be bothered reading to the end of 1984. I think most of the texts were fairly crap and can't really see the reasoning behind why my school chose them.
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weak! 1984 rules.

also, if you watch the movie version of it, there is nudity!!! score!
 
leitch said:
weak! 1984 rules.

also, if you watch the movie version of it, there is nudity!!! score!
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I can just imagine myself being an examiner:cool:

Every single dud kid writes in reference to 1984...

'The Proles are representative of us' and other such lame and generic rubbish, I wanted to go for something a bit different, I like studying films so naturally I chose Look Both Ways.

Kite Runner is almost like a movie script, very easy to write lots of different essays and be prepared for a wide range of questions. Also Winston's a fat dud and you never guessed the shop keeper was in on it the whole time:eek::p
 
'Ross said:
I couldn't even be bothered reading to the end of 1984. I think most of the texts were fairly crap and can't really see the reasoning behind why my school chose them.
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Man, you did better than I. I studied Slessor and To Kill a Mocking Bird (both fantastic) in the Trials and then we turned around to study Witness and a few other shit texts for the HSC.
 
8 Techniques to a paragraph, outlined, explained in context of text and analysed. Every paragraph MUST be crammed full of techniques, and NOT OFFHANDEDLY, if you use a technique, explain HOW

There, best advice you'll ever get. I cottoned on to that plan and got a nice mark for my english papers.

Creative: helps to have a good idea already pre-planned. I had one about a guy driving to work....got 15/15 in the trial, and 15/15 again in the final exam...the exact same story:p

Oh, one last thing

Techniques
Techniques
Techniques!

8 per paragraph or you're screwed.
 
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Eight per paragraph?!?! Jeus christ. I think I did about four per text.

Techniques and quotes. They mark you on each quote ( good, bad or whatever....aslong as it's in there and it relates to the technique your mentionsing)
 
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