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Class of 2025 (2025 HSC CHAT) (2 Viewers)

macbeabgc

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is biology hard in year 12? everyone has mixed opinions on bio
It's not hard, I can reassure you since my school does compacted curriculum, so I'm currently doing bio and eng adv this year for my HSC. Some parts may want to make you rip your hair out, but trust me, you'll be fine. Just have a look at the syllabus provided by NESA, that helps by a lot. Also, just ensure you don't fall behind too much, that will disadvantage you by a LOT.
 
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stagvampire

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anyone else going into three major works?
rn I'm planning on EX2, HX, and VA, and if life fails me I'll drop EX2 because I'm not sure how the critical responses are marked just yet (and my AH teacher is telling me I should 110% be doing HX). Sadly, I can't drop VA.
 

afourgridbook

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im planning to go into my modern prelim exam without studying and just winging everything because im dropping the subject next year. is this a bad idea? and will it badly affect my early entry offers. for context ive gotten an A and B on the other modern assessments from this year and i don't think i can pass the prelim exam.
 

jilly12

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it depends on how much weighting your prelims are (mine are 40% i think)
 

macbeabgc

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mine are 30%
I wouldn't necessarily recommend not putting in any effort, since 30% does seem to be quite a large number in terms of weighing. Maybe, since you seem to not really want to try as hard, just aim to pass. But again, it's all up to you as to what you'd infer to be best.
 

h_s_r11

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is it just my school that doesn't let you drop to 10 units yr 12 if you do both mx1 and ex1? I seriously don't wanna waste my time doing my worst subject bio when I'm confident in my extensions
 

Scrambled

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is it just my school that doesn't let you drop to 10 units yr 12 if you do both mx1 and ex1? I seriously don't wanna waste my time doing my worst subject bio when I'm confident in my extensions
Sorta similar but our school doesn't let us do ext2 unless we have at least 11 units
 

C_master

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is it just my school that doesn't let you drop to 10 units yr 12 if you do both mx1 and ex1? I seriously don't wanna waste my time doing my worst subject bio when I'm confident in my extensions
just your school
 

melanie_o

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I recently got my English prelim back. The main piece of feedback was that I was explaining the impact/effect on the responder rather than actually explaining how the text creates meaning. Sorry if I'm stupid, but could someone please explain the difference between these two things and how I would actually go about talking about meaning.

Also, how tf do I actually write a band 6 level essay like oml I'm screwed for hsc if I don't get a band 6 (since English counts and my dream course requires 99.50 ATAR) so I no joke need to do well. As in I am starting to panick, as I genuinely need to get to this calibre of essay quality.
 

Cute-Duckie

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I recently got my English prelim back. The main piece of feedback was that I was explaining the impact/effect on the responder rather than actually explaining how the text creates meaning. Sorry if I'm stupid, but could someone please explain the difference between these two things and how I would actually go about talking about meaning.
You can say that a text makes a responder feel happy, sad, etc, and that's all good and well. But I think what you might be missing here is linking it clearly to how a text creates meaning, and why this audience reaction is so important in the first place for said meaning.

A text can create meaning in many ways. The way I think you are trying to explore is reader-response theory - essentially a focus on how the reader responds to the text as opposed to the text itself. While a text can create meaning (somewhat) in this way, being through the response it provokes from the reader, there are a lot of other ways it can create meaning too. Does it create meaning through historical connotations? Maybe it creates meaning through metaphors, or an underlying narrative. There are many ways a text can create meaning, and these are some of the ways you can talk about it. It is possible that reader-response theory simply didn't apply to the question, and it more so wanted you to talk about the text itself rather than the audience. However, if going down this path of reader-response theory is one you are able to follow, I think it would suit the understanding of the text you already have.

However, of course (as with anything in English as I'm sure you know) once you make a claim like "this text makes the audience feel sad" (or whatever it may be), you have to prove it and give the marker a reason to care. As a brief example of trying to do this; "Text XYZ has a rich intertextual historical context of the English Industrial Revolution in the 1820s, alluding to it's author's early 2000s American context. This connection thus creates meaning for its audience through the personal connections and grievous response the audience develops while reading the text, as parallels between the life of the reader and the life of the protagonist are realised through reader-response." While this is a random sentence I've just made up about an imaginary text (so it's not very good, don't judge or use this as an exemplar please lol), it does complete a kind of checklist here. It gives the who (the audience), what (meaning), when (early 2000s / 1820s), where (England / America), and the how (drawing parallels between the contexts).

From what you've said about your response to your question and the feedback received, it seems like you might not be linking this emotions of the impact/effect on the responder to the who/what/when/where/how the text creates meaning. Instead of "this text makes the audience sad", discuss why the text making the audience feel sad is important. Why should we care? What's the point of this? When you know the point of the author provoking an audience response, then you're on your way to discuss how the text creates meaning.

Hopefully this all makes some amount of sense, if it doesn't I'd be happy to give more specific feedback if you have an essay question / response (just pm me or post something here).
 

melanie_o

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You can say that a text makes a responder feel happy, sad, etc, and that's all good and well. But I think what you might be missing here is linking it clearly to how a text creates meaning, and why this audience reaction is so important in the first place for said meaning.

A text can create meaning in many ways. The way I think you are trying to explore is reader-response theory - essentially a focus on how the reader responds to the text as opposed to the text itself. While a text can create meaning (somewhat) in this way, being through the response it provokes from the reader, there are a lot of other ways it can create meaning too. Does it create meaning through historical connotations? Maybe it creates meaning through metaphors, or an underlying narrative. There are many ways a text can create meaning, and these are some of the ways you can talk about it. It is possible that reader-response theory simply didn't apply to the question, and it more so wanted you to talk about the text itself rather than the audience. However, if going down this path of reader-response theory is one you are able to follow, I think it would suit the understanding of the text you already have.

However, of course (as with anything in English as I'm sure you know) once you make a claim like "this text makes the audience feel sad" (or whatever it may be), you have to prove it and give the marker a reason to care. As a brief example of trying to do this; "Text XYZ has a rich intertextual historical context of the English Industrial Revolution in the 1820s, alluding to it's author's early 2000s American context. This connection thus creates meaning for its audience through the personal connections and grievous response the audience develops while reading the text, as parallels between the life of the reader and the life of the protagonist are realised through reader-response." While this is a random sentence I've just made up about an imaginary text (so it's not very good, don't judge or use this as an exemplar please lol), it does complete a kind of checklist here. It gives the who (the audience), what (meaning), when (early 2000s / 1820s), where (England / America), and the how (drawing parallels between the contexts).

From what you've said about your response to your question and the feedback received, it seems like you might not be linking this emotions of the impact/effect on the responder to the who/what/when/where/how the text creates meaning. Instead of "this text makes the audience sad", discuss why the text making the audience feel sad is important. Why should we care? What's the point of this? When you know the point of the author provoking an audience response, then you're on your way to discuss how the text creates meaning.

Hopefully this all makes some amount of sense, if it doesn't I'd be happy to give more specific feedback if you have an essay question / response (just pm me or post something here).
Thank you, this cleared up a lot of my confusion. I appreciate it. :).
 

melanie_o

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This post regards Modern History.
Does anyone know/have advice in regards to how I can elevate my essay writing to a band 6 level. It would be a shame if I didn't achieve this, since the topics look more interesting compared to prelim!

What are some things I can do between now and the HSC Exam and Internal assessments to really stand out and achieve well?

Additionally, should I research further than what information is supplied in class, or should I trust my teacher to really prepare for all the possible content that could be assessed.

Finally, has anyone who has used Atomi for Modern found it beneficial, or would you say that it does not go into enough depth?
 

Solarised

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This post regards Modern History.
Does anyone know/have advice in regards to how I can elevate my essay writing to a band 6 level. It would be a shame if I didn't achieve this, since the topics look more interesting compared to prelim!

What are some things I can do between now and the HSC Exam and Internal assessments to really stand out and achieve well?

Additionally, should I research further than what information is supplied in class, or should I trust my teacher to really prepare for all the possible content that could be assessed.

Finally, has anyone who has used Atomi for Modern found it beneficial, or would you say that it does not go into enough depth?
Since I got full marks on my modern history essays for both my prelim and my trials for HSC, I think that the main thing is to always link back to what your talking about. Modern Hisotry does not require much analytical description as people say rather its conveying your viewpoint on a certain topic or subject. For example on how Stalin was more successful than Trotsky when taking over Bolshevik power most would take about the facts and strategies that Stalin used. Rather to stand out and be unique, talk about Stalins' intelligence and deception which is left out a lot. Also bring in Trotsky's ego and gullibility (idk if a word). This helped me achieve a rather outstanding result in Modern History for my prelims and trials. gl on your hsc

Atomi is mediocre for modern

Self study and read textbooks, also actually look into fun facts on your topics which you can integrate into your essay, showcasing background knowledge to get those extra marks.
 

melanie_o

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96
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Female
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Since I got full marks on my modern history essays for both my prelim and my trials for HSC, I think that the main thing is to always link back to what your talking about. Modern Hisotry does not require much analytical description as people say rather its conveying your viewpoint on a certain topic or subject. For example on how Stalin was more successful than Trotsky when taking over Bolshevik power most would take about the facts and strategies that Stalin used. Rather to stand out and be unique, talk about Stalins' intelligence and deception which is left out a lot. Also bring in Trotsky's ego and gullibility (idk if a word). This helped me achieve a rather outstanding result in Modern History for my prelims and trials. gl on your hsc

Atomi is mediocre for modern

Self study and read textbooks, also actually look into fun facts on your topics which you can integrate into your essay, showcasing background knowledge to get those extra marks.
Thank you! I am going to use your advice.
 

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