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Sorta similar but our school doesn't let us do ext2 unless we have at least 11 unitsis 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 schoolis 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
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.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.
Thank you, this cleared up a lot of my confusion. I appreciate it.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).
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 hscThis 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?
Thank you! I am going to use your advice.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.
tutoring if you have money, asking teachers for as much feedback as you can if youre broke. tip from me; when you have to do the multimodal component, use as many images as you can, preferably of those 'deep' boomer memes. i think i did an image every 15 seconds. also annotate ur quote and throw it up for a bit, my teachers liked that.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.
not usually that many, but if ur counting on the fact that u get everything else right, I can guarantee u that's not gonna end well for u.Does anyone know approximately what percent of the Maths Extension 1 exam covers preliminary content? Would it mostly be year 12 content, or could it even be possible for a large portion of the exam to be preliminary content? I am just concerned because I suck at perms + combs and I'm praying that there is not more than 6 marks on it next year.![]()
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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?
--See next post for part 2.
Thank you for all of this. The attention to detail is much appreciated! Good luck on your Ancient exam. Sending positive aura to you--
PART 2: Writing essay responses
Now in regards to writing essay responses. That stupid 25 marker. Or in the case of the Modern History, those two stupid 25 markers (makes me quite grateful that I only have one of them in the Ancient paper).
The samples NESA gives are generally not that great (quoting several of my teachers here), so while they can be good to look at for an idea of structure, you shouldn't really use them as exemplars. I still think it's good to look at essays other people have done (NESA provided or not), however the best exemplar you can get is writing one of your own. I know this sounds a bit silly to say (like just write your own exemplar?? it's not that easy...), but by consistently submitting practise responses to your teacher for marking, you'll not only eventually get to a band 6 standard (assuming you take on board feedback received of course), but you'll also feel so much more confident in your ability to write a good essay, making you feel more relaxed in the exam, and ultimately write better.
A big thing about essays in history is that you will always have to make a judgement about something, and then prove it. The question will most commonly ask you to "assess", or say "how significant, or "how successful", or "why", or "which was", or "to what extent". The thing that connects all of those, is that YOU have to decide what viewpoint you want to take, and then prove it. Making this judgement is crucial to a good essay - otherwise, you're not answering the question. The trick with history essays in this regard, is that once you make this judgement, you need to call back to it constantly. Every piece of evidence, every argument, every topic sentence, EVERYTHING needs to back up your initial thesis. If your evidence doesn't link to your argument, then there's no point putting it in your essay - info-dumping will get you absolutely nowhere. So make sure your thesis answers the question, and that your entire essay proves the thesis. This succinctness and precision with which you are answering the question at every turn is key to achieve a band 6 essay.
In regards to your evidence - your essay needs to be littered with it. Go back to the basic PEEL structure you probably learnt in Year 4 or so - Point, Explain, Example, Link. Everything in your essay should fit into one of these four subdivisions. Every point you make needs to be backed up by evidence, and every piece of evidence you put out needs to be linked to your argument and ultimately your overall essay judgement/thesis. History essays should be dense - you don't have a lot of time to write them, so make every word count.
To achieve a band 6 essay, especially a high band 6 essay, you also need to use different types of evidence in your response. I'm not as sure of what some of these entail for modern history (I'm sure there are some crossovers and some differences), but for Ancient, these include things like inscriptions, ancient historians opinions/perspectives, monuments/architecture, tablets, writings, modern historical research, and scholarly opinions. These last two - the commentary and perspectives of expert scholars in the field, is an important type of evidence for a Band 6 essay that is often overlooked. Including it in your essay screams "I know what I'm talking about, I have done amazing research, I am a band 6 student". HSC markers LOVE when you include modern scholars opinions - usually done in the form of a name (of the scholar) and a quote (generally taken from a paper they have written). Get familiar with some of the prominent modern scholars in your areas of study, and learn some versatile quotes from them that you can incorporate into your essay. While these quotes shouldn't make up the entirety of your argument (you don't just want to copy someone's paper entirely), said quotes are super good for supporting and validating your arguments. To summarise: use modern scholars to give you an extra edge!!!
Now in regard to practising essays. I personally find essays a lot harder to practise than short responses, simply because of the time required to practise them (45 minutes can quickly turn into one hour, then two, and suddenly my entire day is gone because the idea of writing a whole essay is annoyingly overwhelming). Plus, due to all the dot points you have to cover which could be potential essay questions, it's basically impossible to write out a full essay on each of these anyway (or if you do, you'll fail all your other subjects because you'll have no extra time). Instead, I'd recommend doing a lot of essay plans. Set a 5 minute timer, choose a random question from a past paper, and write out a rough essay plan. I like to do these in the forms of mind maps or a list, where I make a quick overall judgement, write the headings of my arguments, and list my supporting evidence in dot points. This is also a great revision tool to see what dot points you need to memorise more content for, or spend more time on. Doing these plans helps you be more prepared for more topics, while not taking up all your time so you can balance out Modern History with your other subjects.
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Well I didn't think I'd write quite that much, but here we are! I hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions just reply to this or shoot me a dm. Good luck with everything!
Thank you!! I'm glad it was helpfulThank you for all of this. The attention to detail is much appreciated! Good luck on your Ancient exam. Sending positive aura to you.