Creative writing (2 Viewers)

[Sleiphnir]

Yeah that would be more reasonable giving people the choice. When I used to handwrite stuff my hand would get so incredibly sore - now with typing my fingers/knuckles get sore and my wrists because they give us these fat laptops. So still not great.

 

[nwatts]

Acquiring laptops for the thousands of students doing the HSC would be really expensive and I think handwriting the exams is still better (a lot of people have trouble typing fast + well so it would disadvantage them)

Uhh no. You don't need laptops. Use school desktop computers. There'd easily be enough for each batch of HSC exams.

Typing = the future of word processing. People who can't type quickly need to learn or become amish.

 

[ellejay145]

"Uhh no. You don't need laptops. Use school desktop computers. There'd easily be enough for each batch of HSC exams.

Typing = the future of word processing. People who can't type quickly need to learn or become amish."

Hahah i like your way of thinking.
One question, about the sore hand thing; would the type of pen i use affect it, 'cause my hands and wrists were overly sore after the trials and i was using a plastic pen, those cheapo types.
If the people at the BOS were really smart, they would develop some type of system which would allow you to speak what you wanted to write for each essay; eliminating the problem of not being able to write fast enough for what your thinking, eliminating the problem of sore hands and also carpul tunnel syndrome (hahah excuse me, i dont know how to spell), and also eliminating the problem that people with either no hands or problems with their hands have when having to do exams. The only thing they would have to cater for them is people who cant speak.

 

[nwatts]

speaking and writing are two different brain processes.

try for fun dictating an essay or creative work and see how absurdly different/difficult it is.

 

[ellejay145]

That's true. They should just abolish HSC examinations altogether; they arent a true test of people's intellect, they are a test of how well people perform under pressure. Toodles

 

[nwatts]

hsc exams never pretend to measure intellect

 

[ellejay145]

i thought that's what they were all about. ranking you out of the whole state in terms of your ability to perform academically in both your assessments but also in the actual exam. im just bitter because my head is about to explode from study

 

[madelyn]

I'm trying to prepare some ideas I could use in the exam - I have a feature article and narrative idea, unfortunately neither of them would translate well into an interview. Does anyone have any "Journey" interview ideas? I can only think of blatantly obvious stuff that I really don't want to use (i.e. interviewing mountaineers)

 

[ellejay145]

It is good that you are trying to prepare, but i honestly don't think that they will narrow down the creative writing section to that extent; i think they will just ask you to do your own creative piece, and thus you can choose what that style of writing is.

 

[n@ttyb]

i hope they do a journal... cause thats what im preparing for lol

 

[Nick_kirk]

Thinking about it, its pretty hard for them to give anything other than a journal or a general creative writing task. They would never specify poetry for one, and if you think about it, trying to interview someone about a story would be dumb and it would just end up a normal story but with occasional interjections and a intro and conclusion. They are generally based on very minimal prompting and stimuli.

I have a couple ideas and a few passages which I commonly use to describe emotions and a couple plot lines.

1) Drowning - I have almost drowned a few times, its a very interesting experience and an awesome imaginative journey. You go through a number of stages - pretty much all of the typical dealing with death stages - and they are actually catalysed by thought patterns in your mind. Its pretty much the definition of an imaginative journey.

This is my main original idea. My other ones are inspired by movies and the like.

2) Murder - Death Note style. The killing is a very small part of the story, in fact, its only a couple lines, but then the protagonist has to deal with, once again all the different stages of death and the internal desire to kill again. If I have time it goes into a more intellectual battle.

3) Journal - plot driven time travel-y thing - basically goes back in time by for each entry and tries to make sense of events that were originally really simple - in forwards mode - but it brings light to the things you take for granted in life.


Which one sounds the best, any feedback or suggestions are good.

 

[n@ttyb]

the drowning one sounds allright, since uve experienced it and thus could go into detail.

 

[ellejay145]

All of them sound alright, all you have to keep in mind is not to make it melodramtic. Markers hate melodrama, and they absolutely adore small storylines .. once we were given a piece of text as stimulus .. this person was in the attic and he found a postcard from africa.. people were sending him to africa and stuff .. tresure hunts .. and our teacher told us that her idea of a perfect story for that situation was for him to stay in the attic, and perhaps remember something small that happened in the past.
If you keep the storyline small it enables you to develop a character that is individual and creative, and also enables the markers to see your creative abilities.