harrypotterfan
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2012
- Messages
- 77
- Gender
- Female
- HSC
- 2014
Hey guys, I’m HPF (because I know it must be very hard to read my username 
) and because I was taking some time off from study, I thought I’d use it to put up some things about English Advanced.
First up, my credentials: Well I have none LOL. I just did the English HSC less than a week ago so yup nothing to say. But having finished school and having completed the exam, I do feel like there are some things that worked for me over the year or that in retrospect I think “omg I should have done that instead” and I thought I’d share it for the 2015ers, 2016ers (and any other younger grades if you guys exist on BOS)—more so as passing down my experience than so much “this is how you approach things”.
Because I have no credentials (plus because I am not too sure about my own HSC performance in English), you’re fully allowed to throw anything I say down the drain and/or offer my ‘advice’ the harshest feedback. Use your judgment and your discretion at what you want to take away. What I feel may have worked for me may actually not me the right thing, inb4 didn’t “work for me” at all and I get a Band 4 in English. These are simply things that helped me gain marks internally—to give a general idea I came equal first (according to head teacher, internally they considered me as second) for Advanced English at a top 5 school.
The structure of HSC English: So in case you guys don’t know (if you’re a 2015er I really hope you do… lol), the English external assessment involves two examinations: Paper 1 and Paper 2.
Paper 1 consists of 3 sections: comprehension (15 marks), creative (15 marks) and extended response (usually an essay, worth 15 marks). The ‘theme’ of this section is the Area of Study, so ‘Discovery’ from 2015.
Paper 2 consists of 3 sections as well: Module A (20 marks), Module B (20 marks) and Module C (also 20 marks).
You have 2 hours for each of the examinations.
Dealing with HSC English:
I know it drives many people insane that there appears to be no work: marks ratio in English, and this is probably the most infuriating thing about the subject. I understand that its probably the most annoying thing in the world when some people who are just naturally better at reading, or like better writers or whatever get better marks when others don’t because of this unfair advantage in life. Or maybe you feel like you don’t “get” how to study the subject (something it took me quite a while to figure out too), and that’s perfectly normal because lets face it: the syllabus is vague, subject is subjective (haha) and marks seem to be awarded based on the colour of the marker’s shirt.
I’ve noticed that there are two main approaches to HSC English that have been proven to work, but both have a common base. Before I get into what these approaches are, let me explain what the ‘base’ is.
It’s essentially a thorough understanding of what is expected of you. So many of the all-rounder students who seem to be good at every single subject except English seem to be this way because they don’t know what’s expected. And of course, I don’t consider myself a “top student” or like “really good at English” (I haven’t even finished my hsc yet, let alone gotten results for it), but I do think that I’ve somewhat figured out what they want. Here these things are:
- An ability to propose an argument. The subject is not so much about the fundamentals of English language as it is about literature… and if you look up any literature/theology subject in university you’ll notice that the key aims are analysing, critically thinking and communicating. This is something I realised during the two week holiday between year 11 and year 12—and I think this is the most important thing about English. Like yeah sure some of the things that you have to ‘analyse’ and ‘think about’ are just plain stupid, but that’s what the subject wants you to do and if you want to get a good English mark you MUST do those things. They want you to formulate an argument—simply recounting your texts or providing a synopsis will not be enough. This is an area I particularly like arguing (haha) with people about (whether you need a ‘unique original’ argument to be in top band) and I shall explain my views later when I have more time.
- An ability to provide evidence for your argument: anyone who’s done any history will know that this is very true—you can’t say “this event changed the lives of millions of people” without arguing how it did so, and explaining this with concrete evidence e.g. “800 people died and more than 1600 were injured, which contributed immensely to the significance of this day”—like can you see how the evidence makes things more believable? You’re not Obama, no one is going to take your word for things just because you said so. You must provide evidence.
In English, this evidence is in the form of QUOTES and TECHNIQUES. It is imperative that you be able to quote effectively and meaningfully from your texts, and to provide suitable techniques for them, because quotes without techniques are ‘empty quotes’ and borderline on storytelling.
So make sure that you
a) Learn your basic techniques really well (you should be able to see any set of words and immediately think “omg a simile!!!!!!!!!!!” Basic techniques are the ones that you’re probably familiar with from junior school and even primary school, and include things such as similes and metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia etc
b) Learn techniques specific to your medium: I think this is a distinguishing factor between essays—an understanding of textual form. So learn techniques specific to your text, e.g. if you’re studying a play such as Shakespeare’s stuff, use techniques such as soliloquy, aside, exposition etc. If you’re talking about a film, use techniques such as montage, misc-en-scene etc.
c) Learn some more ‘complex’ techniques as the need demands it. How you convey your argument is entirely dependent on the evidence that you provide, so better evidence (i.e. techniques) = stronger argument. I would really recommend (from personal experience, especially) to look up some theories that are traditionally relevant to your arguments. Examples include more sophisticated techniques (e.g. pathetic fallacy etc), as well as an understanding of some things relevant to your text. An example of this is my research on Hamlet. I looked up the Aristotelian tragedy and noticed that there were several key elements to it, such as exposition, denouement etc. Now proceed to use those words, e.g. “Hamlet’s exposition stresses…” rather than simply “Hamlet said”—the event itself becomes kind of like a technique. I’m not sure if I made sense in this one, so I will reword this later if I have time, meanwhile ask me if you have any questions.
- An ability to effectively communicate your argument. So you may have the most sophisticated argument ever, but no one’s going to know about it (and hence no marks) until you say it. It’s not so much a competition of who has the most fancy language (my essays have pretty simplistic language tbh, so I can’t say anything here LOL), but more so whether you can convey the point you want to eloquently and clearly. Eloquent language is different to fancy words: its more so to do with the phrasing and your syntax, the way you express your ideas. I shall expand on this later.
- A careful analysis of the syllabus (I shall provide my personal dissection of the discovery rubric later)—I shall explain this in more detail later too.
The APPROACHES to HSC English: from my observations, there have been 3 successful methods of approaching HSC English. You must choose the method which is the most appropriate for you. Experiment where you can at home, rather than come to exam time and feel underprepared etc. There will obviously be other approaches, and if you have a method that works for you, then definitely do stick with it. Don’t worry if people are going “it’s not going to work”, they don’t know anything. You do, and you’re the boss—if it works it works. These are the ones that I think are most commonly done:
- Method 1: the Generic Essay Method
- Method 2: the Quotes and Techniques Method (my fave <3)
- Method 3: the Memorise and Select Paragraphs Method (similar to method 1)
I shall describe these in more detail in my next post, what they entail and how to use the methods effectively. Later I shall also be decoding the discovery rubric, but now I must get back to study LOL because I need an ATAR.
Hope I can help out somehow though. As I said before, I have no idea of my English abilities as of yet because I have not received my results and I’m honestly not sure how I did in HSC. This is just a collection of my positive and negative experiences which I hope you guys can use to your advantage
) and because I was taking some time off from study, I thought I’d use it to put up some things about English Advanced. First up, my credentials: Well I have none LOL. I just did the English HSC less than a week ago so yup nothing to say. But having finished school and having completed the exam, I do feel like there are some things that worked for me over the year or that in retrospect I think “omg I should have done that instead” and I thought I’d share it for the 2015ers, 2016ers (and any other younger grades if you guys exist on BOS)—more so as passing down my experience than so much “this is how you approach things”.
Because I have no credentials (plus because I am not too sure about my own HSC performance in English), you’re fully allowed to throw anything I say down the drain and/or offer my ‘advice’ the harshest feedback. Use your judgment and your discretion at what you want to take away. What I feel may have worked for me may actually not me the right thing, inb4 didn’t “work for me” at all and I get a Band 4 in English. These are simply things that helped me gain marks internally—to give a general idea I came equal first (according to head teacher, internally they considered me as second) for Advanced English at a top 5 school.
The structure of HSC English: So in case you guys don’t know (if you’re a 2015er I really hope you do… lol), the English external assessment involves two examinations: Paper 1 and Paper 2.
Paper 1 consists of 3 sections: comprehension (15 marks), creative (15 marks) and extended response (usually an essay, worth 15 marks). The ‘theme’ of this section is the Area of Study, so ‘Discovery’ from 2015.
Paper 2 consists of 3 sections as well: Module A (20 marks), Module B (20 marks) and Module C (also 20 marks).
You have 2 hours for each of the examinations.
Dealing with HSC English:
I know it drives many people insane that there appears to be no work: marks ratio in English, and this is probably the most infuriating thing about the subject. I understand that its probably the most annoying thing in the world when some people who are just naturally better at reading, or like better writers or whatever get better marks when others don’t because of this unfair advantage in life. Or maybe you feel like you don’t “get” how to study the subject (something it took me quite a while to figure out too), and that’s perfectly normal because lets face it: the syllabus is vague, subject is subjective (haha) and marks seem to be awarded based on the colour of the marker’s shirt.
I’ve noticed that there are two main approaches to HSC English that have been proven to work, but both have a common base. Before I get into what these approaches are, let me explain what the ‘base’ is.
It’s essentially a thorough understanding of what is expected of you. So many of the all-rounder students who seem to be good at every single subject except English seem to be this way because they don’t know what’s expected. And of course, I don’t consider myself a “top student” or like “really good at English” (I haven’t even finished my hsc yet, let alone gotten results for it), but I do think that I’ve somewhat figured out what they want. Here these things are:
- An ability to propose an argument. The subject is not so much about the fundamentals of English language as it is about literature… and if you look up any literature/theology subject in university you’ll notice that the key aims are analysing, critically thinking and communicating. This is something I realised during the two week holiday between year 11 and year 12—and I think this is the most important thing about English. Like yeah sure some of the things that you have to ‘analyse’ and ‘think about’ are just plain stupid, but that’s what the subject wants you to do and if you want to get a good English mark you MUST do those things. They want you to formulate an argument—simply recounting your texts or providing a synopsis will not be enough. This is an area I particularly like arguing (haha) with people about (whether you need a ‘unique original’ argument to be in top band) and I shall explain my views later when I have more time.
- An ability to provide evidence for your argument: anyone who’s done any history will know that this is very true—you can’t say “this event changed the lives of millions of people” without arguing how it did so, and explaining this with concrete evidence e.g. “800 people died and more than 1600 were injured, which contributed immensely to the significance of this day”—like can you see how the evidence makes things more believable? You’re not Obama, no one is going to take your word for things just because you said so. You must provide evidence.
In English, this evidence is in the form of QUOTES and TECHNIQUES. It is imperative that you be able to quote effectively and meaningfully from your texts, and to provide suitable techniques for them, because quotes without techniques are ‘empty quotes’ and borderline on storytelling.
So make sure that you
a) Learn your basic techniques really well (you should be able to see any set of words and immediately think “omg a simile!!!!!!!!!!!” Basic techniques are the ones that you’re probably familiar with from junior school and even primary school, and include things such as similes and metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia etc
b) Learn techniques specific to your medium: I think this is a distinguishing factor between essays—an understanding of textual form. So learn techniques specific to your text, e.g. if you’re studying a play such as Shakespeare’s stuff, use techniques such as soliloquy, aside, exposition etc. If you’re talking about a film, use techniques such as montage, misc-en-scene etc.
c) Learn some more ‘complex’ techniques as the need demands it. How you convey your argument is entirely dependent on the evidence that you provide, so better evidence (i.e. techniques) = stronger argument. I would really recommend (from personal experience, especially) to look up some theories that are traditionally relevant to your arguments. Examples include more sophisticated techniques (e.g. pathetic fallacy etc), as well as an understanding of some things relevant to your text. An example of this is my research on Hamlet. I looked up the Aristotelian tragedy and noticed that there were several key elements to it, such as exposition, denouement etc. Now proceed to use those words, e.g. “Hamlet’s exposition stresses…” rather than simply “Hamlet said”—the event itself becomes kind of like a technique. I’m not sure if I made sense in this one, so I will reword this later if I have time, meanwhile ask me if you have any questions.
- An ability to effectively communicate your argument. So you may have the most sophisticated argument ever, but no one’s going to know about it (and hence no marks) until you say it. It’s not so much a competition of who has the most fancy language (my essays have pretty simplistic language tbh, so I can’t say anything here LOL), but more so whether you can convey the point you want to eloquently and clearly. Eloquent language is different to fancy words: its more so to do with the phrasing and your syntax, the way you express your ideas. I shall expand on this later.
- A careful analysis of the syllabus (I shall provide my personal dissection of the discovery rubric later)—I shall explain this in more detail later too.
The APPROACHES to HSC English: from my observations, there have been 3 successful methods of approaching HSC English. You must choose the method which is the most appropriate for you. Experiment where you can at home, rather than come to exam time and feel underprepared etc. There will obviously be other approaches, and if you have a method that works for you, then definitely do stick with it. Don’t worry if people are going “it’s not going to work”, they don’t know anything. You do, and you’re the boss—if it works it works. These are the ones that I think are most commonly done:
- Method 1: the Generic Essay Method
- Method 2: the Quotes and Techniques Method (my fave <3)
- Method 3: the Memorise and Select Paragraphs Method (similar to method 1)
I shall describe these in more detail in my next post, what they entail and how to use the methods effectively. Later I shall also be decoding the discovery rubric, but now I must get back to study LOL because I need an ATAR.
Hope I can help out somehow though. As I said before, I have no idea of my English abilities as of yet because I have not received my results and I’m honestly not sure how I did in HSC. This is just a collection of my positive and negative experiences which I hope you guys can use to your advantage
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