Memorising in English HSC (1 Viewer)

[smartguy1]

Hello, a friend was telling me that all he's gonna do for his English (Advanced) HSC is memorise essays bought off one of last year's state rankers and regurgitate it in the exam? Would this work? How likely is it that he could get caught for plagiarism? Also, what if you memorise an essay that your tutor gave your whole class and everyone in the class writes the same one for the HSC, would you get caught for plagiarism? Also, do lots of people do this?
Thanks

 

[icycledough]

Hello, a friend was telling me that all he's gonna do for his English (Advanced) HSC is memorise essays bought off one of last year's state rankers and regurgitate it in the exam? Would this work? How likely is it that he could get caught for plagiarism? Also, what if you memorise an essay that your tutor gave your whole class and everyone in the class writes the same one for the HSC, would you get caught for plagiarism?
Thanks

I'm not 100% sure if they mark it with a computerised program or by hand, but either way, what your friend is planning to do is completely unethical and may potentially place him in danger of plagiarising. This definitely won't help him as your questions will be different to last years question, so just adapting it won't be enough. What you should be doing is always using your own work and practice adapting essays to different questions or using quotes and techniques to write essays (whichever you prefer). But regardless, please don't follow your friend's footsteps, as it'll end up putting you at a major disadvantage if you end up getting caught.

 

[jimmysmith560]

Essentially, your essay should be written by you, not by someone else (whether a past student or a tutor). Memorising essays and then adapting them to answer the question more directly is a strategy used by several students. While it can result in good marks, I think that this strategy won't allow you to acheive exceptionally high marks if this is what you're aiming for (unless perhaps your analysis is of exceptionally good quality). I believe it would also be safe to assume that a state ranker's essay would have also been bought by several other students, not just your friend, which is an important thing to consider because the consequences may not be favourable if a considerable number of those students decide to incorporate that one essay into their HSC exam. The same applies to an essay given by your tutor to your whole class - don't put yourself at risk of plagiarism because similarly to the state ranker student's essay, the same may happen with your tutor's essay.

NESA deals with what they consider "minor breaches" in the following manner:

We deal with minor breaches during the marking process or with a warning. For example, if a student memorises an essay that is not their own and then reproduces it during an exam, they will usually be dealt with during the marking process.

This can result in receiving no marks for unoriginal work.

I also suggest having a look at the following links from NESA for more information:

https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/hsc/rules-and-processes/breaking-hsc-rules

https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/hsc/hsc-student-guide/taking-hsc-exams

I hope this helps!

 

[Leadmen4y]

I PERSONALLY think he'll get a horrible mark even if he memorised 100 percent of whatever essays he got.

This is because HSC questions are made to ensure students that do this never get anything above a band 2/3, for instance for 2019 HSC the question for The Crucible was on love and it blew out so many people because it was not a major theme (or really, a theme anyone prepared for honestly). But if you know your text well enough, you can adapt to any question through tweaking your ideas not regurgitating them, I think these two approaches are fundamentally different. One is where you actually understand exactly what you're trying to say while the latter is simply vomiting out premade paragraphs with a few key terms to make a tenuous effort to address the question. I'm sure HSC markers can distinguish between the two fairly easily.

I think your friend should attempt to actually understand the profound ideas of the state ranker and use them to write out notes of his own that he actually comprehends himself, otherwise he might be just wasting his time.

 

[idkkdi]

Hello, a friend was telling me that all he's gonna do for his English (Advanced) HSC is memorise essays bought off one of last year's state rankers and regurgitate it in the exam? Would this work? How likely is it that he could get caught for plagiarism? Also, what if you memorise an essay that your tutor gave your whole class and everyone in the class writes the same one for the HSC, would you get caught for plagiarism? Also, do lots of people do this?
Thanks

playing devil's advocate to everyone else here.

I don't think he would get caught. If he has decent exam technique in adapting (and has backup quotes just in case), he probably could do well. I have suspicions quite a few people in private schools do this.

The thing is memorising a state ranker's essay in and of itself would be a tough job. Different and complex personal voice, syntax, lexico, quotes, ideas and techniques. It already takes a great amount of time learning to emulate certain things people do in good essays. I would imagine rote memorising would be just as time consuming.

 

[iflyjl]

Honestly, i feel like he won't get caught tbh as long as he correctly addresses the question lol
ngl i've personally memorised essays (written by me) and i know so many other students who do this as well and from what i know, everyone is doing pre good (above average) and someone is even like top 10? I do it cuz it gives me a sense of like reassurance and it allows me to save time in writing rather then pausing and thinking. E.g. In my previous assessment block about mod a (comparative essay), i talked to a friend who doesn't memorise essays but rather memorises the techniques and analysis and she told me that she didn't end up finishing her essay and wrote 2 body paragraphs instead of like 3/4. its just personal preference imo

 

[zizi2003_]

Hello, a friend was telling me that all he's gonna do for his English (Advanced) HSC is memorise essays bought off one of last year's state rankers and regurgitate it in the exam? Would this work? How likely is it that he could get caught for plagiarism? Also, what if you memorise an essay that your tutor gave your whole class and everyone in the class writes the same one for the HSC, would you get caught for plagiarism? Also, do lots of people do this?
Thanks

The mindset of rote learning and regurgitating pre-written essays was comforting until I actually started doing practice essays and realised that I never really used the memorised essays/paragraphs, because none of them explicitly addressed the question and/or my thesis. Since this is Adv Eng, memorising an essay would probably land one a mid band 5 at most, in my opinion.
I'd personally recommend against memorising essays, especially those written by others because not only is that highly unethical but also like idkkdi mentioned, it's be really difficult to adapt a style of writing completely different to yours in an exam situation (unless you have practised doing so multiple times).

 

[tito981]

i know ppl who have copied essays from the person who was topping english in my school, most of them got 91-93 externally, i dont think you can get a high b6 with a memorised essay but you can definitely get a satisfactory mark, which is good if you dont care about english.

 

[notme123]

I'm 1000% sure there are state rankers that memorized essays. Personally, I think they would've just gotten lucky so what I do is always prepare backup paragraphs. From what I've seen from other people's actual HSC papers they bought back for English, their topic sentences link to the question while their bodies are regurgitated and have slight links to the q and they get 20/20. You just have to be very clever in how you link it to the question.

Quote from SMH study guide about state ranker in X1 and X2 last year:
Another study strategy that Eszter (State ranker) believes helped her achieve high marks was typing and editing model essays that she had written. She did this before she tried to write essays under exam conditions.
"Your standard of writing will inevitably drop under exam conditions so, to keep my standard high, I spent most of my preparation time writing and then typing up fully rendered, edited, word count-conscious paragraphs that I actually felt proud of.”

 

[icycledough]

Can someone explain what is the point of memorising essays, because there's a really slim chance of the same exact question appearing in an exam right?

I mean memorising quotes, analysis, etc seems reasonable but a whole essay doesn't really make sense

Pretty much yes, it's definitely better to understand your texts and then memorize quotes, techniques, analysis (all of which will form your paragraphs when put together, along with topic sentences). People tend to memorize essays because if they have practice adapting it to any type of question, they can put this to use in their exam. However, when the question isn't relevant to your 'pre-prepared' essay at all, this is when they tend to run into trouble, as what they have written doesn't address the question at all, one of the main criteria markers look for when marking essays. Also, some people don't have the ability to 'create' an essay simply from quotes and analysis, so feel the need to remember essays to help them.

 

[notme123]

Can someone explain what is the point of memorising essays, because there's a really slim chance of the same exact question appearing in an exam right?

I mean memorising quotes, analysis, etc seems reasonable but a whole essay doesn't really makes sense

That's why people don't memorize correctly. You never memorize an essay that's answering a question you make an adaptable one with 'fill in the blanks'. In the English advanced course tbh this is most applicable to Mod A questions cuz at their crux they're all the same. Mod B is probably a bit harder to do but still doable, while with Mod C you take a gamble with a few creatives and discursive and hope they fit. To maximise your chances, make your pieces about power of literature

 

[idkkdi]

Can someone explain what is the point of memorising essays, because there's a really slim chance of the same exact question appearing in an exam right?

I mean memorising quotes, analysis, etc seems reasonable but a whole essay doesn't really makes sense

i don't memorise per se. but knowing how my essay structure goes and the vocab really gives a sense of rhythm during an exam.

e.g. in my intro and bodies i would know exactly what my 1st sentence point and talks about is which leads into the 2nd and the 3rd and the 4th and 5th and ... idea thingy.

memorising 4 essays may not be worth your time. But knowing the structure in which you craft your essays and the logic behind it really well, helps to prevent that writer's block in the middle of your exam where you are stuck not knowing what to write.

basically if you only bother with quotes and analysis, when you string it together in an exam, it might not be the most cohesive and smooth flowing argument. and if you bother mapping out sample paragraphs, you might as well map out your intros and conclusions which is basically just memorising an essay at that point lol.