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To memorise or not to memorise (1 Viewer)

HyperComplexxx

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I have memorised all the techniques, quotes, effects of the texts I am using for english but have yet to write it out in essay format. Would it be a wise thing to do this only or should i write out an essay and remember it?
 

4025808

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I have memorised all the techniques, quotes, effects of the texts I am using for english but have yet to write it out in essay format. Would it be a wise thing to do this only or should i write out an essay and remember it?
Practice writing sample essays imo. if you have to memorize an essay, make it a very generic one with 1.2K words (so you can chuck out some of it on the day) so that you can adapt it onto the question on the day
 

Glorious

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If you know all your stuff already, there's no point. It's the same thing I guess? Just write it out in essay format in the HSC, and that's enough.
 

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Although to be honest, unless if you're a good memorizer, don't bother writing a generic essay, since itll be a hell lot of a work to memorize 4 essays, given that there's less then 6 days left until paper 1 :(
 
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I'd say only if you've done it before and know it suits you, but really you've got all the important stuff memorised that you'll need on the day so you should be fine, just make sure it stays there :)
 

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Oo crap forgot bout creative writing......................
if you really wanna do well in that, then I suggest memorize that and practice linking to the stimulus. I suggest most people should do that because for most people, writing a creative off scratch will give them shitty marks.
 

HyperComplexxx

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I'd say only if you've done it before and know it suits you, but really you've got all the important stuff memorised that you'll need on the day so you should be fine, just make sure it stays there :)
Yea i did it before and scored 18, 19 for my trials and the one i memorised i got 16 lol
O yea and whats the possibility of getting a band 6 given my school is in the 170s, i came 1st in Std
 

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If you look through the Marking notes of past years exams it is clear that they do not regard prepared responses well. Such responses never fully engage with the question and will result in lower marks. It's fairly obvious to a marker when a response has been memorised.

It's not worth it. The best way to prepare is to just learn your stuff.


The Board's view:

Prepared responses
Students should not expect that HSC examinations will support the use of answers prepared in advance.
Students should know that HSC questions are not designed to support answers prepared in advance. It is important that teachers prepare students to answer the questions they encounter in the examination, rather than anticipating a particular type of question and memorising an answer to suit.
Students must also understand that partially modifying an otherwise irrelevant memorised response will not lead to high marks. Again in 2010, supervisors of marking noted that some students tried unsuccessfully to fit prepared, memorised answers into questions without addressing the requirements of the question.
In addition, if students submit a prepared response that borrows heavily from the thoughts or words of others, they are breaching examination rules and may be penalised.
 

TorMental

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I don't know why the discourage 'prepared responses'. In what way will they actually know it is one. Its quite difficult to assume that one is, and they are only factoring in one variable - that they dont address 'the requirements of the question'. The common thing is - 'all bad essays = prepared' (apparently).

An essay in english is 'technique, quote, meaning, LINKAGE'. You can memorise your specific quotes you are going to use 'universally' and pre-fix them into a paragraph - thats fine. You can just memorise the technique, quote and linkage - why not? Thats fine, but pray that it all 'comes together' in the exam.

The moral of the story is - Do what you will, but make sure you 'address the question'. In the end of the day, everyone is 'memorising technique, quotes and meaning' - which is fundamentally what a prepared essay is. So BOS is calling people who don't address the question as stupid, and shifting the blame on prepared essays.
 

4025808

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I don't know why the discourage 'prepared responses'. In what way will they actually know it is one. Its quite difficult to assume that one is, and they are only factoring in one variable - that they dont address 'the requirements of the question'. The common thing is - 'all bad essays = prepared' (apparently).

An essay in english is 'technique, quote, meaning, LINKAGE'. You can memorise your specific quotes you are going to use 'universally' and pre-fix them into a paragraph - thats fine. You can just memorise the technique, quote and linkage - why not? Thats fine, but pray that it all 'comes together' in the exam.

The moral of the story is - Do what you will, but make sure you 'address the question'. In the end of the day, everyone is 'memorising technique, quotes and meaning' - which is fundamentally what a prepared essay is. So BOS is calling people who don't address the question as stupid, and shifting the blame on prepared essays.
I affirm with this.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to TorMental again.
:(

Also if you are writing a generic essay, make sure you have well enough to write, so that on the day, you can dispose the stuff that you consider irrelevant to the question that's been given on hand. I suggest write around 1.5K words, and then maybe dropping 700 words of what you consider irrelevant for that particular question. But make sure at the beginning and end of each paragraph, link!!! Also note that the quote, technique and analysis have to link in some way to the question as well.

So basically what I am saying is that even if you memorize a response, make sure on the day, that what you write is relevant to the question (even in the middle of the paragraphs).
 

herbs1

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If you look through the Marking notes of past years exams it is clear that they do not regard prepared responses well. Such responses never fully engage with the question and will result in lower marks. It's fairly obvious to a marker when a response has been memorised.

It's not worth it. The best way to prepare is to just learn your stuff.


The Board's view:
Rafy is so right. Look at the standard packages/the responses you can buy. They aren't that good. They're 6 BOS pages (like, probs just under 1000 total), and they offer nothing superb or whatever. But fuck, they link to the question so well. Continual references throughout, as if the whole essay was planned just for it. Thats what gets the marks.
 

SpreadTheWord

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Don't memorise essays, just create your paragraphs for each ideas and mold them to the question. I might be contradicting myself a little here. Plus you still have time to do an essay, and to learn it. For example, in five minutes i learnt half my creative writing. Although i do have a slight photographic memory, and thus i can picture it on the paper/sheet.
 

jamesfirst

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No point memorising an essay now looooool


exams in less than a week
 

MrBrightside

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If you look through the Marking notes of past years exams it is clear that they do not regard prepared responses well. Such responses never fully engage with the question and will result in lower marks. It's fairly obvious to a marker when a response has been memorised.

It's not worth it. The best way to prepare is to just learn your stuff.


The Board's view:
By learn you're stuff, what do you mean? I can only learn so many quotes you know.

this is how I learn

I memorise my

-Structure
-Themes
-Quotes for each paragraph

And on the day I read the question and embed the question into my introduction and throughout my essays.

It works most of the time. It's just really hard when the question has nothing to do with my selected quotes. That's when it gets tricky :/
 

taeyang

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hey hey hey come on now guys, OP should realise that you can still get an easy band 6 with memorized responses IF and only if he can shape it to the question. There have been plenty of people who have memorized essays and come at the top, my bro for example, he memorized ONE essay for each module and got 97. Oh well I think it's a good idea but you can do what you want.
 

jamesfirst

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If you look through the Marking notes of past years exams it is clear that they do not regard prepared responses well. Such responses never fully engage with the question and will result in lower marks. It's fairly obvious to a marker when a response has been memorised.

It's not worth it. The best way to prepare is to just learn your stuff.
But so many people got band 6 who prepared one. Some people got state ranks because it.


why ??? haha
 

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