What if one should fail a preliminary exam? (1 Viewer)

[dabatman]

Hi,

A friend of mine just finished his preliminary yearly exam for Adv. English last week, and he felt like he failed one of his essays (he couldn't finish one and the other sounds bad). He wanted me to ask for him, "Has anyone ever experienced this but managed to make up to this in year 12, specifically if whether they are really smart or attend a selective school (he attends a selective school ranked in the 30s), or if they achieved a high Atar in the high 90s?".

It'll be great if you guys could answer this and give advice at the same time, cause he sounds super stressed and depressed.

Also, he wanted me to ask if people find memorising whole essays, paragraphs, or thesis and quotes to prepare for an english exam better. Which is more convenient?

Thanks in advanced

 

[dabatman]

anyone else?

 

[fan96]

Screwups in Year 11 usually don't carry over to Year 12 so it's not a huge deal. It happens all the time, including to people in selective schools (it happened to me too in the HYs). The important thing is that you make an effort to improve so you don't have a repeat in the HSC (where it does matter).

Also, how you felt you did in an exam can be a lot different to how you actually did... especially in subjects like English.

If he gets a bad mark, your friend should think about why he got that mark and what he could do to improve it next time.

As for essays, I don't like memorising whole essays because it's not very flexible (I prefer memorising quotes and relying on a decent understanding of the text). If it's an essay on different texts then you could probably get away with it fine since the question is going to be somewhat general, but if it's a single text like Shakespeare you'll get more specific questions and that may or may not screw you up.

 

[dabatman]

Screwups in Year 11 usually don't carry over to Year 12 so it's not a huge deal. It happens all the time, including to people in selective schools (it happened to me too in the HYs). The important thing is that you make an effort to improve so you don't have a repeat in the HSC (where it does matter).

Also, how you felt you did in an exam can be a lot different to how you actually did... especially in subjects like English.

If he gets a bad mark, your friend should think about why he got that mark and what he could do to improve it next time.

As for essays, I don't like memorising whole essays because it's not very flexible (I prefer memorising quotes and relying on a decent understanding of the text). If it's an essay on different texts then you could probably get away with it fine since the question is going to be somewhat general, but if it's a single text like Shakespeare you'll get more specific questions and that may or may not screw you up.

Thanks for the advice. If you don't mind me asking, by 'screw up' are you referring to failing like lower then 50% or not in the A range

 

[fan96]

Thanks for the advice. If you don't mind me asking, by 'screw up' are you referring to failing like lower then 50% or not in the A range

I messed up in Maths HYs. I did technically get ~40% but it's probably not as bad as it sounds. The student-made memes that teachers hung up in a Maths classroom are a testament to how jarring the test was; I think our class average was below 50% as well and the best marks in the year topped out around 60%.

Regardless of that my mark relative to everyone else was still poor, I ended up placing near the bottom of the class and around the average of the class below.

 

[dabatman]

I messed up in Maths HYs. I did technically get ~40% but it's probably not as bad as it sounds. The student-made memes that teachers hung up in a Maths classroom are a testament to how jarring the test was; I think our class average was below 50% as well and the best marks in the year topped out around 60%.

Regardless of that my mark relative to everyone else was still poor, I ended up placing near the bottom of the class and around the average of the class below.

Thanks again for your advice and past experiences

 

[Frostguard]

I personally messed up on my Advanced English exam too (it was 25%, 5% AOS (30 marks) 20% Module C (20 marks)) I messed up because I didn't write enough and spend enough time on my Module C, but I at least wanted to make an effort and answer my belonging questions and creative (someone people didn't even write one, it's 15 marks but only worth 2.5%, so it doesn't matter anyway). I was really bummed out after English and know that my rank will severely drop (I was 3rd in HY AHHHHHHHH) but then I realised it's only Prelims. It doesn't matter if you fail Year 11, just learn from your mistakes, you're allowed to mess up in Y11 and after all, it's just a trial year and this is where we learn to adapt, develop and use the most efficient study methods to bring into Year 12 and succeed. Hopefully your friend realised like I did, that youre allowed to mess up and even though my ranking and marks will drop, it's not like I'm a drop kick anymore and my friends, peers or teachers automatically think I'm dumb, I'm still a good student and just messed up on one exam. I realised the 'irrelevance' (not really but what you get what I mean) of Year 11 and my performance in my English exams and refused to allow that mentality to bring down my other subjects. I'm not really in a high ranked school but the people in my cohort would consider me smart and even though I'll probably get a bad mark, it's ok, no one will care and it's just Prelims.

As for the second question, it depends on your ability to impromptu and mold your essay, I personally can't do it myself, but my friends can and it's totally your own strength or skill, but I do remember my thesis and quotes and can apply them to the essay question. If your friend can memorise essays and mold it to answer the essay question, then he can very well use that instead. If not, just remember quotes and your overall general thesis that can be adapted to the current essay question.