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Who memorises essays for english? (1 Viewer)

What strategy do you use for english exams?


  • Total voters
    199

SpiralFlex

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Year 11: didnt memorise, ranked 125 out of 180 students in english. uai estimate: 85
Year 12: memorised, 94 band 6 in english exam, hsc 99.55. winning.

also memorised exams for economics and business studies. 94, 95 band 6.

it just works.
Times have changed. The questions are getting more specific.
 

kaz1

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Yeah, ummm, I dunno how that's possible LOL

Even I managed ~13/20 without any sort of memorisation - not even directly memorisation of any specific quotes.
good for you, u r smarter than me
 

4025808

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I did a mix and match approach for the HSC. So the stuff I knew that would be generic, I would mould, perfect and memorize an essay and adapt it to the question. Other topics that seemed to be able to ask specific sections, I wrote notes on them by getting quotes, techniques, analysis and then practicing linking to the Q.

I remember a comparison between my trials and the HSC, here they were:

Trials: no memorizing of essays, just memorizing quotes + techniques. Ended up with 70/105, ranked 93/151 students.
HSC: memorized creative, memorized belonging essay that got me 14/15 in the HSC, took the mix and match approach. Raw mark of 78/105, exam mark of 89. Top 10 in the school for externals.

I even had to say that the HSC marked harder than the trials, and that the difficulty of the trials was actually easier than that of the HSC. So the school was expecting my English marks to be lower.

After all, it's about effective study too, esp. if you're shit at memorizing like me.
 

So-joo

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I listened to my teachers and didn't memorise anything for my trials
I'm pretty sure I'm going to have the shittiest marks out of the whole school now.

Dammit teachers, you're supposed to help.
 

RishBonjour

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Year 11: didnt memorise, ranked 125 out of 180 students in english. uai estimate: 85
Year 12: memorised, 94 band 6 in english exam, hsc 99.55. winning.

also memorised exams for economics and business studies. 94, 95 band 6.

it just works.

Memorised for eco? How many essays did you have to memorise?
Seems like a bit too much...
 

lonelynight99

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In response to the thread on memorising essays for english, I have created this poll to see how just how many people memorise essays for english. For the purposes of this poll/thread, a memorised approach can include:

- Memorising an essay word-for-word and re-writing it in the exam verbatim
- Memorising an essay and adapting it in the exam.
- Memorising body paragraphs and adding an introduction, conclusion and topic/linking sentences during the exam
- Any approach which requires you to memorise a sigificant proportion of a pre-written response.

Feel free to post your approach and your reasons for using it (this poll is both for people who completed the HSC as well as current and future HSC students). Just note that this thread is NOT to be a discussion on the merits of memorising as a technique (refer this http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=287753). I know its a fine line, but this thread is for you to state your approach and reasons behind it, whilst the other thread is more of a discussion on the merits of each strategy.

Do you sell Belonging notes like Skyrneyzcki?
 

Rawf

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I memorise my essay and spit my essay back in exams whilst trying to mould my arguments around the question. However, I tend to do crap in english either way..
In year 11 I never memorised my essays, but since year 12 I've started to and tbh, I'm getting the exact same marks 12 or 13/20. I do spend a lot of time trying to write my essays and formulate arguments, word everything nicely that makes SENSE to me. However, my school favours 'higher order' language and tends to give higher marks to those who can use it. My vocabulary is quite limited so I can't exactly compete with my grade :(
 

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