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March 29, 2024, 01:46:29 am

Author Topic: VCE English Question Thread  (Read 847330 times)  Share 

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literally lauren

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #75 on: February 08, 2015, 11:19:27 am »
+2
How can I practice for essays? People say do paragraphs, do this and that... But what do I do them on? Where am i meant to get the prompts and questions from?

HERE! Apologies if your text doesn't have a wealth of resources at the moment; I'll have to wait a few months before good resources start cropping up, or people post their own. Your school should also provide you with some sample prompts when the time is right.
But at this early stage, you could quite easily just write on characters or themes to start your thinking processes. There's no reason to worry about entire essays at this stage, and so proper VCAA-style prompts might not be the way to go, as these generally need fleshing out over multiple paragraphs. Most schools will assign basic stuff like 'Discuss the role of character X' or 'Discuss the importance of theme X' for starters, and then you can gradually build up to constructing arguments later :)

Maths Forever

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #76 on: February 08, 2015, 11:23:34 am »
+2
How can I practice for essays? People say do paragraphs, do this and that... But what do I do them on? Where am i meant to get the prompts and questions from?

Is this text new to the 2015 booklist for English?

If not, past 'Engage Education Foundation' (type in Google), 'VATE', 'Insight' or 'Neap' exams are great sources for topics.

Alternatively, try typing the name of your text into Google along with the word 'topics'.

Hope this helps!
Currently studying at the University of Melbourne.

pi

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #77 on: February 08, 2015, 11:44:32 am »
+3
FYI a guy from VCAA is talking about VCE English and is there to answer questions soon (starting within the next 20mins or so?) on ABC 774, they said a podcast will be uploaded after the session but yeah just to let y'all know :)

edit: starting now!

edt2: turned out to be a fairly general discussion with some anticlimactic question, probably not worth listening to later unfortunately

edit3: the type of music that played afterwards really makes me question why I listen to this station so much lmao
« Last Edit: February 08, 2015, 12:01:09 pm by pi »

Callum@1373

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #78 on: February 08, 2015, 08:46:13 pm »
0
Hey, I notice a common theme in text response essays that are really good is that there are a lot of words to describe characters, their actions, themes etc. which I have never heard of. How do you learn to be able to find such good sophisticated words that are specific to the part of the text that you are discussing? ( I know that there is a lot more to a good TR essay apart from metalanguage, but still..)

For example, in a paragraph from someone on here i found: proclivity, amiable, pertinently, hedonistic, repartee, jovial (haha i think you get the point) :P
2015: Business Management [48]
2016: English [43] Specialist Mathematics [43] Methods [46] Chemistry [45] Biology [45]

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literally lauren

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #79 on: February 08, 2015, 11:05:56 pm »
+2
Hey, I notice a common theme in text response essays that are really good is that there are a lot of words to describe characters, their actions, themes etc. which I have never heard of. How do you learn to be able to find such good sophisticated words that are specific to the part of the text that you are discussing? ( I know that there is a lot more to a good TR essay apart from metalanguage, but still..)

For example, in a paragraph from someone on here i found: proclivity, amiable, pertinently, hedonistic, repartee, jovial (haha i think you get the point) :P

You could do what a lot of students do and just download & memorise a list of "sophisticated" words, but what I'd recommend is going through your own work (whether it's stuff from previous years, or pieces you write throughout this year) and replacing words you find yourself repeating, or believe to be too simple.
thesaurus.com is a wonderfully quick way of finding alternate words, and lets you browse their definitions.

Fair warning, you'll probably make a fair few mistakes as you adjust to words you may never have heard before, but the only way to improve vocab sophistication is to make these mistakes and learn from them. Some teachers can get frustrated when students deliberately use words they don't fully understand, but I'd argue it's the only way to improve.

After a point (esp. in actual SACs) you only want to be using language you're comfortable with, but challenge yourself early on, and you'll reap the rewards later :)

Callum@1373

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #80 on: February 09, 2015, 06:37:06 am »
0
You could do what a lot of students do and just download & memorise a list of "sophisticated" words, but what I'd recommend is going through your own work (whether it's stuff from previous years, or pieces you write throughout this year) and replacing words you find yourself repeating, or believe to be too simple.
thesaurus.com is a wonderfully quick way of finding alternate words, and lets you browse their definitions.

Fair warning, you'll probably make a fair few mistakes as you adjust to words you may never have heard before, but the only way to improve vocab sophistication is to make these mistakes and learn from them. Some teachers can get frustrated when students deliberately use words they don't fully understand, but I'd argue it's the only way to improve.

After a point (esp. in actual SACs) you only want to be using language you're comfortable with, but challenge yourself early on, and you'll reap the rewards later :)
Where were you when I chucked out my yr 10 english exams??? >:(
2015: Business Management [48]
2016: English [43] Specialist Mathematics [43] Methods [46] Chemistry [45] Biology [45]

ATAR: 99.65
NYSF Session C 2016

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http://www.callum-lowe.weebly.com

SE_JM

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #81 on: February 09, 2015, 01:40:52 pm »
0
Hello Lauren,
I was jut viewing your 'power of ink' essay. It's really good! Really, really fantastic.
I was just wondering where is the original article?
I want to give it a go before referring to your example, but i can't find the article.
Any help?

literally lauren

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #82 on: February 09, 2015, 03:18:41 pm »
+2
Where were you when I chucked out my yr 10 english exams??? >:(
Haha, don't worry about it - you'll still have this entire year to reread and fine-tune your work. And you can do the 'alternate words' exercise with any piece of writing, be they VCE English essays, or professionally written compositions. It's just a matter of finding a starting point so your exploration isn't too aimless.
eg. 'starting point' --> 'genesis' --> 'nexus' --> 'nadir' --> 'zenith'
almost like word association, but you're challenging yourself to keep the connections going with synonyms, antonyms, or just associated words.

Hello Lauren,
I was jut viewing your 'power of ink' essay. It's really good! Really, really fantastic.
I was just wondering where is the original article?
I want to give it a go before referring to your example, but i can't find the article.
Any help?
VCAA took down the 2011 exam due to an incredibly amusing copyright violation, so there aren't any copies online like there are with previous years. I do have a scanned version from my Year 12 teacher (that has my annotations and scribbles, but better than nothing) so feel free to PM me your email address and I can link you a copy.
This offer is open to anyone, by the way... even though the 2011 exam is an awful practice exercise, it's good to know just how bad the exam could get :)
« Last Edit: February 09, 2015, 04:18:10 pm by literally lauren »

Eiffel

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #83 on: February 12, 2015, 03:57:59 pm »
0
Im speaking on behalf of a friend who is doing English.

"With the oral, does doing badly/amazing affect our study score AT ALL. I mean sure it does have an affect but honestly does it mean anything? i got a 19/20 and many people in our year level got 18s-19s and couple of 20s and then those who got 15s and under, just in  terms of ranking and all that, lots of people did well including the non- academic ones who dont care (e.g. 15-16)

Maths Forever

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #84 on: February 12, 2015, 05:17:01 pm »
+1
Im speaking on behalf of a friend who is doing English.

"With the oral, does doing badly/amazing affect our study score AT ALL. I mean sure it does have an affect but honestly does it mean anything? i got a 19/20 and many people in our year level got 18s-19s and couple of 20s and then those who got 15s and under, just in  terms of ranking and all that, lots of people did well including the non- academic ones who dont care (e.g. 15-16)

In my school the persuasive oral presentation was worth 20 percent of the unit 3 SAC score. So 5 percent overall for the English study score. But usually the exam will determine how SACs are scaled, based on performance by the school and the individual student.
Currently studying at the University of Melbourne.

literally lauren

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #85 on: February 13, 2015, 09:33:11 am »
+3
Hi,
I'm currently studying stasiland, but I still don't really understand the text, even though I have read the book. I have a sac on it in 3 weeks and we've barely done anything in class (answering questions). And I have no idea how I'm able to write a good essay on it, if I don't understand the themes, and there's too many characters to remember. What can I do to gain a good understanding of the text?

Main thing to worry about is what you're not understanding, (which I realise is a hard question to answer, but necessary nonetheless.) If it's just a matter of grasping the plot and development of the many characters in a fairly long text, then you'll need to do some summative exercises, ie. chapter summaries, character maps/profiles (<-- defs do this for Stasiland. Insight have a good starter one here that you can add details to.)

Once that's under wraps you start to synergise it all, in order to understand the commonalities between the stories and begin to weave in the views and values of the text. If you're having difficulty here, start with study guides. There's plenty of info freely available on Stasiland at this point, so just googling 'Stasiland vce English resources' should be sufficient.

Start by just charting the major themes in the text, and connect each one to textual information (eg. the idea of sacrifice is linked to Herr Bohnsack, etc.) This will help your brain see the thematic concerns within the text, rather than as a separate list outside everything. When you feel confident enough in this step, you can move on to asking yourself the question 'so what?' Why has the author done this? What is she trying to say?

Piece together the views and values, and the whole text falls into place. From there, tackling essay prompts becomes a lot easier, because you'll be working from your contention down to the textual evidence that supports it, rather than listing every relevant piece of information that comes to mind, and then attempting to make sense of it in the conclusion.

To start with though, you have to go from the inside, out. Ask yourself as many questions as possible about what happens in the text and why, then move out to dealing with the significance of these events and what they imply, and finally out to what the text and the author are saying about a certain theme or character or message.

Start small - lest you be daunted by the enormity of a whole text and all its historical weight - that's my best advice :)

hwilome

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #86 on: February 15, 2015, 01:06:01 pm »
0
Hi, Im a student who's doing EAL.

I have a few questions according to EAL.


1. I am finding it difficult to get the Main contention of an article. (e.g like this one http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/linda-dessau-ticks-all-the-boxes-for-governor-role/story-fni0ffsx-1227216525121 ) It is unlikely for me to find the main points if I dont know what the article is REALLY about( Main Contention ). So is there a qay to practise finding the main contention of an article? I can ask my teacher to help but that's just too slow and she probably wouldnt be available all the time.


2. The 'Key Player' Method is particularly effective to make the entire L.A piece coherent. However it seems time-consuming, I'm an EAL student and we have to write a Note-Form-Summary, I dont think we have as much time outlining the Key Players as those in Mainstream do. What if I structure my L.A bodyparagraphs by the Main Points I used from my Note-Form-Summary? Will this be coherent as Key Player Method?


3. I have some confusions regarding to N.F.S, like how much details(dot points) should we add to each Main Point? What kind of N.F.S structure works for which kind of article/opinion piece? How to write a N.F.S for multiple pieces? How to decrease the time wasting on "Converting sentences to Note-Form"?


Many thanks, all replies are appreciated!
(≧▽≦)
« Last Edit: February 15, 2015, 01:37:50 pm by hwilome »

M_BONG

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #87 on: February 15, 2015, 01:37:45 pm »
+2
Hi, Im a student who's doing EAL.

I have a few questions according to EAL.


1. I am finding it difficult to get the Main contention of an article. It is unlikely for me to find the main points if I dont know what the article is REALLY about( Main Contention ). So is there a qay to practise finding the main contention of an article? I can ask my teacher to help but that's just too slow and she probably wouldnt be available all the time.


2. The 'Key Player' Method is particularly effective to make the entire L.A piece coherent. However it seems time-consuming, I'm an EAL student and we have to write a Note-Form-Summary, I dont think we have as much time outlining the Key Players as those in Mainstream do. What if I structure my L.A bodyparagraphs by the Main Points I used from my Note-Form-Summary? Will this be coherent as Key Player Method?


3. I have some confusions regarding to N.F.S, like how much details(dot points) should we add to each Main Point? What kind of N.F.S structure works for which kind of article/opinion piece? How to write a N.F.S for multiple pieces? How to decrease the time wasting on "Converting sentences to Note-Form"?


Many thanks, all replies are appreciated!
(≧▽≦)
Hey!

1. There are no hard and fast rules to determine the contention of an article. However, a good article should make it bleedingly obvious what it is arguing. And that is what the contention is: what is the author sending a message/making a point on?

Practice will likely make it easier for you, but the way I always check the contention is look at the key places - the headline, the by-line and the last sentence. The last sentence is always a give away because the author will include something so that the reader will remember the article, and this is most likely related to their contention.


2. I actually find the key player method very time saving. I am not sure the exact requirements of EAL, but since you are required to write a piece of prose, this method can save a lot of time - you just find three groups that the author has an opinion on and sort all your analysis under this umbrella and I find this to be the most sophisticated approach.

However, the best thing to do is follow what you are good at. I obviously won't advocate for your "argument approach" (ie. sorting things by main points) but what I find with this is that it becomes really clunky and you have three separate, distinct paragraphs which actually don't link together, as a piece of prose.

Nevertheless, always do what you are comfortable with; but since it's early days, you can afford to explore around.


3. Not sure, sorry - probably need an EAL student to clarify.

literally lauren

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #88 on: February 15, 2015, 01:49:35 pm »
+2
Hi, Im a student who's doing EAL.

I have a few questions according to EAL.


1. I am finding it difficult to get the Main contention of an article. (e.g like this one http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/linda-dessau-ticks-all-the-boxes-for-governor-role/story-fni0ffsx-1227216525121 ) It is unlikely for me to find the main points if I dont know what the article is REALLY about( Main Contention ). So is there a qay to practise finding the main contention of an article? I can ask my teacher to help but that's just too slow and she probably wouldnt be available all the time.
I'll go through this article later as an example if you need, but two questions you should ask yourself:
- If I were the author, and I was writing all this, what would I be trying to do? How do I want people to react to certain ideas? What's my best/worst case scenario?
and
- If I were a reader with no opinions or beliefs, and I just read this article and believed everything it said, what would my overall impression be? What values have I been given? What has been cast in a positive or negative light?

Quote
2. The 'Key Player' Method is particularly effective to make the entire L.A piece coherent. However it seems time-consuming, I'm an EAL student and we have to write a Note-Form-Summary, I dont think we have as much time outlining the Key Players as those in Mainstream do. What if I structure my L.A bodyparagraphs by the Main Points I used from my Note-Form-Summary? Will this be coherent as Key Player Method?
I'm in the process of writing up some EAL-geared resources cause I know it's a sparse area on AN and elsewhere.
With regardss to Key players, yes it's time consuming, but you're consuming time with a purpose. Even if it takes you five minutes of writing time just to tease out what some of the key players are and what the author says about them, that's five minutes well spent, because you've come to a conclusion that half the state won't even try to make. Identifying key players isn't just something that you can do, if you want; it's something that all good analyses definitely do, albeit in different ways. What's optional is the structure, so if you feel more confident going through things chronologically, then by all means do so. Just be aware of the risks, and practice with different forms (especially comparative ones) so you know you can handle whatever the exam throws at you.


Quote
3. I have some confusions regarding to N.F.S, like how much details(dot points) should we add to each Main Point? What kind of N.F.S structure works for which kind of article/opinion piece? How to write a N.F.S for multiple pieces? How to decrease the time wasting on "Converting sentences to Note-Form"?
Use the samples in the Assessor's Reports for EAL on the VCAA website, as these are the only good indicators I've found. Having not done EAL myself I can't vouch for any particular method, but something tells me most teachers would advocate a bunch of different approaches, meaning VCAA have to be flexible with what they accept.

I'll add your other quesitons to the list of stuff I'm trying to cover in the EAL post since it probably warrants more explanation than I have time for right now. Should be done in a couple of days :)

Do check with your teacher in the meantime, even if it takes ages and their advice is dubious. I have limited experience with EAL and most of my knowledge has been gleaned through other students and their teachers, so use your own as a resource too :)

hwilome

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Re: VCE English Question Thread
« Reply #89 on: February 15, 2015, 03:19:33 pm »
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Thank you very very much Zezima and Lauren !!! :)