2016ers Chit-Chat Thread (20 Viewers)

[leehuan]

you've told us this for the 500th time lol

Personally memorising essays has always helped me and I have tried doing without memorising and failed miserably

Because I can never understand how that works.

 

[Bestintheworld]

Because I can never understand how that works.

why cant you? lol if your essay addresses the module and the elective you cannot expect a question that is totally irrelevant.....

 

[BandSixFix]

Good essay that doesn't answer the question: at least 8/15
Bad essay that does answer the question: no more than 9/15

)))

Its hard (for some people) to write a comprehensive response without memorizing - I know at my school personally, our teacher enforce the idea of memorization as students often come prepared with quotes/techniques and write a paragraph of something that doesn't make sense. But not people are obviously like that, some people are better off memorizing quotes and techniques as they are confident enough in their ability to write on the spot. But memorization just serves as a safety-net tbh - as you can always swap some words/analysis around to fit the question.

 

[iforgotmyname]

Because I can never understand how that works.

If one way works for 60% of the people. It's probs gonna work for you too.

Memorising happens in every subject, roteing everything is the method that gives you the return in terms of how much effort you put in.

 

[Speed6]

Without memorising a pre-prepared generic essay, I'd most likely fail English. That's just my own opinion.

 

[meDAawesome]

I never understood memorising because its illogical, do you memorise your essays for other essay subjects? No? Then why do you do it for English.

Then again I'm memorising my essays cos I dont wanna risk the band 4

 

[leehuan]

why cant you? lol if your essay addresses the module and the elective you cannot expect a question that is totally irrelevant.....

I see a question and just answer it. I don't find difficulty just making stuff up that answers a question.

If one way works for 60% of the people. It's probs gonna work for you too.

Memorising happens in every subject, roteing everything is the method that gives you the return in terms of how much effort you put in.

No. I do not have enough care factor to remember 5000+ words to just dump onto a piece of paper in a matter of 5 hours.

I remember "content" in chemistry. I memorise background to use so that my quotes aren't pointless but that's more similar to "content". Not "sentences and sentences".

 

[kashkow]

I can understand both points of views. Memorising may be easier for those who want an idea of what they want to write about and so they can feel more confident whilst entering the exam. Also they can probably adjust some words on the spot so that they can address the question by doing this. It actually sounds quite appealing actually as they can get in their sophisticated essay (and know they have a sophisticated essay) written but also address the question with some minor changes. Plus they may be able to write faster in the exam and thus not be as stressed. I think the mindset that if you have a prepared essay you cannot answer the question is wrong, because it seems to make sense if you can answer the question on the spot from SCRATCH, you should be able to answer the question with PRE-PREPARED response. It'd just require some smart adjusting - which is up to the student's capabilities to how well they can achieve this. So it's not like one or the other in my mind.

However all that said, I don't generally do this though cuz I'm too lazy to memorise something that long and I feel like adjusting anyways would be the same as answering it on the spot. Also I don't really know how to write a pre-prepared essay that is really good and that would be easily adaptable. Like I feel if I made something awesome, it'd be tailored to a specific question (probably because I think of something awesome as to how well it can answer the question) and the effort taken to re-adapt would be about the same as just directly answering the question. But also I find the effort to have to memorise whole essays (plus writing them before hand) is just not really worth it haha - especially if you end up just scrapping the idea and going with something else (which is a possibility that I'd see myself do haha). Memorising techniques and quotes is easier for me. My main issue is writing within the time limits, especially writing something sophisticated which probably others who memorised would have an edge on me. However I also understand the viewpoint of not-memorising complete essays (as this is me).

My approach personally is probably gonna be (this is my hope at least for these english papers) is to half memorise an essay, basically memorise all the generic stuff. In other words stuff that I know I can/will use despite the question. For example stuff in the introduction such as a brief overall comment on the module, introducing the texts and their types, how they are relevant to society and also having a structure ready for the introduction (e.g. brief comment on nature of module, introduce texts, thesis, brief body points, relevance to society). The stuff inside the brackets that can be memorised before hand (pretty much everything but thesis and body points) I'm going to try to memorise. That is an example for the intro, I'm going to try and do whatever else I can (probably just conclusion - unless there's a line or something that I REALLY want to use lol). Hopefully if I can memorise this and get good at it for all the essays, even just the intro and maybe conclusion that will knock about 1/4 -1/5 of the essay that I have to think about and hopefully reduce the time for each essay (about 7-10 min each) so it should reduce the time significantly. I'm also going to try to memorise some sophisticated vocabulary to throw in as well. So yeah, that plus the regular quotes and techniques I should be good, both in analysis and time... I hope... lol

 

[kashkow]

I see a question and just answer it. I don't find difficulty just making stuff up that answers a question.



No. I do not have enough care factor to remember 5000+ words to just dump onto a piece of paper in a matter of 5 hours.

I remember "content" in chemistry. I memorise background to use so that my quotes aren't pointless but that's more similar to "content". Not "sentences and sentences".

Haha I get you man. Sounds like so much effort for a few hours of test; plus what if something occurs where you can't or you feel it wouldn't be that good to put in what you memorised? And you feel like adapting would be too hard/waste of time? Then the whole memorised essay goes to waste :S I feel like that'd be me if I tried to memorise lel.

 

[ml125]

So far I've got the study and everything down... just need to work on fixing up my sleeping pattern omg -.-" Never gonna be able to wake up for morning exams at this rate ;n;

 

[Shuuya]

So far I've got the study and everything down... just need to work on fixing up my sleeping pattern omg -.-" Never gonna be able to wake up for morning exams at this rate ;n;

Ever since daylight savings screwed up the times, I've been finding it hard to get up as early as I used to... which isn't even that early [emoji28]

 

[ml125]

Ever since daylight savings screwed up the times, I've been finding it hard to get up as early as I used to... which isn't even that early [emoji28]

I've basically shifted my regular routine back around 5 hours L O L can never sleep before 5am ;A; gotten used to it but it needs to be fixed before next week lmao XD

 

[BLIT2014]

I've basically shifted my regular routine back around 5 hours L O L can never sleep before 5am ;A; gotten used to it but it needs to be fixed before next week lmao XD

set back bed time 40 minutes per day?

 

[mrstripedshades]

grrr this has me confused as fk right now because I got a good mark(actually my highest in modules) in trials for this essay and in total i came 1st in trials. But then I sent a very similar one to a teacher and she said its completely unlike u normally right and basically bad. Da fk?

Maybe she thought it was too generalised? because a lot of teachers are against memorisation

 

[BandSixFix]

grrr this has me confused as fk right now because I got a good mark(actually my highest in modules) in trials for this essay and in total i came 1st in trials. But then I sent a very similar one to a teacher and she said its completely unlike u normally right and basically bad. Da fk?

Maybe she thought it was too generalised? because a lot of teachers are against memorisation

Anyways - who cares. If you go into the HSC with a memorized essay that is narrow you're only setting yourself up for poor marks. Ofc teachers will be opposed to memorization (cept some schools encourage it) and you just have to deal with it. But personally, I feel a generalised essay is good as you can adapt the links to the question usually and you have a good sentence structure as a safety net.

 

[WrittenLoveLetters]

I am going into English with 4 essays that are very narrowly focused - I don't know what "narrowly focused" means to you all but what I'm talking about is that I have all my points polished and ready.

I think people who fail to get high marks, even with memorising essays, don't do well is not because they memorised a narrow essay, but because they lack skill in changing/adapting their essay to the question. In my trials, especially for AOS, I was completely thrown off by the question on "pleasure and excitement" (now people who studied Frank Hurley knows that, that documentary is some boring assessment of the validity of his photographs and what not, and 99% doesn't look at pleasure & excitement), and still adapted by adding a few extra words here and there, and still wrecked everyone in English.

Memorise if it works for you and you know you have the skill to adapt. (Otherwise do whatever everyone else who doesn't memorise does)

By the way, I did memorise 3 essays before Paper 2 the night before, it can be done - so if you start now, you'll be in a pretty good position

 

[KingOfActing]

I am going into English with 4 essays that are very narrowly focused - I don't know what "narrowly focused" means to you all but what I'm talking about is that I have all my points polished and ready.

I think people who fail to get high marks, even with memorising essays, don't do well is not because they memorised a narrow essay, but because they lack skill in changing/adapting their essay to the question. In my trials, especially for AOS, I was completely thrown off by the question on "pleasure and excitement" (now people who studied Frank Hurley knows that, that documentary is some boring assessment of the validity of his photographs and what not, and 99% doesn't look at pleasure & excitement), and still adapted by adding a few extra words here and there, and still wrecked everyone in English.

Memorise if it works for you and you know you have the skill to adapt. (Otherwise do whatever everyone else who doesn't memorise does)

By the way, I did memorise 3 essays before Paper 2 the night before, it can be done - so if you start now, you'll be in a pretty good position

I think we did the same trials

That "pleasure and excitement" triggered me so much because Che Guevara definitely experiences neither and my related is an existential depresssing af monologue, so I was bullshitting my way through to get like 8/15 lol

 

[pikachu975]

I think we did the same trials

That "pleasure and excitement" triggered me so much because Che Guevara definitely experiences neither and my related is an existential depresssing af monologue, so I was bullshitting my way through to get like 8/15 lol

Your constant comments about Motorcycle Diaries and its really 'engaging' story are making me depressed and I haven't even bought the book yet

 

[KingOfActing]

Your constant comments about Motorcycle Diaries and its really 'engaging' story are making me depressed and I haven't even bought the book yet

Look, honestly it makes me so sad. The past few years we had amazing texts and then suddenly bam this - like why can't we do Heart of Darkness or Picture of Dorian Gray, or like, ANY OTHER BOOK THAT'S GOOD

 

[Green Yoda]

Your constant comments about Motorcycle Diaries and its really 'engaging' story are making me depressed and I haven't even bought the book yet

Bought? Doesn't the school provide?