Getting a Band 6 in Visual Arts (1 Viewer)

[FraZzZz]

Basically, I pretty much need 90+ in Visual arts to stop it from affecting my ATAR in a negative way.

At the moment I'm coming 3rd in the year, but I'm only heading towards 80+ in terms of marks.

How can I effectively study in Visual Arts to absolutely destroy the HSC exams?

So far I'm thinking of studying past HSC papers, is their anything else, whats the most important stuff I need to know?

Thanks to anyone who can help me!

 

[greenboxes]

Oh I'm topping VA, 90something. You just need to be really good at bullshitting. Write whatever's in your head down, they can't mark you down unless it's something blatantly stupid like "munch was an impressionist." Know your elements + principals of art, pay attention in theory, drop in artist names here and there, use the frames, memorise art vocab like "simulacra" (artlex is a good site for this, looks like a 5 year old coded it tho). For prac, it's not just execution, have concepts behind the work which aren't shallow. Don't neglect your vapd.

 

[blumey]

Hey, would you be able to help me please? I'm only just passing visual arts and getting around 50-60% in class and trials. What are the main things I need to know? Thanks for any help

 

[WorryWartCob]

Know your frames, know your artists and critique of their work.
then bullshit.

 

[hallofdoors]

Basically, the questions in the HSC are really broad (well, for the 25 marker anyway) so you really only need to know about 3 artists really well. Since there are 9 questions there's probably a really high chance that they'll ask something that you've prepared for. I tend to like doing practice questions because there's a lot that you can write about and there's always bound to be ONE broad one in the exam.

As for the rest of the exam, it's all pretty straight forward as well. Because they're unseen plates you really need to hone in on your analytical skills and stuff. The first question is really easy, everyone should get full marks for that. Don't write too much - be concise because VA is only a 1.5 hour exam and there's actually quite a lot to answer. The 6-8 and 10-14 markers are not that difficult either, and usually involve one practice question and one frames question. These require more skills than content, and to achieve good marks in these, you need to look at all the plates as ONE PICTURE, DO NO look at the plates individually, especially in the questions on practice. So yeah, that's my advice. Basically:

Know 3/4 artists really well (not just their artworks but the way that they work) - also, make sure that these artists are really different from each other. It makes a MUCH better argument if you can bounce the artists off each other - learn artists from different time periods- have your contemporary and older ones. Knowing more than one artwork for each is really helpful as well.

And

DO PAST PAPERS! Remember - look at ALL the plates as a whole and don't analyse them individually. Basically, you need to look at it the question, answer the question and THEN use the plates to support your answer

 

[neyzel]

do you need to talk about the artists' context and all that or is that not important in the essay?

 

[FrannyMika]

do you need to talk about the artists' context and all that or is that not important in the essay?

Yes, it would help at the beginning of your paragraph. But make sure you only put things down that are relevant to the artist's practice such as historical, cultural or personal events.