How to prepare for HSC 2014? (1 Viewer)

[Magiccarpet]

Hey all,
Just wanted to ask, how would I go about preparing for extension 1 English HSC for next year? My rank isn't too great, but I'm not coming last either. What could I write to prepare myself? We're doing romanticism with wuthering heights and northanger abbey (I've read both)...so how would I know which/what essays to write, etc?

Thanks for your time!!

 

[tutorhunt]

I did ATB, my rank in year 11 was like 9/13 or 10/13, this year it is 4th. I made sure I aced the first assessment, an essay. I got like 3rd or 4th in the first assessment, and it was easy to maintain that rank.
How I did it:
Research a lot
I liked Hiroshima by John Hersey, which was my core text, that made it so much easier to study for.
Write a lot of essays, hand them to your teachers, or essay marking services. Some people mark essays for about 8$ a go, which is literally nothing compared to private tutors or tutoring colleges like Matrix/talent 100.
Most importantly, make sure you pay attention in class and jot a few notes or words down on what the teacher recommends you to do. If that teacher is marking your essay, you will get a lot of points.

 

[strawberrye]

That's great that you already read most of your prescribed text, I am sure if you continued to work hard for your HSC year, your rank will improve
1)deconstruct the romanticism syllabus-know exactly what it is asking you to do-because all your assessment question will have to be directly or indirectly linked to it
2)http://romanticism.ning.com/ -check out this website-it might help you a lot
3)Find some good related text that is from this era-novels, poems etc-that you could potentially use for an essay-read as much extra material as you can-even if you don't end up using it, you will gain a better understanding of the language, expression of the time-and it will be an enormous help for generating ideas about your creative story(which is worth half of your final exam-so don't overlook it)-but you might potentially have to experiment with several ideas before you will develop one right one
4)re-read both of your text again(don't skim read), it is not enough to simply to know what the two books about-you really need to understand how these two text reflect/critique/respond to the romantic era-consider deconstructing some key elements as your starting notes-you really need to have a thorough understanding of the era and the novel before you start writing any essay-go to the state library, get on google scholar to search for journal articles related to romanticism-expand your understanding-don't rely solely on the teacher to spoonfeed you with information
5)if you are ready, start writing an essay-either responding to a past HSC question or even better, ask your teacher for a question and ask her or a harsh marker to mark your work-upon which comments can then be used to improve-

repeat the above process throughout the year and you will get a E4 all the best of luck, I have faith you will do brilliantly, on a last note, since you have just started the module, don't rush yourself too much into writing essay, you should be reading as much as you can to understand the whole module before you can write a brilliant essay