Length of responses in the English HSC exam. (1 Viewer)

[idan]

I have a very passionate english teacher and in the midst of his incoherant rambling he mentioned something about how he used to mark the english HSC exam. I think I remember him saying that the HSC exam responses are written in 8 page booklets. He explained that most people write in excess of 2 booklets in 40 minutes.

So do you have to write 16 pages per response?

Are there 3 responses you have to write in 2 hours?

I'm starting year 11 on '04 and I'm not used to writing such huge amounts, how could I develop my response skills?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Grey Council]

mm, puit it this way. The booklets in the HSC have HUGE line spaces.

13 pages is around 1000 words. around

 

[idan]

Oh, okay. Do you have to write 3 responses ina two hour exam?

 

[Lainee]

As my teacher puts it - the exam is more about being able to succinctly answer the question in the amount of time given rather than a 'knowledge' exam. In other words, the time limit is the challenge.

That's why I think Frigid's tips on studying for English (the sticky that's titled 'studying - by frigid) is really excellent.

make summaries of your texts. make summaries of your summaries. keep digesting your notes until you can fit one module onto an A4 piece of paper. by that time you would have summarised (and hopefully understood) the main points of the syllabus.

That's what you should be aiming to do all year round.

 

[glycerine]

13 pages is not 1000 words, not even in those booklets. more like 5-6 pages, tops.

 

[idan]

I counted 20 lines per page, assuming a wrote 7 words a line (it's about the average in the online examples) that'd be 140 words a page.

140x16 = 2240.

 

[glycerine]

that sounds about right, but if you have something to say, you'll write way more than 1000 words for a single question.

i'm in yr 11 too (but i did yr 11 english when i was in yr 10, so am doing the yr 12 course now) and my advice is PRACTISE PRACTISE PRACTISE. my first essay for a senior class at the beginning of last year was two pages, then four and so on and so forth. essentially, you need to learn to write quickly for relatively sustained periods of time. ask your teacher to set you sample questions, and practise doing them in 40 minutes - it doesn't matter if you don't come closeto finishing the first time, that's why you practise. what topics are you doing?
and where in the south-west do you live? campbelltown-ish?

 

[Lainee]

Oh, that's what you were asking. Erm, you know, I've never really thought about how many words I can fit onto one of those pgs. I have small print, that looks a bit like Arial in Italics size 9. Wait, is 16 pgs in 40 minutes actually reasonable possible given that you have to pause once in a while for reflection on what you're actually going to write?

 

[idan]

It seems preety difficult to me. I guess if I use like 5 minutes at the beginning to structure my response it shouldn't be too bad.

Yeah, I go to school in Campbelltown.

 

[freaking_out]

whats needed is quality not quantity.

 

[glycerine]

like i said, it takes practise. don't be aiming to fill two hsc booklets right away, just practise writing down your ideas in 40 mins.

which school in campbelltown? i went to leumeah primary and my mum used to teach at sarah redfern

 

[santaslayer]

most people have memorised essays in their head pre exam time which they work and mold into a response during the test so they are practically like robots, most of them dont need to think..lol
basically all english questions are pretty much the same when it comes to responding. u usually mold ur pre memorised exam response so that it fits the question.....and trust me, 8 pages is nothing!

 

[bubz :D]

Originally posted by freaking_out
whats needed is quality not quantity.

but still, you need to have a good amount of writing....

when we were doing assessments, the teachers counted our pages

 

[honky tonk]

bubz is right.. and besides, to actually have a good quality essay, you are going to need quantity. You couldn't right a superb Area of Study essay, for example, without detail for the five (or more) texts.

 

[bubz :D]

of course it's quality over quantity - someone can ramble on for ten pages but get 11/20.. but yeah you can't exactly write a good essay (or get the marks for it) without at least a few paragraphs on each text, in area of study anyway... since you have your prescribed text and two/three related texts.

*shudder* lol actually don't remind me of AOS hahah i thought i completely screwed the hsc exam

 

[honky tonk]

I know.. it's brought back painful memories of *shudder* Gwen Harwood and *collapse* Sky High..

 

[honky tonk]

*Remembers painful AOS essay...*

"Time holds great surprises."
This short and simple quote vastly sums up the succinct concept of change, particularly of self...

Will it ever leave my head??

 

[bubz :D]

the absence of the capital "g" in "go and open the door" suggests that it is no longer a command, but an urgent plea. "at least there'll be a draught". this stanza is very differen tfrom the others. from "maybe" to "even if", it is now "at least", which implies that if you go and open the door, at the very least there will be a draught, and some sort of change. this stanza only has two syllables per line, the second syllable stronger than the first. it gives the stanza a sense of rhythm, concluding the poem with even more uncertainty.

OH MY GOD i cannot believe i still remmeber all of that LOL

 

[honky tonk]

Hehe, it's amazing what you can remember. Here's a bit of the soliloquy I had to say at the start of last year.

Thou, nature, art my goddess. To thy law, my services are bound. Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom and permit the curiousity of nations to deprive me? For that, I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous, and my shape as true as honest madam's issue? Why brand they us with base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base? Who in the lusty stealth of nature take more composition and fierce quality than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed, go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops got 'tween sleep and wake.

 

[Grey Council]

hehe, i wrote up an exemplar response into word, so that i can actually read it without going mad.

it was 13 pages, and a bit (on the hsc paper, not word)

it was 1005 words.



and if you don't believe me, go and check the exemplar responses for 2002. trust me, the line spaces are like TWICE the normal. THEY ARE HUGE! Think about it, how can someone POSSIBLY write 16 pages in 40 minutes? Unless they wrote fairly big and the line spaces were huge.

but I totally agree with Lainee. Be succint. 40 minutes is nothing for a whole term of study.