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Advice from a graduated VA student on how to ace your VA theory exams (1 Viewer)

strawberrye

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Introduction:

VA theory exams, although often being labelled as one of the easier ‘HSC’ exams-has its own challenges, fundamentally, half of the exam consists of unseen questions as well as the lack of complete HSC visual arts papers to practice on(a lot of the images are copyrighted on BOSTES).

However, one of the most enjoyable things about the exam, arguably, is it provides you with the opportunity to become a detective, to analyse those tiny clues from the artist’s names, period and artwork title and materials in the captions and extracts provided, and integrate everything together to form one of the many possible cohesive answers that can get you full marks. The versatility and creativity involved in constructing these short answer responses as well as the opportunity to show off how much you have learnt over the years about various artists in an essay remains fundamentally, for me, an enormous part of my enjoyment of visual arts.

Feel free to reply to this post to supplement any information that I have missed.

1)Complete all allocated research tasks to the best of your ability

Over the HSC year, you will be completing a minimum of five case studies-which often is categorised by a shared thematic concern, i.e. artists from particular artistic movement/exhibitions, or more broadly investigating the practices of curators/art historians/art critics. Although some parts of your case studies will be taught and completed in class, inevitably, your teacher will allocate parts of case studies as assignments or homework research tasks, it is vital that you complete these tasks on time and to the best of your ability.

When you are continually refining how you organise and express your information effectively and consistently through completing these tasks, these skills and the research information on various artists/critics/curators will be essential steps for effective exam preparation for your theory exams.

2)Develop a deep understanding of what practice, conceptual framework and frames means, how they interact with each other and apply them consistently over the year

There is an excel book by Craig Malyon called “Revise in a month-HSC Visual Arts” that provides a very detailed explanation on these terms and how to apply them. I will briefly provide an overview of these terms below.

Practice-categorised into

1)Conceptual Practice (the artist’s influences, ideas explored in the artwork)

2)material practice(the techniques and materials that the artist have utilised in constructing the artwork).

Notice how effective material practice can enhance the conceptual depth of an artist’s BOW.

Conceptual Framework-incorporates the interactions between the four agencies of visual arts, includes

1) The World(refers to the artistic movements and significant political/social/cultural events taking place at the time the artist is making his/her artwork)

2)The Artist(can include reference to the artist’s conceptual and material practice),

3)The Artwork(as a medium to convey the artist’s reactions to the events occurring in the world at the time or as a form of self-expression, sometimes artists can challenge the convention distinction between the artist and audience through performance art, i.e. Stelarc, Gilbert and George)

4)The Audience( serves as interpreters of the meaning of the artworks produced, can include art critics/historians, again artists can choose to challenge these divisions through producing artworks that requires mass collaboration)

Frames-can be separated into:

1)Subjective(feelings evoked by the artwork, viewing works as an exploration of the subconscious, personal feelings of the artist)

2)Cultural(gender/racial issues examined, artworks as vehicles of cultural/political commentary of contextual societies they are created within)

3)Structural(visual elements of artwork-conceptual meaning derived from its structural composition)

4)Postmodern(challenging establish artistic conventions through appropriation, parody, humour, challenging the fundamental notion of what art is).

It is vital that you develop an in depth knowledge of the above three terms and ensure that your notes/generic essays are written to incorporates all these three areas. This will ensure that you will be able to effectively adapt your information to any questions given in your theory exam. Ask your teachers for practice short answer questions and use this knowledge to practice answering the questions under EXAM CONDITIONS, get your teacher to mark it and improve upon any feedback receive. Repeat this process throughout the year.

3)Develop a good understanding of major artistic movements-their distinguishing visual features, key artists and chronologically arrange them on a time line and apply this understanding in your exam.

To give yourself the extra edge in the short answers, if you can develop a brief understanding of significant artistic movements, such as Realism, Cubism, Expressionism, post-expressionism, impressionism, postmodernism, Fauvism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Pop Art etc, and you can understand key features to distinguish these artworks, key artists and time period they were popularised, you can discuss these things if you come across a particular artwork that is evidently belong to a particular art movement in the unseen question.

You will show your depth and breadth of your knowledge by doing the above –this will be particularly helpful if there isn’t much information provided in the question to extend the answer you can extracted from the clues provided.

4)Don’t panic-Read over questions more than once and plan all your answers before you start writing

The importance of reading questions and making sure you are answering exactly what the question is asking you cannot be overlooked. You will not be getting any marks for information/analyses irrelevant to the question.

Out of the three unseen questions, you will have one question on Frames, one on conceptual framework and one on practice-have a look at whether the question provides you with clues on what type of question it is, this should be done mentally in the reading time in your exam. For example, a question that says, ‘Evaluate this artist’s practice….”is likely to be a practice question, so if you answer using a subjective frame will unlikely to get you much marks. If you are unsure of what frame the question is-don’t state what frame you are doing, just analyse it according to what frame you think it is likely to be.

For the short answers and essay, plan your answer either mentally or on paper before you start writing-you need to make sure you are addressing all parts of the question and for questions with more than one artwork, that you are addressing both artists/artworks in equal depth. For essays, write down the names and artwork of the artists you think will go best for the essay question you have chosen-choose the question based on the artists you have prepared and the information you have.

Planning beforehand will avoid you missing out parts of the question and missing out easy marks under exam conditions, it will also avoid you repeating information.

5)Choose a plethora of artists from different time periods in your essay

The essay is for you to highlight your comprehensive understanding of visual arts. So try to choose a selection of artists that comes from different time periods, so will work with different materials/techniques, it would also be preferable to have more than one artwork for each artist. A good essay will have at least detailed discussion on 3 different artists-although this can vary.

6)Manage your time effectively in the exam, follow all instructions.

It is wise to follow the recommended time allocation at the start of your exam paper. Basically 45 minutes for your essay and 45 minutes for your short answer questions. Have a rough idea of how long you should be spending on each question-write down the clock time you should finish each question by, and STICK TO IT. Spend the most amount of time in the question that requires the highest amount of marks. It is not necessary to have an introduction and conclusion in short answers, so don’t waste time making one, just launch straight into your answer.

It is also important you make sure all your writing is legible for the teacher-teachers simply can’t add marks to what they can’t read.

Follow exam instructions closely, for example, each answer needs to be started on a new page/booklet, don’t just keep writing your answer only to found out you have not followed exam instruction-this becomes very important and very easy to miss in your nervousness in completing the exam. Start the essay in a NEW BOOKLET, and label everything, losing marks because you have missing booklets or incorrect labelling that confuses teachers is not worth it.

Usually for short answer questions, for each mark of the question, you should provide one significant piece of information supported by information you have extracted from the picture/caption. I.e. for a four mark question on postmodernist features of an artwork, for example, you should be describing four postmodernist features and highlight WHY THEY ARE POSTMODERNIST, if you have time, do one more fact than the marks, i.e. five features instead of four-just to be absolutely safe

7)Integrate artist/critics/historian's quotes where appropriate in your essays

By inserting artist's statements about their practice, critics viewpoint of the artist's conceptual practice, or historian's perspective on an art movement, if skilfully done, can substantially differentiate your essays from others, and hence, result in a higher mark.

Conclusion:

If you write practice essays and practice short answers regularly, as well as keep your mind open to the many possible forms an artwork can be in-i.e. some artworks are temporal, such as in the form of ice which can melt over time, you can do this by going to different exhibitions or reading online on contemporary practices of artists, this will ensure you have a good practical and theoretical understanding of visual arts.

Perseverance, persistent practice and feedback as well as possessing an optimistic, never giving up attitude are the key ingredients to succeeding in your visual arts theory exam. All my best wishes for you to ace your HSC VA theory exams:)

If you have ANY QUESTIONS relating to the VA theory exams that haven't been answered in this post, feel free to reply and ask them below-I will reply as quickly as I can:)
 
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rumbleroar

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You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to strawberrye again.

Really helpful! + Your other thread on the BoW is extremely wise as well :) Thanks for the advice!
 

strawberrye

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Thanks rumble roar, likewise, your threads are awesome and super helpful as well:) For any one reading this thread, feel free to comment if this thread is helpful or not-that way, I can make modifications to it to make sure it is helpful to current HSC and future VA students:)
 
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strawberrye

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I will be extending the above guide as I think of some more tips that I have missed-everyone-please feel free to contribute:)

Tip 1: Make sure you ask your teacher about their preference in structuring responses. Each art teacher has a slightly different preference in the way you answer certain types of questions-make sure you ask and adhere to as much as their requirements to maximise your marks for internal assessment tasks.
 

rumbleroar

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Tip: I would definitely start working on the Section I, II, III responses first before tackling the essays. They help you build analytical prowess and grasp of "arty" language. It makes the essays feel a bit easier :p

Also, adding to strawberrye's point about having a wide range of artists to choose from, have at least 6-7 artists (connected in terms of similar practice, conceptual/artist intention or some kind of relationship is good) prepared because if they find you have the same artists as the ones given in the paper, they will mark you down because markers will assume you don't know any other artists. So just keep that in mind when you're doing research and studying for the essays :)

Another tip is to always go for the same style of questions. I find myself a lot more comfortable talking about the conceptual framework and the frames, as opposed to the practice frames, so I always go for those types of questions.
 

strawberrye

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Also, adding to strawberrye's point about having a wide range of artists to choose from, have at least 6-7 artists (connected in terms of similar practice, conceptual/artist intention or some kind of relationship is good) prepared because if they find you have the same artists as the ones given in the paper, they will mark you down because markers will assume you don't know any other artists. So just keep that in mind when you're doing research and studying for the essays :)

Another tip is to always go for the same style of questions. I find myself a lot more comfortable talking about the conceptual framework and the frames, as opposed to the practice frames, so I always go for those types of questions.
Thanks for the contribution rumbleroar-much appreciated, and I just want to add onto rumble-roar's point about the 6-7 artists, they can be artists you have already studied/learnt in previous years, it doesn't have to be all about artists learnt during the HSC. Strange that I actually loved the practice questions a lot more than the conceptual framework and frames:)
 
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rumbleroar

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Thanks for the contribution rumbleroar-much appreciated, and I just want to add onto rumble-roar's point about the 6-7 artists, they can be artists you already studies/learnt in previous years, it doesn't have to be all about artists learnt during the HSC. Strange that I actually loved the practice questions a lot more than the conceptual framework and frames:)
Really? Practice questions? I find them so hard to write about oh my goodness haha! Conceptual framework and frames questions are so much easier to talk about haha :p
 

strawberrye

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Really? Practice questions? I find them so hard to write about oh my goodness haha! Conceptual framework and frames questions are so much easier to talk about haha :p
Once again this shows the diverse nature of visual arts and that ultimately we must find what works the best for us:)
 

norwegianwood

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5)Choose a plethora of artists from different time periods in your essay

The essay is for you to highlight your comprehensive understanding of visual arts. So try to choose a selection of artists that comes from different time periods, so will work with different materials/techniques, it would also be preferable to have more than one artwork for each artist. A good essay will have at least detailed discussion on 3 different artists-although this can vary.
imo stick with contemporary artists. everyone knows the historical/modernist artists anyway.
also, don't do that boring feminist essay of barbara kruger, cindy sherman, the guerrilla girls, etc. everyone does that.
i got 25/25 for the essay in the hsc with 3 contemporary artists (without much in common tbh) and 2 artworks for each.

anyone can PM me for help with choosing artists/artworks, essay structure or editing because i'm bored.
 

strawberrye

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imo stick with contemporary artists. everyone knows the historical/modernist artists anyway.
also, don't do that boring feminist essay of barbara kruger, cindy sherman, the guerrilla girls, etc. everyone does that.
i got 25/25 for the essay in the hsc with 3 contemporary artists (without much in common tbh) and 2 artworks for each.

anyone can PM me for help with choosing artists/artworks, essay structure or editing because i'm bored.
Thanks for your input:)
 

strawberrye

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If anyone has any questions about anything related to visual arts at all, please feel free to ask:)
 

Chilli17

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Hi! I found this very helpful, thankyou for posting this.
With the unseen questions in the Visual Arts exam, I was told that if you find a question relating to art making practice that means
the rest of the questions are going to ask about the frames. But HOW can you distinguish is the unseen question is about art making practice or frames, is there any key words that suggest this? :smile:
 

norwegianwood

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Hi! I found this very helpful, thankyou for posting this.
With the unseen questions in the Visual Arts exam, I was told that if you find a question relating to art making practice that means
the rest of the questions are going to ask about the frames. But HOW can you distinguish is the unseen question is about art making practice or frames, is there any key words that suggest this? :smile:
one will be on frames (just one of the frames - it changes), one on the conceptual framework, and one on practice.

you can identify it by the language of the question:
- does it state "practice" or a similar word? (remember practice is both material and conceptual - don't freak out trying to write 3 pages on the material practice alone, talking about the concept behind a work is also relevant to practice)
- does it ask you to link artist and world, or artwork and audience?
- is it related to postmodernism/subverting conventions, culture/society/history, an emotion/impression, or the composition/material?

my teacher had a sophisticated system for predicting the order of questions, which frame would be specified, even which artists would be featured. none of his predictions were correct last year though haha.
 

rumbleroar

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one will be on frames (just one of the frames - it changes), one on the conceptual framework, and one on practice.

you can identify it by the language of the question:
- does it state "practice" or a similar word? (remember practice is both material and conceptual - don't freak out trying to write 3 pages on the material practice alone, talking about the concept behind a work is also relevant to practice)
- does it ask you to link artist and world, or artwork and audience?
- is it related to postmodernism/subverting conventions, culture/society/history, an emotion/impression, or the composition/material?

my teacher had a sophisticated system for predicting the order of questions, which frame would be specified, even which artists would be featured. none of his predictions were correct last year though haha.
this is really good advice

I would also suggest familiarising yourself really well with the syllabus and noting key terms, i.e. for subjective frame note words such as imagination, emotion, experience, etc. A lot of it is recognising the language of the question, as norweiganwood says (also NW, I saw your work at AGNSW bc I remember you showed me once. It looks even better in person and wow!!!)
 

RoyaltyBlue

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Hello! Just wondering if Frieda Kahlo, Edvard Munch and Michelangelo are too simplistic to be used for my HSC essay. I'm topping the class with them now, but i'm not sure whether they're a high enough standard for the actual HSC. Not to mention that ive used them for my last two exams, plus the rest of my class may use the same.
Thanks!
 

strawberrye

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Hello! Just wondering if Frieda Kahlo, Edvard Munch and Michelangelo are too simplistic to be used for my HSC essay. I'm topping the class with them now, but i'm not sure whether they're a high enough standard for the actual HSC. Not to mention that ive used them for my last two exams, plus the rest of my class may use the same.
Thanks!
They are great artists to use, remember, you get marks for how well you answer the questions, and the artists you have mentioned are definitely not too simplistic, it all depends on the arguments you make, make sure you include artist's or critics quotes where relevant:)
 

RoyaltyBlue

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Thanks so much! This makes me feel heaps better haha. And thanks for the prompt reply!
 

Ev-1

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thanks for all the advice! its very helpful, but i have so many artists i like to use, too many to memorise all artworks, quotes, dates etc. and am finding it hard to cut them down to 6 or 7 :(
 

strawberrye

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thanks for all the advice! its very helpful, but i have so many artists i like to use, too many to memorise all artworks, quotes, dates etc. and am finding it hard to cut them down to 6 or 7 :(
Well, your dilemma is an unusual one:) Why don't you just toss all the artists' names in a bag, and then just draw out 6 or 7 or else just choose 6-7 of your favourite artists:) Just remember it is not about the breath of knowledge you have on visual arts, at the end of the day, particularly for your essay question, you will be marked on how well you answered the question:)
 

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