band 6 in english adv (1 Viewer)

[aditya]

hey guys, i was just wondering if anyone knew the criterier for getting a band 6 in english? and the differenc ebetween 91 and 95?


like... how many words/pages u should write? how highg quality it should be?

i know its a pretyt obvious question, but i just need some re-assurance... thank u =)

 

[TheKey]

well words per page would depend on how many words u do a line....but we were told u need a minimum of 8 pages per essay, which is 1 HSC booklet, and since its like 20 lines per page its doable.

There is no limit for the first 2 parts of AOS module because u can still get band 6 if u write little, it really important u write well there. For the short story we were told u should aim for 4-5 pages and as for the thing on the start, 1 good line would give u that 1 mark in a 1 mark question, for 2 marks u have to write about 3 lines (1 or 2 sentences), for the 3 mark question u need a good paragraph and for a 5 mark Q u need few paragraphs...

i was one of those people that cant write very fast and i ended up with 85, yet now i can assure u that u CAN get 90+ without writing that much.

1st part of AOS i would say i got very well, did about 5 pages.
2nd part of AOS i failed big time, my story was like 2 pages and it was badly written on the spot, no prep at all.
3rd part was done alright, nothing great but ok, i did 8 pages for it.

2nd day of eng exams
KING LEAR, killed it big time, very happy with that one...7.5-8 pages.
Frontline, very happy with that one too, did 2 episodes and 3 additional materials 8 pages.
BR/BNW, failed badly, i expected to fail this one and did it in 25min i had left. I made this one on the spot and it ended up 5.5 pages, no conclusion, just talked about first half of the movie and the only ending of the book...

and that got me 85 for exam mark, so from what i see, if ur a consistently 'OK' u will get 90, to get 95 id imagine u will have to be consistantly 'MUCH better' than the rest.

 

[aditya]

wow man.... that is absolutely perfect....

i copied and pasted wat u wrote into a word document... and it has taken up 3kb of my hdd thank u soooooooooo much

ill never need to ask anyone anything again... lol

thanks mate (Y)

 

[Toodulu]

8 page minimum is bullshit, there is no way you can write 24 pages in 2 hours unless you wrote 5 words to a line or something. i got mid band 6 and i didn't write 8 pages for everything. what is the point in specifying/finding out how many pages you should write? just say what you think you need to say and answer the question within the time allocated. it's very silly to be focusing on something so petty.
the key is to be succinct and write critically in sophisticated language.
being consistently ok will not get you into band 6, don't get your hopes up... it is very easy to distinguish the students who have not done their work for english. consistently "ok" will not cut it unless you have very high standards. you can't predict the amount of "extra" effort you should put in to get the "extra" marks because they're not directly proportional. i know lots of very capable english students who missed out on a band 6.

very important thing- for AOS question 1, just ANSWER the question. they have marking criterias, if you say what they want, you will get the mark. any more is simply a waste of very valuable time.

 

[TheKey]

Originally posted by Toodulu
8 page minimum is bullshit, there is no way you can write 24 pages in 2 hours unless you wrote 5 words to a line or something. i got mid band 6 and i didn't write 8 pages for everything. what is the point in specifying/finding out how many pages you should write? just say what you think you need to say and answer the question within the time allocated. it's very silly to be focusing on something so petty.
the key is to be succinct and write critically in sophisticated language.
being consistently ok will not get you into band 6, don't get your hopes up... it is very easy to distinguish the students who have not done their work for english. consistently "ok" will not cut it unless you have very high standards. you can't predict the amount of "extra" effort you should put in to get the "extra" marks because they're not directly proportional. i know lots of very capable english students who missed out on a band 6.

very important thing- for AOS question 1, just ANSWER the question. they have marking criterias, if you say what they want, you will get the mark. any more is simply a waste of very valuable time.

there is such a thing as not writing enough when it comes to english, no matter how sophisticated you may write, if u only do 3 pages you will never get a band6 (unless u write like 10 font). Why? Well exacly what Toodulu said in his last paragraph, if ur talking about a book such as BNW and a movie BR, and u want to talk about mans relationship with nature and what not, and u want to give nice examples by going into a bit of history and u ...how can u do this in under 8 pages (i agree pages are a bad way of measuring, lets use words, i would say ~900-1000word essay, if its OK will get u band 6). When i said my good essays were 8 pages, i wrote about 900-1000 words for it, that was 8 pages for me... and yes i too know very capable students who missed out on band5 because they wrote 5 pages average.

i think toodulu confused 'OK' with 'making stuff up on the spot'. An OK essay is one that answers the question, has textual analysis, exposes your perspective on the issue, uses proper jargon...A better essay would have all this but would be written in fully flawless english as well as having very original ideas about everything, analyse things other people will never talk about...

The marking at our school was done by the teacher who marked the HSC exams for many years now, Her guidelines (which were made to make us adjust to the HSC way of doing things) were if you write <3 pages you cant get more than 12/20. After 3 pages u could get good marks, if it was perfect, and to get into band6, (or 18/20) you must do ~8 pages or if u really write small, well then it depends, but 8 pages was the magic number.

i really dont want to get into the whole fight over how to get band6 in english here, im just giving my personal optinion here based on what i experienced and what i would do now had i known things would turn out this way. At the end of the day u are still being marked by a human, and there are many factors which apparently dont come into play such as neatness, amount of pages..yet it does on at least some level influencing the marker.

Another of our teachers marking HSC told us they got a positive first impression if they saw 2 booklets instead of one. Yet another told us they didnt even mark all of the essay, if its looked good on the start (the language, expression used), they skimmed it to make sure everyting is there and gave it a band6.

 

[teh winnar!]

Originally posted by aditya
hey guys, i was just wondering if anyone knew the criterier for getting a band 6 in english? and the differenc ebetween 91 and 95?

I GOT 92 CAUSE I AM THAR UBARCREATIVE WINNAR

HSC ENGLISH IS LIKE SHOOTING BARRELS IN A FISH

 

[iambored]

at least an a4 page every 10 mins, so a bos page every 5 mins will allow you to write heaps.

make sure you tie everything together and address the whole question

 

[+:: $i[Q]u3 ::+]

its not about how much you write, it's about the quality of your writing.. even if you pump out 15 pages for each essay, if it's crap, there's still no way you will get band 6.
moral is... you should be CONCISE!! hehe.. because then you can say in 7 pages what the person next to you says in 14.

 

[Rahul]

its defintely quality and not quantity.

 

[ujuphleg]

it's good go be concise, and it's good to have quality over quantity. but at the end of the day, i don't see how you could get anything LESS than 8 pages in the area of study essay without forgetting or compromising your discussion if you are a Band 6 student, purely because, in order to discuss the necessary topics, one must have written that amount. You have to talk about 4 texts, IN DETAIL. how could you do that in anything less than 8 pages?

It is important to bear in mind the ease which comes with writing in an HSC writing booklet. They have big lines and very smooth paper. 8 pages, is easy in the HSC and easily translates to perhaps 6 pages of what one usually writes. so if you write 8 pages normally, you're onto your second writing booklet already hence creating the good impression AND getting all your detail in.

 

[speersy]

Originally posted by ujuphleg
very smooth paper

so smooth. I find i can write more or at least it looks like it in these booklets

 

[Lundy]

If I were a teacher I would choose short, consise and to the point over 8 pages filled with waffle

 

[Beaker]

Writing is my biggest letdown..

I can't stand writing fast and going all over the spot which is what a lot of people who score high marks do..

I just have to be neat and small so even though i usually write a lot less its smaller so that adds up but its still generally less..

i now know you are able to use a laptop if you get a doctors certificate saying that you suffer from faitigue.. just thinking how much i could write on the computer such a fast typer its crap

 

[sugaryblue]

I think to get into Band 6 for English, you have to be precise in what you are saying. Make sure you ANSWER the questions in the exam instead of giving a general response --> Most people use prepared essays (I did that sometimes as well) but make sure you work around the answers instead of just copy and paste everything in.

I think what the markers' looking at is how well you understand the questions. Furthermore, your style of response is also important. Better responses are structured and use quite sophisticated language (though they don't tend to use big words in every second word!). The idea is to communicate effectively.

Also, focus a lot on technqiues and make sure you have plenty of evidence to back your argument up.

As for the length, you are looking at a decent amount. As they say, it's more about quality than quantity. However you should be looking at about 4 - 6 pages hand written A4 size.

Take a look at the Board of Studies examples (your school should have it), that should give you a fair idea.

 

[Toodulu]

hey kids
sique and i have actually done the hsc already
but of course if you "can't see" how anyone could get into band 6 without writing shitloads of crap then obviously you're more qualified to make an assertion

ahah anyway, it's not like i really care how much you write. devote 10 minutes of the exam to count up how many words you've written for all i care

 

[ameh]

throw in some big sexy words

 

[glycerine]

the method I find works best is not to memorise essays but to memorise topic sentences... like you have the topic sentence in your mind, you adjust it somewhat to suit the q and it stimulates the flow of info in your brain... but then i did REALLY badly in my half yearly for some reason (usually i do really well) so my advice may not be too valuable
in terms of quality over quantity... i agree that quantity should be your FOREMOST concern...no point writing 15 pages of pure shallow bs... but like someone else said, in most cases, it's difficult to get high A level quality without *some* quantity