ENGLISH is a joke subject (1 Viewer)

Boxxxhead

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Etheral said:
i agree

english is whacked, i didnt memorise a single essay just practiced many text types over and over with similar ideas, got a good exam mark 91, but my internal killed me due to slightness of bias or marking against merit which pulled my hsc mark down.

overall i think english in teh hsc is a pile of dogsht, but thinking abou tit maybe i should have tried harder with this manure of a subject during mid year, our class discussions got out of hand, overanalysing things until it was completely absurd and out of context

...but you know what makes it feel weird?

i came within the double-0digits for assessment ranking, and initially had no hope with my exam, received 74% for trial mark as well i didnt even finish my module A paper (3/4 way through it) and receive what i did in teh hsc exam is way crazy, im not complaining though, but i dont understand how that works. maybe i ripped paper 1, lmao. who cares though, im going where i want to go.
Haha our class discussions got VERY out of hand... That's probably why I learned how to tune out of them around half yearly time :) haha... I got 85 in english and I was over the moon coz it was always a sub I wasn't great at... our teacher (who yelled at me like crazy at parent teacher interviews for having no motivation whatsoever) couldn't believe I did so well lol.

Anyways I'm getting off the topic, english is utter crap at the HSC level. Everything was overanalysed to the point where you got marks for saying the most absurd things, like for the modules paper, the stuff I contrived was a joke and I still went well (It was better than my paper 1) and to me doesn't indicate that I have an understanding of the textual integrity or how meaning is made blah blah blah... it just shows I can talk crap lol and then link it back to a retarded, non-sensical question.
 

LilSnowFlake

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I heard somewhere that they made english compulsary because too many people were going through senior school without a basic knowledge of writing and stuff. But I hardly think that what we learnt about metaphors and all that dribble really helped me in any of my subject areas.

It was an annoying subject for me because in junior school and year 11 I didnt know what they wanted me to write...but once you realise that you have to make up things about how a mountain isnt just a mountain its a symbol of hardships and challenges then your ok.

I'm still horrible at spelling despite those gruelling years of english.
 

<< rAsSiLa >>

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hey all!
i havent done my hsc yet but i will nxt yr ! dear god! :bomb:
So far i have completed one assesment task for every subject and everything is looking good.. except 4 ENGLISH!
i failed my first assesment with a 26/60 and every other practice essay about imaginative journeys! from getting hectik marks in every other year to fails in yr 12... really does burst my tears. i get the plain old "dont worry".. but how could i not? my internal assesment marks are goin down the drain and im one of those who are " quite good at english". :mad1: i hate english, that insane subject put all my hopes DoWnNnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
 

Boxxxhead

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LilSnowFlake said:
I heard somewhere that they made english compulsary because too many people were going through senior school without a basic knowledge of writing and stuff. But I hardly think that what we learnt about metaphors and all that dribble really helped me in any of my subject areas.

It was an annoying subject for me because in junior school and year 11 I didnt know what they wanted me to write...but once you realise that you have to make up things about how a mountain isnt just a mountain its a symbol of hardships and challenges then your ok.

I'm still horrible at spelling despite those gruelling years of english.
I heard that english was made compulsory for the scaling system, where they needed one common subject to scale against, and that since people had an inept knowledge of english, they decided to make english that common subject.
 

Bookie

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i got 86 for english and i only read up king lear on spark notes the week before the external (i missed all of term 2 when it was being done in class).

im so awesome.

also, a couple of guys from our school got 100 in english external.
 

Bobness

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Bookie said:
i got 86 for english and i only read up king lear on spark notes the week before the external (i missed all of term 2 when it was being done in class).

im so awesome.

also, a couple of guys from our school got 100 in english external.
I'm almost certain no one scored 100 in the externals as the top mark recorded by the UAC publications was 99. I'll dig up a link somewhere.

Anyway yes the top mark definitely wasn't 96 but i'm pretty sure shimmy was talking about what the top mark was at her school.

(p.s. hi shimmy. LOL that's pretty sh*t considering horsnby is brilliant at english. sorry :eek: but congrats on your own mark)
 

drewgcn

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While we might have loathed it while we did it, it was probably the easiest subject to gain marks in.

You basically had to write four awesome sounding generic essays and memorise them the week before the exam to get the equivalent mark of any other subject you actually had to get learn-ed in.
 

toadstooltown

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Of course people can get band 6s in english, it's just not a subject full of them (such as music 1).

The Advanced English program is about successful arguing (albeit it has those retarded creatives and unseen texts), which is important. However, the content on which we have to argue is pretty bad. I managed an 86 which I'm happy with, considering I can't spell at all and my writing is on par with an athritic doctor's. I think there should be more of a focus on grammar and vocabulary etc, because what we do is literature not english. Having a mastery of English is important in the general working world, literature is needed in far fewer places (though definately important).
 

fallen__angel

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LaMPshade said:
lol, i think its weird how selective schools limits the courses a student can do, that goes for my school too. And guess what, the teachers at my school don't even know half the techniques i used in my trials (which i was taught by my private tutor).. which led to my poor trial results, however when i asked friends from other schools about my situation, they knew the techniques straight away and they said that they had also used it in their essays and got remarkable results.

I complained to the teacher and he said he has never heard of these techniques before and should only use the techniques which i was taught in school. Which i have regretted now since my adv eng hsc mark was only a high band 4. teachers these days =/
^that, and eng teachers at my school love to boast how they're so much more intelligent than us students bcos they went to uni...oh the irony:rofl:
 

sando

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its easier gettin a band 5 in adv than b4 in standard lol
 

sando

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not really.. cos i reckon if i did standard i wouldnt beable to achieve the same mark
 

sam l

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Advanced English is a very very very sick joke. It's a potentially destructive subject and was the cause of many tears throughout the year. It should be banished from the HSC.


I managed to scrape 83. Not a great mark. Even being at a selective school didn't help there. The paper was ridiculous. The questions were unexpected for most. Though, there were the select few that seemed strangely prepared for that paper. Can't imagine how. I know the only thing I had to go by for prep were past papers and that proved completely useless. The 06 questions didn't even make sense, and I also think that the paper definitely favoured some texts over others. Definitely not fair in that regard. But hey, there'll always be those few who claim the paper was easy as. I, for one, don't believe them. The paper was challenging but congrats to those who managed to pull through.


I'm just super curious to see what the BOS comes up with next year, especially after they see what a disaster 2006 was. That friggin paper made me feel like i'd just wasted what had to be half my overall study time on advanced english. I didn't have a chance with that paper, and alot of my friends felt the same way. It definitely has alot to do with how you were taught, or in my case with my teachers, IF you were taught. Yes. English is definitely a joke, english teachers are a bigger joke.

Ok, end of rant. Move on... Hsc is over. Yes!
 

fallen__angel

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LottoX said:
If you know learn how to play the game, you'll get the marks. That's what the HSC is.
Well ain't that the cold harsh truth. Life itself is a game.

and sam, do you know how many people would kill (exaggerated use of violent terminology) for a mark of 83 in adv eng?
 

shoxgeneration

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ahhaah you guys probably had different aims and standards - sam might have been one who was used to getting a let's say... high 80s/low 90s, so clearly 83 woud be 'not a great mark' in his opinon.

Just like if you were one who on average, got marks around 70s - thus scraping a '83' would be like hittin' the jackpot (but in english terms o' cos).
 

lil_miss

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ENGLISH is not a joke, infact, it is very important -generally speaking illiterate people don't go as far as those who are well spoken etc.

furthermore, how do you know that your school just didn't mark too leniently?
 
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Sprinkles~

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sam l said:
The 06 questions didn't even make sense, and I also think that the paper definitely favoured some texts over others. Definitely not fair in that regard. But hey, there'll always be those few who claim the paper was easy as. I, for one, don't believe them. The paper was challenging but congrats to those who managed to pull through.


I'm just super curious to see what the BOS comes up with next year, especially after they see what a disaster 2006 was. That friggin paper made me feel like i'd just wasted what had to be half my overall study time on advanced english. I didn't have a chance with that paper, and alot of my friends felt the same way. It definitely has alot to do with how you were taught, or in my case with my teachers, IF you were taught. Yes. English is definitely a joke, english teachers are a bigger joke.
I actually liked this year's paper, I must insane lol :p
 

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