English (1 Viewer)

sida1049

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Ask your teacher for help, simple as that. Tell them you don't know how to write an essay and they should help you out. If the teachers don't help out, get your friends to show you their essays so you can analyze what they are doing differently
This is excellent advice. Doing this was actually the turning point for me; I was ass at English, until (a) I started asking my teacher for feedback on draft essays, and (b) grinded the shit out of practice essays. (b) was extremely tedious, time consuming and drove me to the brink of my sanity, but it got me a nice mark for English.

Struggling is good practice for uni (and life in general).
 

andrew12678

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Nope. That was for Module A, right? I studied Richard III and the documentary Looking For Richard instead. I really fucking loved those texts. I've read 1984 once just because it is popular, but I can't say I really liked it. I know a lot of people do, though.
I did this as well and completely agree with Sida. 100% loved it alongside my obscure af Mod B text: In the Skin of a Lion.
 

satvik_1008

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Private for sure in my experience. I went to matrix for a term for English and it was okay, but what I found was the teacher was very good and describes stuff well but in a group setting the English thing didnt really work for me that well because I barely got any feedback on my essays like you maybe get 2-3 sentences but its like typed so it doesnt help as much as someone physically in person explaining to you what's wrong with it or what to change. Also, another thing is its so expensive. I think was paying like 45 an hr for 1.5 hr class and you paying that kind of money in a group with 10-15 people, when at the same price or cheaper you can go to like a tutor who teaches at a school
who is a good private english tutor that u can recommend? I need one ASAP
 

MONONYMOUS

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Although I really hated HSC English (because it compulsorily counted towards the ATAR and most of it was not useful), I found the analysis skills involved to be occasionally useful - for example, when you're watching a movie or playing a story-driven game. You're never expected to be able to do this (unless you choose to study a B Arts), but it's nice to be able to recognise those little details and you really do get a bit more out of the movie/game/whatever.

It's a shame that for most people the course didn't actually involve much analysis at all - most of it was looking up techniques for <insert text here> and cramming quotes and paragraphs. I found the texts really hard to get into as well.



The ATAR isn't really the ultimate goal of high school. It's more like an intermediate step, but it (understandably) gets blown way out of proportion during the HSC because of all the stress involved. The ATAR has exactly one purpose, which is for unis to make the selection process more manageable.

You will almost certainly forget about the ATAR once at uni, because there's no place for it there - you have people coming from different countries, different education systems. The only thing that you could possibly be compared on is your performance at uni.

My English study was writing at most one essay per term and making a half-effort to memorise it in the week before exams. I ended up with crappy marks and was a half-mark away from a band 4 but my ATAR was good enough without it, and there's no reason for me to ever care about it again.

Don't give up. Just try to hold on. If you get the ATAR you need, great. Even if you don't, just pick something else and transfer as soon as they let you. Not a big deal either way.
I agree that English can help develop these 'analysis' skills which might prove useful on occasion. However, the point of getting an ATAR is usually to get into Uni, hence doing HSC English should help develop your English skills for Uni or for life in general (e.g. communication skills, basic writing skills and life skills). So, I believe HSC English is quite useless when you consider the amount of time that is put into it.
 

Black Elmo

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I'm just contemplating whats the point of it all? spent 12 years at school and for what? A disappointing number I'm gonna carry around. I know people tell me it "won't effect my life", but it will. I will always look back on the HSC and regret not putting in enough effort and study.
so true so true
 

Black Elmo

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While I 105% agree with what you said (as I'm sure most will), it's not something that we can change, so we all need to put up with it. In the end, English is just a game you need to beat. Once the HSC's over, you'll forget about it and never look back - it really is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I was caught cheating in one of my HSC english assessments, got a 0 in a task worth 15%, and my rank plummeted. Needless to say, I was devastated at the time. Looking back now, I can laugh about it, and I wouldn't change a thing even if I had to do it again. That's how you'll back on it in many years time!
just curious but, how did u cheat
 

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