how long does it take you to write an essay? (1 Viewer)

Abzilicious

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7minute said:
Sometimes you can get away with having a general idea of the text and some REALLY good quotes
Choose a txt u love- like a movie that u can easily grasp- its so much easier 2 rmbr quotes and u can just picture it all in ur head. In the exam, it'll all just come to you
 

rawr26

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My introduction for an essay usually takes me very long, as i am really bad them :( after that, i'll say about 2hours? practice essay that is.
 

vizman

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maybe 3 - 4 hrs, a lot of it is spent finding appropriate evidence and then it sorta just flows together, then theres editing which takes a while as well
 

Famguy

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A good one takes me like 3-4 hours, most of it is spen finding all the info from skool workbook and taking bits and peices out of past essays like the parts i like
 
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Abzilicious said:
Choose a txt u love- like a movie that u can easily grasp- its so much easier 2 rmbr quotes and u can just picture it all in ur head. In the exam, it'll all just come to you
problem with those is the tendency to get caught up with the text and not answer the question *cough*black books*cough*
 

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unfold said:
I used to spent forever......to write an essay. it was most likely that i didnt plan b4 writing it. now i do...(sort of) since it takes shorter time now than b4...but i still wanna speed it up.

so how do u guyz do it? plan and then start writing? and most importantly how long will it take u? im not talking under exam cond. but like preparing a practice essay at home. how long??

if your pretty dodgy at making an essay i was the same as you before. so take my method. a general idea of how i turned from crappy english student to above average is first

-theres a fckin question
-read it

- i find it the hardest to start it off all my essays why cause you got to answer the fckin question

- find key words in the question
- find other words that you could use other than the key words to use throughout your fckin essay

- state the question in your opening
this is shown in>(text)(idea) >techniques (idea)

for each opening paragraph when you talk about the different text or so
first sentence what you going to answer state the key words
write all those bulshiat you learnt in class(listen in fckin class would ya)
finish it off with the fckin key words and answering the question
(eg thus we see hence emphasising all those crappy words)

and conclusion cbb explaining ill write an essay up for you if u want 2 give u an idea.
seriously i remember in year 11 start my first question to tutor teacher WTF is an essay? LOL

-you know teacher say you shouldnt remember your essay and stuff like prepare an essay in advance for a test thats a total crap.i always did with a genaral essay and then add the key words and ideas in my prepared essay but you got to ANSWER THE QUESTION.
obvisouly my method isnt what is needed to get top top marks but if your relativity below average you dont have time 2 be the best in english you only have time to improve in your short period of time so take my method not the A class students lOl
 

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unfold said:
I used to spent forever......to write an essay. it was most likely that i didnt plan b4 writing it. now i do...(sort of) since it takes shorter time now than b4...but i still wanna speed it up.

so how do u guyz do it? plan and then start writing? and most importantly how long will it take u? im not talking under exam cond. but like preparing a practice essay at home. how long??

oh yeah i got so carried away about some other bulshiat i forgot to answer your question
beginning of year 11- 3-5hours lOl no jks mind you i never do work without music tele or the temptation to play some bulshiat games right by yourside ><" so yeah what i call tough conditions
year 12- 40minutes- 3hours(only for the first preparing essay the general essay)
 

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politik said:
Is it possible to link your paragraphs together (e.g. you talk about a text from the stim. book n then u link it to a poem from peter skrysnecki)...
yes i had alot of info linking and i got carried away with trying to link fckin everything together in ever fckin paragraph i advices, not to do the fckin same thing. leave the last paragraph to link it all together with the ideas or contrast it watever.
 

Rekkusu

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Guys just remember simply answer the damn question.

If the theme is journeys, then always remember that when you talk about the texts.

It's hard for you guys since it's really all new. After all those assessments, you'll click into it straight away.
 

kapitanvicki

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T.T

tell me about it. I'm in Year 10 and had to write up 1000 words (which took me 3 and a quarterpages) in 50 minutes...or 45? With planning. Wrote badly :'( .
 

fickletoe

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righto, i have an interesting problem:
i am a damn slow writer, and no matter how hard i try, 40 mins is just not enough for me to write something credible... im always generalising or leaving out stuff in order to finish on time.
i figure i need to find a lot of practise essay questions, and just keep doing them until i go better.
is anyone like me, and really slow?
cos its annoying, mostly cos i ace short answer questions and lose marks on all my essays.
 

seduktive

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well for me it all depends on the question, but usually I always try and fit it in the time it says or just abit more ><"
 

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vs2328 said:
hey i was wondering whether u guys actually memorise ur essays .. because i know most ppl from my school memorise it word for word when given an assessment task in which we were given the question prior to writing it.
however with the hsc , you would obviously have to rearrange ur essay to suit the question. do you guys memorise .. or jst study the main points ?
personally i can't write well under pressure so i find memorisin it more easier.
however the dilema is that u gta memorise 3 essays. how am i sppose to do that LOL!!!!
Break down the essay into small 2 - 3 sentences. For each section, read it a couple of times until you understand it. And then write it on paper a couple of times. Once you've memorised or at least partly memorised one section, move on to the next section and do the same thing. If you keep doing this for quite a while and youre pretty good, you will be able to fully memorise your essay and be able to write it word for word in the exam. But in most cases, you can only memorise / learn bits of the essays which is also good because you can can then just exand on the points you know / memorised.
 

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vs2328 said:
hey i was wondering whether u guys actually memorise ur essays .. because i know most ppl from my school memorise it word for word when given an assessment task in which we were given the question prior to writing it.
however with the hsc , you would obviously have to rearrange ur essay to suit the question. do you guys memorise .. or jst study the main points ?
personally i can't write well under pressure so i find memorisin it more easier.
however the dilema is that u gta memorise 3 essays. how am i sppose to do that LOL!!!!
If you memorise essays you lose.
You will throw away that precious time spent during discussions in English.
 

Road Runner

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Forbidden. said:
If you memorise essays you lose.
You will throw away that precious time spent during discussions in English.
Not really. If you can actually memorise an English essay, it actually gives you more advantage. In the trials and HSC, you will only get 40 minutes to do a proper essay on one of the modules you have studied. Obviously if you have memorised an essay for one of the modules, you wouldnt write that same essay you memorised because the essay question would be different. HOWEVER, you can easily modify the essay you have memorised to fit and answer the essay question on one of the modules. By doing this, you'll be able to write A LOT faster since you already know / have lots of ideas of what to write about thus saving you time to do the other essays. Also if you modify your 'memorised essay' to answer an essay question, you'll also be able to write more / cover a lot more content than someone who doesnt have a clue / still have to think what to write about.

Btw, it is also possible to memorise an essay and participate in class discussions. Obviously, you would memorise an essay in your own time whilst participating in class discussions would take place in class. common sense really.
 

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Road Runner said:
Not really. If you can actually memorise an English essay, it actually gives you more advantage. In the trials and HSC, you will only get 40 minutes to do a proper essay on one of the modules you have studied. Obviously if you have memorised an essay for one of the modules, you wouldnt write that same essay you memorised because the essay question would be different. HOWEVER, you can easily modify the essay you have memorised to fit and answer the essay question on one of the modules. By doing this, you'll be able to write A LOT faster since you already know / have lots of ideas of what to write about thus saving you time to do the other essays. Also if you modify your 'memorised essay' to answer an essay question, you'll also be able to write more / cover a lot more content than someone who doesnt have a clue / still have to think what to write about.

Btw, it is also possible to memorise an essay and participate in class discussions. Obviously, you would memorise an essay in your own time whilst participating in class discussions would take place in class. common sense really.
I don't remember big formulas in science/engineering and neither have I memorised a single essay for my trials and HSC.
Essays are only relevant and unique to the question being asked but as you said yes I would need to modify my essay to the question being asked.
However if the question was completely unpredictable, unexpected and irrelevant to a memorised essay like what happened to me in the HSC 2007 English Paper One I would be forced to abandon my memorised essay if I did.
Rapid brainstorming is a technique I may not have perfected but it is reliable enough to create plausible and persuasive points of view with relevant quotes to support my argument to answer the question.
I'm just saying memorising essays is not a good habit for me that's all as I would be prepared for any question thrown at me.
 

bawd

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I spend about 3 - 5 minutes planning before I start an essay, and I can choke up anywhere between 800 - 1200 words in 45 minutes depending on how quickly and consistently ideas flow.
 

puglover

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vs2328 said:
hey i was wondering whether u guys actually memorise ur essays .. because i know most ppl from my school memorise it word for word when given an assessment task in which we were given the question prior to writing it.
however with the hsc , you would obviously have to rearrange ur essay to suit the question. do you guys memorise .. or jst study the main points ?
personally i can't write well under pressure so i find memorisin it more easier.
however the dilema is that u gta memorise 3 essays. how am i sppose to do that LOL!!!!
I memorise the main points and just some vocabulary that I feel could be useful.
I think memorising whole essays word-for-word is not a good idea and I would not encourage it .. because you could fall into the trap of writing something irrelevant and not be answering the question..

but once you understand the structure it can become really easy to whip out an essay!
 

u-borat

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Lets face it, when we talk about a drastically different question, you'll still be using the same quotes and analysis, just the EFFECT of these quotes/analysis will be different. And the 5 minutes reading time is ample for changing your argument mentally.
There's zero reason not to memorise an essay- I can get 1300 words easy in a 50 minute essay.
 

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