Length of responses (1 Viewer)

[Seven3121]

does anyone know or been suggested by a teacher or someone reliable how long responses should be... as in i mean specifics
like overall how long should our whole personalities q be... as well as how long should a 5/10/15 mark response be?
and for societies howlong should the overall as well as the 5/6/10 markers be?
and the big one... how long should our historical periods essays be?

its just i was looking at exemplar and high range responses from last year and some go for 13-16 pages... its insane!

 

[aljoz]

Well youve got 45 mins per section.....and in a 40 min time period i can write around 1200 words max, so in 45 mins i can prolly write around 1350 words.

So if u use the time all effectively, then historical period essays should be around 1300 words long.

Ancient societies dont they give us a special answer booklet with lines on it......so for that just fill in the lines, u can ask for more paper for the last part (the 10 marker) if time is in ur favour, but full marks have been given to those ppl who have written just using the lines provided (according to my teacher who is a HSC marker).

And personalities should all up be around 1300 words too:

So 10 markers: around 400-500 words
15 markers: around 800+ words

 

[smurfygirl]

I mark the Historical period section, which is the last section of the exam. We find that students tend to not write a great deal for this section as they do it last and have either run out of steam, or run out of time.

I would suggest that you don't answer the paper in the order that it is written. Why? It will take you a lot less time to complete the core and your society than it will take to complete the Historical period essay. Also, the first 4 marks in the Core and society and basically gimmes and should take you about 2 minutes. That's 8 marks in less that 5 minutes. It'd take you longer to get those marks in an essay.

You should also think about which civilisations you do and answer them in groups. EG, if you don't do Rome at all (other than the Core), answer the core first to get it out of the way - it'll also help ease you in to the exam as it's structured.

I don't think you need to spend 45 minutes each on the Core and the society. If you can cut it to 40 minutes each, that gives you an extra 10 minutes for either the essay or personality.

As to page length, it really is quality over quantity. However, it is unlikely you would be able to answer the essay in enough depth in 5 pages (of an HSC booklet) to make top band.

As for personalities, there are 2 sections (10 and 15). You should be able to get 10 marks in 3 HSC booklet pages and 15 in 4-5 pages.

Hope that helps.

 

[xeuyrawp]

I mark the Historical period section, which is the last section of the exam. We find that students tend to not write a great deal for this section as they do it last and have either run out of steam, or run out of time.

I would suggest that you don't answer the paper in the order that it is written. Why? It will take you a lot less time to complete the core and your society than it will take to complete the Historical period essay. Also, the first 4 marks in the Core and society and basically gimmes and should take you about 2 minutes. That's 8 marks in less that 5 minutes. It'd take you longer to get those marks in an essay.

You should also think about which civilisations you do and answer them in groups. EG, if you don't do Rome at all (other than the Core), answer the core first to get it out of the way - it'll also help ease you in to the exam as it's structured.

I don't think you need to spend 45 minutes each on the Core and the society. If you can cut it to 40 minutes each, that gives you an extra 10 minutes for either the essay or personality.

As to page length, it really is quality over quantity. However, it is unlikely you would be able to answer the essay in enough depth in 5 pages (of an HSC booklet) to make top band.

As for personalities, there are 2 sections (10 and 15). You should be able to get 10 marks in 3 HSC booklet pages and 15 in 4-5 pages.

Hope that helps.

I don't agree with writing the HP section first. I think students can know when they've written 'enough' for the other sections, so they should attempt them first, and, when they feel like they've done enough (or they're at the 40 minute mark), they stop and move on. Eg, one of my students last year found that she only needed to spend 35 mins on the society question because it was so straight-forward.

I definitely agree with allocating more time to the HP, though, because, as you point out, a lot of students get full or close-to full marks on the other sections, especially the Society, whereas the HP seems to make or break a student's mark.

 

[Adam.Meads]

Yeah New Kingdom Egypt was my worst section in the Trials ... I got 19, and just felt I ran out of ideas, and repeated myself.

But back to the topic at hand ...

Our teacher tells us that for a 5 mark question, you should try and write 1 book page, as a basic guideline.

20 pages in 3 hours is nothing. I can do that in about 1 and a half hours, so (keeping in mind that it is quality > quanitity) here is my guideline.

I think that, in order, this is roughly how much you should write; more will be necessary if you wish to obtain higher than B5.

- 1 1/2 pages, 2 pages, 3 pages = Approx 7 pages - spaces provided.

- All up about 6-8 pages

- 3 pages, 4 1/2 pages

- Approx 8 pages

TOTAL = approx 28-32 pages. In 3 hours, this is a fairly simple ask.

Good luck for Thursday everyone - quality > quantity.

And don't freak out if you dont meet those guidelines, thats just what I am going to aim at. Its very question dependent.

 

[COhex]

My advice, read the question! I lost marks for not reading it correctly and forgetting to answer half of some questions lol...

I can't write that much, never could. I wish RL was more like a video game and that one could demo themselves doing the exam and then send/recieve demos to and from other people! Then you could watch their technique bla blah blah... Lol at myself.

Why am I trolling forums when I got an exam tomorrow and the day after + this on Thursday blargh. Study is hard... Can't wait for weekend.