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Memorising for Trials (2 Viewers)

Therewego

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Obviously this is different for everybody, but I have never gone into an English examination without having an essay/story memorised and in the trial exams which just passed I had my story and each essay memorised.

And yes, it worked a charm.

I guess the trick is, like some people have said, to be constantly thinking while writing the essay; every time there is an opportunity to relate your essay to the question or replace part of your essay with the question (quoting the question works well I find); do it.

The negative is that many people when they've memorised an essay kind of go into this trance in the exam room, writing it as fast as possible without actually thinking about WHAT they're writing/adapting it to the question.

But whatever works for you...
 

christoffpow

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May 28, 2007
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Obviously this is different for everybody, but I have never gone into an English examination without having an essay/story memorised and in the trial exams which just passed I had my story and each essay memorised.

And yes, it worked a charm.

I guess the trick is, like some people have said, to be constantly thinking while writing the essay; every time there is an opportunity to relate your essay to the question or replace part of your essay with the question (quoting the question works well I find); do it.

The negative is that many people when they've memorised an essay kind of go into this trance in the exam room, writing it as fast as possible without actually thinking about WHAT they're writing/adapting it to the question.

But whatever works for you...
+ 1 million. Exactly. Memorize your essays, your creative writing, etc, but just make sure you:

a) relate to the question in the topic sentence
b) at the end of every paragraph you relate the effect of whatever technique/example you used back to the stated question.
c) Memorize an introduction/conclusion based on the syllabus, incorporating your thesis on the question as well: 'While (question here), the notion of Belonging also draws parallels with the concept of alienation and isolation" I dunno, but you get me.

It's really not hard, you can just come up with it on the spot.

You can't go wrong. Same with creative writing. Every now and then try to add a line in your piece in reference to the stimulus. Particularly towards the end. And yeahhh
 

cheese!

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Seeing how you go in an internal trial exam in :) coffs harbour marked by your internal teachers means absolutely nothing :haha: lets see how you do in the hsc.
Look, everyone has there own methods, I'm telling you what I do and what my teachers have said. You disagree. Fine. But there's no need to attack my intelligence, my school and my teachers.

Lets leave it at that.
 

hano

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+ 1 million. Exactly. Memorize your essays, your creative writing, etc, but just make sure you:

a) relate to the question in the topic sentence
b) at the end of every paragraph you relate the effect of whatever technique/example you used back to the stated question.
c) Memorize an introduction/conclusion based on the syllabus, incorporating your thesis on the question as well: 'While (question here), the notion of Belonging also draws parallels with the concept of alienation and isolation" I dunno, but you get me.

It's really not hard, you can just come up with it on the spot.

You can't go wrong. Same with creative writing. Every now and then try to add a line in your piece in reference to the stimulus. Particularly towards the end. And yeahhh
I agree, except make sure if you are doing poetry, you have as my teacher calls it "a working knowledge" of the poems that you have not mentioned in your memorised essay. As they treat the collection of poems as a single "text" and can ask you to either, talk about specific poems or specify that you talk about 3 poems rather than the 2 or so poems you have prepared. Or the question may relate more to other poems that to others.
This is also true of related texts, make sure you have two that way if they specify one related text your okay and if they specify "texts" then your set to go.

Memorising works because the questions are always going to revolve around certain themes, then you can just work in the question's terms and adapt the essay in the exam. But always make sure you address the question and dont ignore it completely! :)
 

-may-cat-

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I memorized essays through years 11, 12 and for the HSC and was pretty pleased with my results. Thing is i relied on it too much and as a result had quite a bit of trouble with my exams at uni.

You just can't memorize essays for uni, its not general like the HSC. The point i'm trying to get at is that if you do decide to memorize, don't rely on it if you plan to do essay heavy studies at uni cuz you will have trouble.
 
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IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ESSAYS MEMORISED YOU ARE SCREWED, BOTTOM LINE.
no i disagree. me along with the other girl who were ranked 1st in advanced english have NEVER memorised an essay. we manage fine :)
i got 15/15 in the prelim yearlys in my essay last year. i didnt memorise a word of it.
 

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