Over-Length Work? (1 Viewer)

[AscendI]

<HR style="COLOR: #d1d1e1" SIZE=1> <!-- google_ad_section_start -->Hey guys, my first time posting here:wave:

I have recently beeen issued with my first preliminary assessment task for ext1 english. In the guidelines it says

"Length 700-750 words"

The question was, "Is the Pygmalion obsession still amongst us" and to get an A range mark we have to analyse and explore 3 texts in relation to Pygmalion. (feature article)

My feature article is approx 1500 words.

Nowhere in the marking criteria does it state either implicitly or explicitly that you lose or gain a mark for being over or under length.

I've scanned my article many times and I'm pretty sure that I can't lose anything. Otherwise it loses its value and overall effect.

Can my teacher in any way shape or form, mark me down for being over length?

I've also posted this in the extension english forum, to no avail, and it is a matter of urgency, so yeah..

any help is appreciated guys, thanks<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

 

[watatank]

Who cares its preliminary. Just hand that in and if length bothers you fix it up next time.

 

[Tulipa]

You've got the answer right within your question.

Length 700-750 words

That is your criteria, to pass the assignment you need to fulfill the criteria, so if a teacher does mark you down (which they probably will) there's a reason for it.

 

[woho]

Cutting down, exactly what i'm doing now lol.

Trust me, if it says 750 words, and you've got 1500, you're going into too much detail for the task. Cut techniques, examples, "the's"... anything you can think of.

And the teacher may not mark you down for over-length, but s(he) may stop reading when s(he) gets to approx. 750 words. They have a tendency to do that.

 

[circusmind]

Don't be surprised if you're marked down.

You'll find it hard to cut your essay in half while retaining much of its original merit. I generally overshoot a word count by about 1/4-1/3 in the first draft, and then consolidate down to exactly on the limit. Your mileage may vary.

 

[woho]

Speaking of cutting, does anyone know how long (approx) an Adv. English essay has to be in the HSC to get a band 6? My practise ones are 1900 words (!) , one of them cut down from 4800 words, and i dont know what else to cut/ how much detail i should be going in.

 

[watatank]

Speaking of cutting, does anyone know how long (approx) an Adv. English essay has to be in the HSC to get a band 6? My practise ones are 1900 words (!) , one of them cut down from 4800 words, and i dont know what else to cut/ how much detail i should be going in.

At 200-300 words (written) per page, I'd imagine that's almost 7 pages, depending on the size of your writing! That's great and all (if you are capable of writing that fast), but you have to leave room to address the question...don't make it too long...

Just remember its not how much you write, its what you write.

 

[watatank]

Who cares its preliminary. Just hand that in and if length bothers you fix it up next time.

A friend of mine consistently overstepped the mark, but he was the best student in the year by far and it was probably because of that he never seemed to be marked down. Which is why i said what i said. Although I think he started doing it properly in year 12, im not entirely sure on that one.

@orignal poster: If you want to make absolutely sure you don't get marks lost, nothing more than 1000 I think, depending on your teacher they should give 100-200 word limit each way.

 

[circusmind]

Speaking of cutting, does anyone know how long (approx) an Adv. English essay has to be in the HSC to get a band 6? My practise ones are 1900 words (!) , one of them cut down from 4800 words, and i dont know what else to cut/ how much detail i should be going in.

My essays were all over 10 exam booklet pages. I got a band 6. There is no necessary correlation between those two facts, though.

 

[woho]

@orignal poster: If you want to make absolutely sure you don't get marks lost, nothing more than 1000 I think, depending on your teacher they should give 100-200 word limit each way.

200 words?! Whoa! My teachers are so strict, its a 50 word grace limit. And if they think you go over, its 'email me the assignment so i can do a word count'. And then they stop reading at 50 words over.:mad1:

But the whole purpose of word limits is so that you can write it in exams. Although you think you can probably write 1500 words in one hour, chances are you'll have to bring in more texts, etc. which is why your teacher put the limit at 750.

 

[woho]

10 exam bklt pages, ay? You have big or small writing?

And the other problem I have, is the faster i write, the more illegible it becomes (and the more it hurts).

*Sigh*, half-yearly paper 2 is tomorrow...

 

[cl3nta]

I think you could get away with 900 because it is rather unnoticeable (and it's only premlim). Don't do anything like that for HSC though although depending on your subjects, there won't be many hand-ins. But your aim should be fulfilling the criteria and if you're double the word limit, you might be fulfilling all the criteria, but you're failing keeping to the rules. goodluck

 

[AscendI]

200 words?! Whoa! My teachers are so strict, its a 50 word grace limit. And if they think you go over, its 'email me the assignment so i can do a word count'. And then they stop reading at 50 words over.:mad1:

But the whole purpose of word limits is so that you can write it in exams. Although you think you can probably write 1500 words in one hour, chances are you'll have to bring in more texts, etc. which is why your teacher put the limit at 750.

I can write it in an exam, however shouldn't the quality of an assessment done at home be representative of the fact that you've had an enormous amount of time to research it and do it?

I could easily reproduce a shorter summed up version in exam conditions however what I'm saying is that the quality would be much lower, and I don't feel it would meet the marking criteria of this particular assessment.

I have 'overstepped the mark' in several assessments already this year, and those teachers told me they didn't have a problem with it unless it was equivelant in size to a small book.

I got full marks for one of those assessments (awaiting the other to be marked) in which the word limit was 1000 and I wrote something like 2000...

So what's the go?

What should I do?

And what grounds do they have for taking marks of if I have met the criteria of an A range response?

To cross reference Part B of the assessment task (a speech on the article), within the marking criteria it specifically states under C range "under time (2:40)"

However within the marking criteria of the Article, no such stipulation can be found regarding the word length.

 

[woho]

They have every grounds for taking marks off. They are English teachers, they told you the word limit in the question, they can stop reading when they get to 750 words.

thats what they do

And if you want to know what to do, cut it down. Eliminate everything that's in excess. Sentences, examples, techniques, the word 'the'...

 

[circusmind]

10 exam bklt pages, ay? You have big or small writing?

And the other problem I have, is the faster i write, the more illegible it becomes (and the more it hurts).

*Sigh*, half-yearly paper 2 is tomorrow...

Average.

All my mates who got similarly good marks were writing 10-15 pages as well, and we were churning out 20+ in the extension subjects.

You should note that the band 6 exemplars are nowhere near this length, though.

 

[woho]

Twenty pages?! You guys i look up too.

I can probably only write 1300 words in 40 minutes (thats about 3 exam bkts)

 

[circusmind]

Twenty pages?! You guys i look up too.

Don't.

I think it's a product more of a crap English syllabus than anything else. We went through never knowing exactly what the marker wanted, so it was a natural choice to write so much that we were sure we hit all our bases.

 

[AscendI]

They have every grounds for taking marks off. They are English teachers, they told you the word limit in the question, they can stop reading when they get to 750 words.

thats what they do

And if you want to know what to do, cut it down. Eliminate everything that's in excess. Sentences, examples, techniques, the word 'the'...

So how exactly do they take marks off and write in the feedback - "I didn't finish reading it therefore you lost marks"

That's ridiculous.

What I'm saying is IF theys tick to the marking criterias they set, they have no grounds to take or add marks off in regards to length.

Do I have any case whatsoever?

 

[woho]

lol they'd mark you on what they read

I'd just stop complaining and cut it down- but if you want to argue your case, go ahead. You probably wont win..

 

[Tulipa]

No.

Within your assignment set out, they have included "Length 700-750 words". I'm assuming under the guidelines were other criteria that you have followed?

In essence for you to achieve all the guidelines, criteria, whatever, you have to contain your answer to what they've said. If you don't, you're in violation of these and they can take marks off.

They didn't set the length because they don't want to read too much, they set it because it's more difficult to write something good in such a short space. That is part of the assignment.

Now stop whining and cut it down.