Below is an extract from a senior studies guide I have complied which you might find useful to gain an insight into some possible study techniques that can assist you to maximise your marks in English.
My top tips for maximising your English potential:
1)write practice essays(but make sure you get a very harsh marker-whether it is your teacher, your tutor, or someone else)-there is no need to write excessively as quality exceed quantity in English and sometimes you need time to think over your ideas-to refine/extend them-so you don't waste so much time procrastinating when you write your essays
2) never write a second essay without getting comments for your first one, and I don't advise you to prepare a generic essay because unless you know the essay question before hand, generic essay will often leave you restricted in your options and even if it will get you marks in your assessment task, it will definitely not get you far in your trials and HSC...
3)never ever give up, use your holidays effectively to prepare-ask the teacher what text you will be studying in the coming year-and use the holidays to read over these texts-to reduce your stress during the year, for any modules requiring a related text, try to find it in the holidays, and try not to use a very popular text-it is much harder to stand out if you do used one.
4)learn to listen in class-whether it is other people's opinions or your teacher's insights, it will help you formulate your own unique understanding-don't rely on study guides too much-because everyone will be doing the same thing-but check with your teacher that your understanding is not super obscure
5) probably the most important is to use all resources available, your teacher, your tutor(if you have one), the internet, library, etc-and develop a personal passion and understanding into the subject-but don't excessively seek other people's opinion on your work-because you might develop a low self-esteem and start to doubt yourself-so always reflect on each piece of advice whether it is valid or not and keep faith-believe in yourself that you have the capacity to develop independent thinking-and just because it is different from other people-does not necessarily mean it is wrong-just be prepared to back it up with textual evidence
6)read all your texts for a minimum of 3 times-no skimming over-you really need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the whole text-not just deconstruct a few scenes and forget about the rest of the book).
7)For writing an excellent creative, you should decide what areas you want to explore, construct a 'perfect' story after various edit process, than try to adopt that story to as many creative writing question as possible-i.e. write plans and get someone to mark it for you, like your teacher, and when you come across questions that your story is difficult to mould to, then write another one to cover the rest of the questions, but to write good creative stories, you will need to practice and get feedback as well as read good examples.
8)Regularly practice answering English essay/comprehension/creative questions under EXAM CONDTIONS, without notes, and get a teacher/tutor/experienced English personnel to mark it for you-and learn from the comments.
Basically, to do well in English, it is just practice, feedback, practice, feedback-unfortunately there is no short cuts at all... this, coupled with perseverance, persistent optimism and consistent performance are the key ingredients to succeeding in English.
If you could like to check out the entire guide which includes more specific study tips for different subjects, including science and maths subjects, as well as general study and time management tips, feel free to check out this link:
http://community.boredofstudies.org...how-excel-senior-year-studies-yr-11-12-a.html . Hope this helps-best wishes for acing your HSC studies this year
