HSC English 2021: Everything you should know before exam two

The head of English at one of Sydney’s best performing HSC schools has revealed the common pitfalls made by students and how to avoid them in today’s exam.

The head of English at one of the state‘s top performing schools has revealed the advice she gives to her students ahead of the HSC English paper II today.

SCEGGS Darlinghurst head of English Marilyn Pretorius — whose school was in the top 10 in the state for English in the HSC last year — said there were several common pitfalls for students which could easily be avoided in the exam to maximise marks.

Here the experienced HSC marker reveals the common traps and what to do to avoid them for students when writing their three essays in just two hours and five minutes.

ANSWER THE QUESTION, FOCUS ON KEY WORDS

Some students prepare a response to another question and they learn that response and put it down on the page no matter what the question is and that’s not going to get them the top marks.

I would say a good third of the candidates do that, but it is not the way to go.

They need to know their texts very well and answer the actual question on the day, that will get them the marks.

MOVE ON FROM CURVEBALL QUESTIONS

If you get a curveball question, do the best you can and just move on after 40 minutes, that way you can maximise your chances in the other modules if they find it really tricky.

HAVE A BANK OF QUOTES TO USE

I never answer the question of how many to use for students, I don’t know how many quotes they will need.

It depends on your memory, but one must have a bank of quotes to use. I would say at least 10 quotes for each text, because they don’t know what the question is going to be but they have to have an idea of a possible response.

If their quotes cover the essentials of the text, maybe the thematics, maybe character, that could get them through.

You could get away with six very quotes depending on how they are used and how they fit into their essay’s argument.

DON'T PANIC IF YOU FORGET

If you forget the exact wording of a quotation, don’t panic, paraphrase it in quotes.

As long as the marker gets the gist, like if you were quoting from 1984, the student wrote “Winston told Big Brother he loved him” instead of “He loved Big Brother.”

As long as the student knows the gist, they mustn’t panic if they forget the exact wording.

Rose Bay Secondary College students Hordur Zoega, 18, Alexandra Bay, 17, and Harriet Shand, 17 will sit the Paper II on Wednesday. Picture: David Swift

STRUCTURE YOUR ARGUMENT

There must be an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion.

Some people just write a mass of words on the page, that can be from stress or anxiety.

The introduction is the most important part of the essay because it guides the marker as to the way the student is going to answer the question and then develop their argument in paragraphs with good topic sentences.

WRITE CLEARLY

I would say write as clearly as you can. Markers spend a lot of time trying to decipher bad handwriting. It would be better if students were more cognisant of the clarity of their handwriting.

It takes a long time to mark poor handwriting — teachers are very kind and they want the best for the students. I have known teachers to spend half an hour on one script. It does hold up the markers but especially this year they will be trying their very best to get every bit of information from the exam script because of what has happened with Covid this year.

MAKE THE MOST OF READING TIME

Reading time is very important. It is where they must read the whole paper and all the questions and think about them.

They have just five minutes and must take a deep breath and then start. It gives them time to reflect.

Grappling with the question in the introduction releases that flow of ideas, if they are well prepared. And one would think that they are, that they’ve revised and done practice essays.

KNOW HOW MUCH TO WRITE

Towards the end of their revision, we’re looking for about 1000 words per essay. Some people who are concise with words can write a good essay in 850 words and nail their argument.

Some students, and it is usually girls, can write a lot — they can write 1800 words quickly but some would struggle to do that many.

The average is about 1000 words, that’s all they have time for. The argument is very important — I certainly wouldn’t tell someone to slap down everything they know, that wouldn’t do.”