Having just completed VCE myself with a ATAR that I never thought was possible, I took a bit of time to think about what made me so successful and how I managed to really enjoy my learning, enjoy going to school everyday, whilst also managing to have some sort of positive and fun lifestyle outside [...]
You really don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with your examiners. Minor irritations such as misspellings and poor handwriting can put the examiner in a negative frame of mind and affect your overall grade, even if your essay content is solid. You want to give yourself every chance of getting top marks. [...]
When examiners read essays, they are expected to get through about 12-15 in an hour. This results in having around 5 minutes to read, get their head around, and grade your essay. Not much time at all. It is so vital that you don’t give the examiner an opportunity to take away marks because he [...]
I’m sure a lot of you are sitting at home right now, excited but nervous about the year ahead. Let me be honest with you: year 12 is going to be tough. You’re only going to get out what you put in. There’s going to be stress and drama and unexpected turns. There’ll be long [...]
With less than a month away, many of you may still be debating which Context style of writing you should use in the English exam. As you know, there are three essay styles you can choose from: expository, creative or persuasive pieces. Below is a compiled a list of advantages and disadvantages for each of [...]
There is one particular thing that everyone should set out to do before their English exam. It's probably crossed your mind but you're so overwhelmed with other exam preparation that you decided to give this one a miss. If you've already started, or completed what I'm about to advise, then congratulate yourself because you have probably [...]
This month's blog post will be short but it contains one extremely valuable point you should take away – especially if you'll be writing imaginary pieces in the next few months. Creative essays are great because they offer interesting and unique stories; however, there is one common downfall that occurs in writing. Some students create [...]
Your approach to each essay will depend on what type of prompt is being asked. Be aware that not all essay prompts are the same, which means that sometimes your preferred essay structure simply won't suit the type of prompt asked. This month we look at 5 types of essay topics – what you should [...]
Fact: The VCE is a competition. Fact: There are so many brilliant minds out there with vocabularies that can wow the pants off examiners in seconds. Fact: We have all felt intimidated at some stage of this race by these kids, but here’s the craziest fact of them all…. Fact: You can be one of [...]
Most assessments require you to write essays using formal language. In English writing, there are two main styles of writing – formal and informal. The primary purpose of formal language is to achieve sophistication and clarity. Although the difference between the two styles is relatively straightforward, we'll point out some common examples to just to [...]
