1.     Maintain your Routine

While it might be tempting to hit snooze on your alarm or to trade your afternoon study for a Netflix binge, you should be sticking to your usual daily routine as closely as possible when working from home. As the human brain craves certainty, the consistency of a daily routine will help you to cope with change and keep making progress on your goals.

To stay on track, you should wake up at the same time every day, get dressed in your usual clothes and study as you usually would. Adhering to a typical ‘school week’ structure will help you to get through a solid volume of work and to feel more productive and more motivated. Attending your regular CoWorks sessions is a great way to maintain structure in your week and to guarantee productivity. 

Our HSC Specialists are ready to take any questions you have about the HSC process or about how your child can take control of their HSC year and achieve the results which they deserve.

Get into contact with us via messaging our live chat or calling us on 1300 967 890. 

 

Check out our previous blog post on setting up your at home study space by clicking here.

 

The post How to Make the Most Out of ‘Lockdown Learning’ appeared first on HSC CoWorks.

So rather than teaching more content or telling students how to think, we place a huge emphasis on demonstrating to students how to think critically themselves. We do this through active collaboration, powerful coaching discussions, and tasks that are designed to push students to think beyond the level of application.

Developing the skill of critical thinking will not only help your child achieve greater success in the HSC, but in all facets of life. It is a skill that is expected at the university level, and as most parents can attest, is engaged with daily in the working world.

We want your child to get a head start in developing a skill that will support them conquer their HSC as well as prepare them for the challenges of University and beyond.

The post Why your child does not need more content! appeared first on HSC CoWorks.

It is often the case that Comprehension is the worst scoring section of the Discovery exam for this exact reason. But why is this? We know the discovery rubric inside and out, so that we can write good essays and creatives on it, and the texts provided aren’t exceedingly challenging. So what are we missing?

The answer lies in the techniques. While we’ve had a solid list of 5 techniques drilled into our brains since year 7 (metaphor, simile, imagery, and tone, alliteration) – this alone will not cut it in the comprehension section (or, as a matter of fact, your essay section). The HSC marker is likely tired of seeing these 5 techniques used, often at a stretch, when there are a plethora of other techniques that are more appropriate for the passage you’re looking at.

In the Reading Task Comprehension, techniques account for the majority of marks in your short answer question. For most 3 mark questions, an average of 2 quotes and 2 techniques are used for top range students. This means, with 15 marks up for grabs, 8 – 10 of those come solely from techniques – and all you have to do is know which ones to use. If you can become practiced at identifying good techniques, all you have to really focus on for the exam is linking your statements back to the rubric.

To help you with this, we’ve developed over 200 multiple-choice questions aimed solely at supporting you to identify language techniques. This is a bona-fide method to guarantee your vocabulary for language devices will increase, and is stored in your memory so that you can nab those 8 – 10 marks in your comprehension without blinking an eye.

Don’t forget about our HSC English Literary Devices and Language Technique List HERE

Get started now, by completing 10 MCQs on the portal.

Sample questions:

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If you were to call someone “vertically challenged”, rather than “short”, you would be using a —

1. Juxstaposition
2. Euphemism
3. Adage
4. Metaphor

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The infamous quote from Forrest Gump, “My momma always said, life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”, is an example of what literary device?

1. Soliloquy
2. Adage
3. Personification
4. Repetition

The post Why knowing language techniques is half the battle appeared first on HSC CoWorks.

Nevertheless, Module B does not have to be all pain and no gain. In fact, it could even be an enjoyable experience which allows you to finally write about what you think is significant within a text.

Whether you’re the type of student to get excited by this opportunity, or a student who really would prefer not to spend another eight weeks researching a text you don’t particularly enjoy, have a look as these tips to help you construct an awesome Module B essay.

Remember, conquering this module could be your ticket into your dream Uni course.

1.   Read Your Text

While this should be an obvious first step, by Year 12, nearly every high-school student will have written about a text they never read.

However, for Module B, a thorough knowledge of the text is crucial to achieving a Band 6 – the exam question could ask about anything, from that one poem by Eliot that was just way too insignificant to study, to the chapter of Cloudstreet you simply couldn’t force yourself to read.

To give you an example, here’s one high-school’s niche question on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

Write a person response in which you discuss the relationship and motivations of Hamlet with THREE of the following minor yet significant characters: Fortinbras, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

2.   Have an Opinion!

“This module requires students to engage with and develop an informed personal understanding of their prescribed text.” (HSC Syllabus, Module B)

The unique and exciting aspect of Module B is that it asks you for your own interpretation more than any other Advanced English module. Unlike Area of Study and Module A, which are restricted by the syllabus outline, Module B gives you the opportunity to direct your own essay, focused upon whatever you see as significant in the text studied.

A helpful way to go about this is to make note of particular aspects of the text which resonate with you as you read/watch it. For example, you may find yourself drawn to the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia, or maybe you find Charlotte Bronte’s presentation of insanity fascinating in Jane Eyre.

Once you finish reading, you’ll already have a list of concepts to research and contemplate, which brings me to my next point:

3.   Research and Reflect

The right to showcase your own opinion comes with a responsibility to think deeply and critically about your text. This means reading scholarly opinions and evaluating your own interpretation of the text in response. As the HSC Syllabus explains…

“Students refine their own understanding and interpretations of the prescribed text and critically consider these in the light of the perspectives of others”

At this point, a simple google search of ‘relationships in Hamlet’ or ‘Insanity in Jane Eyre’ can supply you with great critical opinions on different concepts in your Module B text.

Taking it further, most schools will have access to online databases of some kind which provide a never-ending supply of scholarly opinion. If this is the case, Jstor and Google Scholar are fantastic databases to try out.

If you don’t have access to online databases, have a search of your local library to see if there are any resources close-by (for example, Chatswood library has a surprisingly thorough selection of books containing critical analyses of texts). Finally, the State Library has an amazing supply of both hardcopy and online resources for researching of academic opinions. Have a look at their website here: http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/

4.   Plan

It is absolutely essential to plan your Module B essay before you dive into the writing process. Not only will this save you a lot of confusion and frustration, but it ensures you have every building block necessary to construct a strong Module B essay.

The essential aspects of a Module B essay include: a thesis, themes or concepts, contextual information, consideration of the intended audience and the persona of a text, as well as evidence through an analysis of quotes and/or scenes using techniques. Then, on top of this, a consideration of others’ perspectives against your own.

5.   Write & Rewrite

Nothing worth having comes easy, and even with a perfect plan, no strong essay can be written on the first go. This step can be split into two actions:

Drafting: Expect your first draft to be messy – it’s a normal phase of writing that everyone faces. The trick is to submit your work to a teacher, or an online marker through HSC CoWorks, accept their constructive criticism, edit and repeat.

Always keep an open mind when you receive feedback. Remember that teachers and markers have studied this subject as students and with other HSC students – they know what they’re talking about!

Writing: This time I’m not talking about draft versions of your essay, but actually handwriting your essay and adapting it to an exam style question.

Remember, you need to be prepared to answer any question in an exam, even a question on one particular character, poem, chapter or scene. It’s important to practice coming up with a strong argument under timed conditions, while also figuring out how to link your broader knowledge of the text into an essay responding to a narrowly focused question.

Finally, writing out your essay ensures you have tested how much you can write in 40 minutes. You want to make sure you can show off all of your amazing knowledge and hard-work in the end!

The post The Secret Blueprint For Module B appeared first on HSC CoWorks.