The Ultimate Guide to Memorising Essays for VCE English

[@sebastianzhangyx]

The amount of editing and effort that goes into this is 💯 💯

[@JLTutoring]

cheers!

[@xSmile_x]

I am very grateful for all your videos on English! I have always struggled with it, but all of tips and videos on structuring the essays have been very helpful! Thanks to you, I can confidently say my English exam went very well today, and I was able to finish all my essays too! 😄

[@kassflower9463]

hey Julian, thank you so much for making this very informative explanation. Just a question, how long approximately did it take you to create each of your master essays for section a and b separately, and also how many full essays did you write using these master essays with prompts from past exams?

[@JLTutoring]

Thank you!! It took me a few weeks to write my core essays for both section A and B, but it was something that I consistently worked on throughout the semester. This is why I give them out for free so you can what exactly I spent my time on In terms of full essays I wrote on top of my actual core essay - around 4-5 full ones for each section for the entire year. For the most part I just did essay plans (60+) - that was basically all I did. The full essays that I did do, however, were typically in the context of a full practice exam - in other words, I wrote full essays not to get better at writing but to get better at time management - also I did not memorise these essays that I wrote under timed conditions, I only wrote them just to practice my speed

[@Shane-jl6vm]

Hi Julian! Thanks for all your great videos, have been watching them for close to a year now :) I just had a question with regards Section C, particularly when there are two articles. For the unit 3 SAC, my school went by the comparative AA structure (as required by the study design), however recently they said that comparison is no longer required for the end of year exam when there are two texts, and that it doesn't attract any extra marks. After watching the video that you linked in the end, it seems like you used a comparative approach. Just wanted to get some clarification as I feel that these structures are rather contradictory. Thanks!

[@JLTutoring]

Great question - yep that's correct comparison is not required as mentioned in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gquthqGNfa-FasU However there are two main reasons for doing so: 1. It's an effective way to make sure you include both articles in your piece evenly 2. It allows you to have deeper analysis points (refer to video above) - which indirectly helps you get extra marks (typical in essays that score 9-10/10) So yes by just saying comparative phrases like "similarly or in contrast" doesn't get you marks - but rather its the analysis itself that gets extra marks And just a side note, the level of comparison doesn't need to be the same level in Section B (comparative - which actually requires you to compare), for AA it's optional but a great way to stand out

[@dulinhewa3726]

hey Julian I love your videos!, but what if our texts are like really non-linear, for example my text station eleven explores the perspective of different characters across a fairly large time period and idk if there really is a causes, compliance and resistance structure I can implement

[@JLTutoring]

Thank you, great question! You don't have to go by the "cause, compliance, resistance" labels as these were specific to my text for section B. Just for your reference, for section A my labels were "natural world, urban world, internal world" - now you don't need to know what these words mean - but the point is that the labels for each paragraph differ between texts but the underlying structure remains mostly the same. Although my texts were also non-linear, I can't speak for the exact details of every text, but as a general guide... In the video I drew out an essay plan that focuses on 2 key questions I believe are important 1. Can I structure my paragraphs so that there is progression? (one way is from past -> current -> future, but you can use anything that shows some logical step from P1 -> P2 -> P3) 2) Can I structure my paragraphs so they are centred on a few key themes? I used this to structure my paragraphs, and then apply the labels (i.e. cause, resistance, resistance) at the end So overall the labels don't matter that much, instead see if you can find underlying ideas to tie together all your paragraphs. Experiment with a few different essay topics and see what works :) Hope that helps

[@dulinhewa3726]

@@JLTutoring alright thank you!

[@josephhuang1163]

I think you tried harder the entire victorian state combined to get a perfect 50 study score in year 12. You should teach English at a high school.

[@bobbydaboy9798]

Thanks for recommending this now KZbin. Very helpful. That was sarcasm, JL. This was recommended to me after my exam.

[@emmy.vosper]

When he recommends a chronological structure to your essay, but your text is non linear 😢 (jk this video was amazing thanks so much)

[@JLTutoring]

Hahaha thank you! That's a good point - I actually had a non-linear text as well, and so it's not a strict linear structure in the sense that you're going from p1, p2 of your text to the end - but it's more so just to help me focus more on the backstory for p1, the characters for p2, and the hope for p3. All the best :))

[@ems6964]

Love it!!! You wouldn't happen to hv any advice for what the 3 things would be for the comparative pair of Never Let Me Go & Things We Didn't See Coming would you?

[@JLTutoring]

Cheers! Since I didn't do those texts, I can't offer too much specific advice - but one piece of advice that helped me was to plan out different essay topics, make a few plans, and see what ideas / quotes stick across essays - those are the things that can be memorised. Try to think outside the box for some essay topics, especially those open ended ones like "to what extent to you agree" or "discuss" - you can usually drag in other themes into those topics

[@joshuamariajoseph1500]

Hey Julian, very helpful video. What were your specific exam scores for each section, if you remember?

[@JLTutoring]

Thank you! I got 59/60 - lost the mark on argument analysis section C

[@arikeca5362]

🐐

[@krim6771]

Thanks Julian this video was super duper helpful! I was just wondering do you know how long your Section A and B responses were in words? Also how did you tackle the exam? (like which sections first and how much time did you spend on each section?)

[@JLTutoring]

Thank you! For section A and B - mine were around 1200-1300 (but sometimes when. I write I go over 1300 for comparative). However, don't take this by thinking that you have to write this much. I would say 1000-1200 word count is a good range for section A and B, and for section C 900 words (although during an exam I usually overshoot, but it's still a good aim nonetheless). As for the exam, I will make a more detailed video, but here is a summary - I did section C first because I would use reading time to read the article - Then i spent around 1hr per essay - some people spend slightly more on comparative and less on argument analysis - which is fine, I didn't have a preference and tried to split it evenly

[@krim6771]

@@JLTutoring Thank you Julian really appreciate it. You are an absolute legend!

[@wedonotcare1326]

Imagine being first 😂😂😂