Preface: This is not a personal attack on everyone - Fiction and Axio, you guys have some valid points, but I just want to clear out this debate by pointing out a few of the flaws in your arguments (especially yours Fiction, no offence).
None taken.
To be honest, regardless of whether she doesn't do the same texts as her peers, she is still within the scope of marking essays, although that will pertain more to your essay structure and how you analyse quotes and techniques rather than deeper thematic concepts which she might not be as familiar with if it is a text she has not studied. In spite of that, conveying your ideas on an interpretation of a text can be redundant without being able to express what you're saying coherently - even if you go on about how the author's existential nihilism compels audiences to rethink their ways of thinking, it would still be considered a moot point with clunky wording of your sentences.
You just proved my point rather than contradict it. An essay is an essay, regardless of whether it's from Advanced English or Standard English. She cannot give advanced students any leverage which cannot be given to standard students. Hence there is no reason for her discrimination based upon English courses. My main issue with her "service" is her discrimination based upon English courses. I repeat,
She cannot give advanced students any leverage which cannot be given to standard students.
There's nothing wrong with aiming4medschool offering her services specialising in English; not everyone is a potential all-rounder.
Refer to my previous post, esp this quote "To sum it up, there's nothing wrong with what's she's doing. There's something I personally find wrong with her choice of wording (ironic since she's offering english services) and something inherent wrong/contradictory/hypcritical in what she's saying."
In fact, she may not be presenting her services with her other subjects because she feels that her feedback may stumble the students over. So blatantly stating that she is great at English and wants to provide assistance actually says something.
Not getting it. Are you trying to base someone's capabilities based on their own
belief? Because there can be a gray line between belief and delusion. Besides, can you confirm her legitimacy based upon that post alone? No. Refer to my prev post for why.
Well, I think there's been a general consensus arising over the years that higher marks = more likely for students to derive benefit. Which in my opinion is totally wrong. It's basically like this example I'm going to give.
Imagine a football club (team Y) - you have the players, the staff members from the board, whatever. For the last 5 years, your team is in disarray leading to discontentment among the fans who eventually dissipate into the distance and there is immense difficulty sustaining the club financially. Recently, your manager has been sacked due to not achieving progress, and the board has two options for the next fill-in. They can either pick:
a) Bill:
- Has 11 years of experience
- Achieved 8 premierships across 4 different teams
- A well known tactician of the game and knows the ins and outs of his squad once he gets to know them for X amount of time
b) Jack:
- Relatively new to the coaching field
- No experience managing a professional club, only within the junior ranks
- Was recently assistant manger to another club under the tutelage of a well respected football manager
Looking at this two choices, it's obvious that team Y would pick Bill because he certainty has the expertise in his area. But does that necessarily mean it will translate to success? Of course not! Why? Because sometimes the more experienced one will get sacked in his run coaching Y club and the amateur would win the premiership in his first season, surpassing his and the fans expectations.
The same analogy applies to tutors/or high schoolers willing to help out. Just because a tutor lists their credentials as a 99.95er doesn't mean that they will be able to succeed. It all comes down to whether they are able to utilise their interpersonal skills to effectively communicate the concepts their students may not understand completely. I would rather have a tutor who got a modest ATAR that can explain stuff very thoroughly as opposed to a tutor who state-ranked several subjects but are so socially inept that their marks can't save their life. (this happened to me personally and other friends I know).
Again, my problem isn't with her actually marking the essays. My
main problem lies in her discriminating which essays to mark. I've addressed the credibility concern later in this post.
Put it this way. If Bill and Jack both have the same level of communication skills, who do you think will be able to teach better? That's right, Bill. Now consider this. We're on the net. It's not hard to type out posts which you can essentially edit, and re-edit to your heart's content before posting. It's not an improtu teaching session done face to face. Provided both Bill and Jack have the ability to write coherent sentences, their communication ability is all but the same.
Unfortunately tutoring ability does not equate to marking abilities. Tutoring requires actual face-to face communication skills, confidence, impromtu speaking (to an extent) etc. Typing a comment on a word document, does not require these same skills. But let's just take your tutoring example for the heck of it.
How exactly would you ~discover~ that this modest atar tutor posses all these tutoring virtues? A person's credentials indicates their level of interest/ability/passion for whatever they're advertising. The general majority will go for the .95, state ranker precisely because of the mentioned traits.
Furthermore, we're talking about english here. It's all about communication/forming arguments. I doubt someone who scored high in English in the HSC, who has had that experience, who is likely to have written more essays than Aiming4dental will communicate relatively ~worser~ than a Prelim student. Such is the nature of english~ You're not really challenging my main argument, hence not you haven't
No it's not. After marking several essays from the Advanced people in my cohort and other schools, this is far from the case.
One would assume that for the majority, Advanced students are, to say the least, more advanced than Standard English students. They should have at least somewhat a better grasp of essay skills than Standard.The HSC english course was made so that standard english could cater for
those students who
don't do as well in english as opposed to advanced students. Again I'm talking about the majority. I mean the top ranked standard student would obv have a better understanding of english than botton ranked Advanced student (duh).
So for the most part, the generalisation still holds true. Even if it didn't, like what I've mentioned above,
there's no advantage an advanced student can give to another advanced student which they cannot give to a standard student .
I repeat, "To sum it up, there's nothing wrong with what's she's doing. There's something I personally find wrong with her choice of wording (ironic since she's offering english services) and something inherent wrong/contradictory/hypcritical in what she's saying."