Is there any benefit to English being compulsory? (1 Viewer)

ZaoKai

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Well I guess this is your first time meeting someone who is like that and before you come at me for attention span for not being able to read a novel, reading a novel was never something I could do myself even before I had my first social media account. And trust me if there’s someone who’s screwed for English it’s me, heck I’m more confident in getting a higher physics hsc mark than English, this might be subjective but to me, I’m answering a question that makes no sense and expected to write a 6 page essay of pure waffling crap where I don’t know what the hell im writing about.
On the same boat.. confident in getting higher chem hsc mark even math ext 2 mark in hsc than English 💀
 

mmmmmmmmaaaaaaa

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I’m not denying you can use English skills after high school, but I can say the same for maths, where to an extent even historians and authors need some level of maths understanding for day to day life but maths isn’t compulsory and maybe this is a level of bias on my end but a lot of concepts in maths can directly translate to being used regularly by some individuals especially engineers but I can’t say the same for English, yes communication is necessary but having the ability to write 6 pages of creative analysis with 3 peel paragraphs of some piece of poetry where all you do is waffle about nothing is not practical, if English was so useful why don’t they directly teach actual skills like communication and public speaking.
yeah ok
 

ExtremelyBoredUser

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I’m not denying you can use English skills after high school, but I can say the same for maths, where to an extent even historians and authors need some level of maths understanding for day to day life but maths isn’t compulsory and maybe this is a level of bias on my end but a lot of concepts in maths can directly translate to being used regularly by some individuals especially engineers but I can’t say the same for English, yes communication is necessary but having the ability to write 6 pages of creative analysis with 3 peel paragraphs of some piece of poetry where all you do is waffle about nothing is not practical, if English was so useful why don’t they directly teach actual skills like communication and public speaking.
dont care + i committed arson ten years ago + ratio
 

ExtremelyBoredUser

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bro you got 99 how did you do englishhhhhhh im out here memorising essays and i feel like shit lmao
on a serious note just go search the forum theres loads of answers like its been here even before ur dad met ur mom idk

for me i just did practice papers and compared my sols with good quality essays, got my teacher to proofread/mark my shit and just incorporated the style of state ranker type essays
 

Cathode_RT

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I think what people mainly complain about english is not the analysis or reading bits, which is pretty important for critical thinking and can help in other subjects, but the way the exam is structured in general

40mins to produce both quality and quantity on an unseen question based on memory reflects no real life skill, and just defeats the whole point of English since people who are better at applying (STEM people doing formulas and calculations for example) are ill equipped to analyse and form long responses based on active recall of quotes and techniques, made worse by the limit on time

IMO if NESA wants to improve English exams, they should make more short (5) mark answers which go something like

How does Margaret Atwood reimagine themes of imprisonment in "Hagseed" (5)

Instead of longform essay based questions
 

SadCeliac

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How does Margaret Atwood reimagine themes of imprisonment in "Hagseed" (5)

Instead of longform essay based questions
but then that type of question forces people to actually do things they may not have prepared
whereas a broader 20 mark essay allows for more freedom with themes etc
 

mmmmmmmmaaaaaaa

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I think what people mainly complain about english is not the analysis or reading bits, which is pretty important for critical thinking and can help in other subjects, but the way the exam is structured in general

40mins to produce both quality and quantity on an unseen question based on memory reflects no real life skill, and just defeats the whole point of English since people who are better at applying (STEM people doing formulas and calculations for example) are ill equipped to analyse and form long responses based on active recall of quotes and techniques, made worse by the limit on time

IMO if NESA wants to improve English exams, they should make more short (5) mark answers which go something like

How does Margaret Atwood reimagine themes of imprisonment in "Hagseed" (5)

Instead of longform essay based questions
nope that was the downfall of my exam last year
 

carrotsss

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Fun fact: English is consistently ranked as the HSC student population’s least favourite subject by a considerable margin in pretty much every metric (excluding sor) according to NESA’s own data, and is rated as the second hardest HSC subject area behind only science
 

SadCeliac

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Fun fact: English is consistently ranked as the HSC student population’s least favourite subject by a considerable margin in pretty much every metric (excluding sor) according to NESA’s own data, and is rated as the second hardest HSC subject area behind only science
nesa better be taking fucking notes
 

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