2015 Round-up and Congratulations!

Congratulations to my 2015 HSC students who were all incredibly successful in their exams. All of my students received a mark above 85/100 for Advanced English, with many students receiving a mark above 95! Extension 1 and 2 marks were equally impressive with all students receiving marks in the top Band E4!

Many of my students earned places on the Honour Roll which acknowledges students who earn a Band 6 result (90 or better) in a 2 unit course or a Band E4 result (45 or better) in an Extension course.

As a quick reference, here are the average overall scores my students achieved in 2015:
Advanced English: 94/100
Extension 1 English: 48/50
Extension 2 English: 49/50
(NB. I did not have any Standard English students complete the HSC in 2015.)

I was positively bursting with joy for my students in December and their success is testament to all of their commitment and hard work. A big thank you to all of them for being such a pleasure to work with and for being always excited and enthusiastic about learning new skills together. 

Here's to the Class of 2016!

A last minute helping hand

Each year I've known lots of students to have last-minute panics - the night before Paper 1 or even the night before Paper 2! For moments like these spending time in a one-on-one lesson can be tricky to fit in, so many students contact me for on-screen editing and feedback on their work. They usually send me essays or creatives and while they're studying at home I work hard to give great and thorough feedback on their work, finding some key areas where they could improve to maximise their results in their HSC exams.

The strategies I suggest are simple to implement and thorough, and offer solutions to the essay questions that students often find tricky to answer.

If you need some last minute guidance or support for your HSC exams get in contact with me now and we can get you back on track and ready for your next exam. 

CY

Practice Papers and Short Answer Questions

With Paper 1 scheduled for Monday I've found a great online resource for you guys! Ms T. Outred's Discovery website is an absolute gold mine full of Section 1 (Short Answer) questions and four teacher-developed practice Discovery papers. 

She's uploaded these practice questions and papers as different PDFs but you can click here for a single document that you can download and print off. (All credits are included in the PDF.)

I'd highly recommend choosing three different texts from the short answer questions sections and answering the equivalent questions (i.e. three sets of of three questions) in 40 minutes after 10 minutes reading time. This will help you practice under timed conditions and give you a real sense of what it's going to be like on Monday. 

I'd also recommend doing the practice exams under exam conditions. To help with this, here's the HSC writing booklet for you to download, print off and use. It's great to do practice papers in as close to identical conditions as exam day to normalise the experience so that it's not nearly as nerve wracking for you when you finally get there.

It's all getting a bit stressful for you HSC kids out there, but it's certainly exciting to be approaching the end of this crazy journey too. Good luck, kids. Write your hearts out. I know you'll do great. 

CC