How Anika Stopped Memorising Essays and Got Band 6 Results in 2U and 3U English
🏆 Band 6 Results in 2U and 3U English
Anika achieved a 10% improvement in English Advanced and broke through the Band 6 wall for her Extension unit as well!
🧩 Learned to Adapt to Complex Questions
Anika started to prepare flexible paragraphs that explored a range of themes and examples so that she was ready for any question.
📚 Made Practise Harder with Study Techniques
Anika prepared for her assessments by making her practise exams more difficult with less writing time, harder questions and closed-book conditions.
The Challenge
At the beginning of Year 12, Anika was worried when she heard from her teachers that memorising full essays wasn’t the best strategy for exams. Throughout high school, Anika had always relied on prepared responses to get high marks and had no practise writing essays on the spot. Because she was taking both 2U and 3U English, Anika realised that she needed to change up her study game so that these units wouldn’t mess with her ATAR. Although she was ready to do the hard work, her school only allowed students to hand in one essay for feedback per term. Anika decided that she wanted extra help from a tutor and got in touch with Art of Smart!
I think definitely going in, it was a bit of a shock. I had always been someone who had memorised their essays, so having every teacher telling me I can’t memorise the essays, I was kind of like, oh my gosh I’m in Year 12, what do I do?
Key Problems
🔍 Anika wasn’t getting enough feedback from her school teacher which meant that she wasn’t identifying the weaknesses in her responses
😣 Anika had never written an essay on the spot before and was anxious about adapting to complex questions
🎯 Anika wasn’t preparing thorough critical analysis of her texts because she was just picking out the content she needed for one prepared essay
Our Approach
Anika linked up with a tutor at Art of Smart and they began reworking her writing process so that she could adapt to complex questions on the spot. Anika started off with TEE tables to build critical analysis of her texts, including context as much as possible. Then, she would build a bank of 3-4 paragraphs for each text over a range of different themes. Anika edited these prepared paragraphs through a feedback loop with her tutor. Her tutor made sure that she understood how important it was to be flexible. In the lead up to assessments, Anika started to memorise these paragraphs but also refreshed her understanding from TEE tables so that she was ready for any question.
Anika made practise harder so that she wouldn’t be stressed for the HSC exams by studying with difficult questions. She also did 2 open-book practise exams and 2 closed-book exams before the big day and gave herself 10% less writing time.
Focus
- Building critical analysis
- Time management in exams
- Adapting to complex questions
- Preparing flexible responses
Strategies
- TEE tables
- 10% less time for practise exams
- Practising with hard questions
- Bank of paragraphs to memorise
TEE Tables
10% Less Time For Practise Exams
Practising with Hard Questions
Bank of Paragraphs to Memorise
The Result
Anika’s final HSC result reflected the hard work she had put into both subjects. After a year of work with her tutor, she scored a 94% in English Advanced and another Band 6 in English Extension 1. Anika came to enjoy her work in English and was proud of her efforts!
94%
Final HSC result in English Advanced
Band 6
Final HSC result in English Extension 1
98%
Of customers agree their tutor is well prepared for tutoring sessions
9/10
Rating by customers on how likely they would be to recommend Art of Smart to a friend!
With Art of Smart, Anika saw a 10% improvement in HSC English Advanced
My school was really tough about taking in practise essays. I was only allowed to hand in one per term. I was someone who relied on constant feedback because I knew that there was something that could be done to fix them, so it really helped to have constant feedback. I was able to send them to the tutor as much as I wanted and that was awesome for me. But I think it was just also having the one-on-one attention to be able to bounce ideas off each other. Sometimes I wasn’t entirely sure if something would work, and just having the assurance or another suggestion really helped.
Check Out More Success Stories
-
Abbey-Rose Coules
30% Improvement in English
🏫 Mount St Benedict College
💪 Overcame Procrastination
🎓 Received Entry to B. Science/B. Advanced Studies at USYD
-
Hamish Jacka
20% Improvement in English
🏫 Engadine High School
🎯 Learned to Target Assessment Criteria
🙌 95.55 ATAR
-
Winter Rosengreen
Reduced Exam Stress and Anxiety
🏫 Marian Catholic College
🧠 Discovered Mental Health Coping Strategies
🎉 Received Early Entry
Helping high school students thrive since 2009
We know school isn’t just about getting the grades, it’s about staying happy, healthy and answering the difficult question, “What am I going to do with my life when I finish school, and how do I get there?”