It’s compulsory, so what in the world are you meant to do if you suck at HSC English?
For a lot of students, getting poor HSC English results can bring their ATAR down immensely!
This is exactly the problem Art of Smart Alumni Keean had. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t wrap his head around English all the way up until Year 12.
Amazingly, however, Keean was able to improve his English marks by 17% before the HSC… But how???
In this video, we’re going to talk to Keean and find out the key changes he made to improve his English results so drastically! We’ll also highlight the key steps you need to take to succeed despite being bad at HSC English.
Step 1: Change Your Mindset
Step 2: Feedback Loops
Step 3: Look Deeper Into Structure
Step 4: What About HSC Exams and Trials?
Step 5: Don’t Give Up
About Keean
Keean is an AOS Alumni who graduated from Pennant Hills High School in 2018. He had always struggled with English. His marks were around 62 and the fear of a low ATAR due to the subject being compulsory began to kick in. However, by the end of Year 11 & 12 he achieved 79 in HSC English and was able to raise his English results by 17%! This is how….
Step 1: Change your Mindset
Even if you’re super insecure about the fact you suck at HSC English, when you need to get started writing on an essay, just go for it!
Getting started is what matters. If the initial product is terrible, who cares!
The whole point is that you can improve your essay or responses little by little throughout the year if you keep on re-doing it.
You need to have a mindset of continuous improvement. What you produce might suck initially, but accept it and continue to work on enhancement.
However, if you want to do this your study is going to require consistency.
You need to start early, stay on top of your texts, and most importantly: GET FEEDBACK.
Step 2: Feedback Loops
If you suck at HSC English, you’ll never improve unless you get constant feedback.
Key to Keean’s improvement was his constant submission of his HSC English work and essays for feedback from both his teacher AND his Art of Smart Tutor.
Learn more about getting the most out of your teacher feedback here.
He would then re-do his essay or response based on feedback and show it to them again, repeating the process over and over.
This is what we call a feedback loop!
Keean found having a tutor extremely helpful. Especially when it came to personalising his learning experience and focusing on his weaknesses as he wasn’t able to do this in a regular class setting.
This way, he was able to build strong ideas to apply within exams.
Step 3: Look Deeper Into Structure
In Year 12, Keean attended numerous HSC English Classes at Art of Smart.
Before, he only thought about the overall structure of his essays. Eg. the intro, four body paragraphs and conclusion.
However, the classes helped him to highlight an important focus he needed to have in his study.
He had to look further into the separate parts of the structure:
“How is an introduction structured? What exactly should you include in each paragraph and in what order?”
Breaking the structure of your essays down even further is extremely important if you suck at HSC English and struggle to structure your analysis on a whim.
Step 4: What About HSC Exams and Trials?
The new syllabus had just been introduced when Keean sat the HSC, and it prompted students towards critical thinking rather than rote learning.
As a result, Keean implemented this understanding into his study, and it had a positive result as he came to suit the expectations of the board of studies.
He focused heavily on avoiding memorising his essays and rather focused on:
- Developing an understanding of his texts
- Remembering a massive library of quotes
- Having a range of different ideas and arguments about his texts
As he tailored his study towards expectations, he found that he was way better suited to deal with curveball questions and entered the exam with greater confidence.
Check out our guide to acing HSC English Paper 1 for the Common Module!
Step 5: Don’t Give Up
If you suck at HSC English, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s compulsory, so you need to find ways to stay motivated.
Keean did this by focusing on the parts of HSC English he enjoyed, such as sentence structure and linguistics, and used this to keep him going.
As he says: “If you’re in year seven, you’ve only got six more years. If you’re in your 12, you’ve got one more year. It will come to an end and there’ll be a time when you’re no longer doing English. But don’t give up. you’ll get through it and just give it your best go!”
Looking for some extra help with HSC English?
We have an incredible team of HSC English tutors and mentors who are new HSC syllabus experts and can provide online classes!
We can help you master your analysis of HSC English texts and ace your upcoming HSC assessments with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at our state of the art campuses in Hornsby or Castle Hill!
We’ve supported over 5,000 students over the last 10 years, and on average our students score mark improvements of over 19%!
To find out more and get started with an inspirational HSC English tutor and mentor, get in touch today or give us a ring on 1300 267 888!
