Common Module: Texts and Human Experiences quiz

When exactly was the text first written and published, and what can we discover about the biography of the author who wrote it?

What language techniques does the text use, and how many marks is each individual section of Paper 1 worth in the exam?

How does this prescribed text compare in quality and reputation to the other canonical Australian texts on the syllabus?

How does the text represent human experiences AND how does that representation shape audience understanding?

Anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies

Individual human experiences and emotions

Collective and shared human experiences

Storytelling, structure and narrative voice

All 90 minutes on the essay because it is worth more

Roughly 45 minutes Section 1, 45 minutes Section 2

30 minutes Section 1, 60 minutes Section 2

60 minutes Section 1, 30 minutes Section 2

1500 to 2000 words

500 to 700 words

900 to 1100 words

As long as possible to show effort

The author uses many different language techniques and devices throughout the text in order to show various human experiences to the reader.

This text is fundamentally about the universal themes of grief, loss and sadness.

There are many important themes explored in this text, including love, death, family, belonging and identity.

The text's fragmented chronology enacts memory's recursive return to trauma, refusing the closure narrative typically offers.

A longer extended response with multiple quotes, layered analysis, sustained argument

A single short paragraph built around just one quotation and one identified language technique

A simple bullet-point list of every single language technique you can possibly spot in the text

A very short answer of only two or three brief sentences responding to the question

Constantly use the first-person pronoun 'I' and write at length about how the text personally made you feel as a reader

Demonstrate that your argument is thought-through, specific to this text, and the result of your own engagement

Faithfully reproduce in the exam whatever interpretation your classroom teacher told you the prescribed text means

Mention several anecdotes from your own personal life experience to connect the text to the wider world

Writing in handwriting that is far too neat and carefully presented for the marker

Quoting too many very short individual phrases instead of longer extended passages

Plot summary in disguise (then he realises..., next she becomes...)

Mentioning the author by their full name rather than only their surname

You should choose to write about either individual or collective experience exclusively, and treat the two of them as entirely separate and unrelated things in your essay

Collective human experience always matters more than individual experience and should dominate every body paragraph of the response

These are simply convenient labels from the rubric and they do not really affect the substance of your textual analysis at all

Top responses show how individual experiences are shaped by collective contexts, or how collective experiences are made up of distinct individual ones

Markers can tell from the first paragraph that the response is not answering the actual question

NESA electronically scans every submitted essay for plagiarism against a national database of past papers

Pre-prepared essays are almost always far too long to be finished within the allotted exam time

Pre-prepared essays never include the specific language techniques the marker is looking for in the text