Sample HSC Exam Questions

Texts and Human Experiences. 
This module has its own exam paper - paper 1. The first section will be asking you to respond to unseen texts. The second part will be asking you to respond to your prescribed text.

Your question could be asking you to respond to a general statement about texts or about human experiences. Your question could include an extract from your prescribed text, with a question asking you to demonstrate how the extract is characteristic of the whole text. Sample questions from the rubric are:

1. Evaluate how language is used to shape representations of people’s experiences in the text you have studied.
2. How do the representations of the human experiences, both individual and collective, shape meaning in the text you have studied?
3. Explain and evaluate the diverse ways texts can represent personal and public worlds.
4. Justify how texts use language forms, features and structures appropriately for purpose audience and context, and their affect on meaning.
5. Explain and evaluate cultural assumptions and values in texts and their effects on meaning.
6. Explore the anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies in human behaviour and motivations in the text you have studied.

Mod A - Standard: Language, Identity and Culture
This will be examined in paper 2. Your question could be asking you to respond to a general statement about texts or about language, identity and culture. Your question could include an extract from your prescribed text, with a question asking you to demonstrate how the extract is characteristic of the whole text (or set of poems). Sample questions from the rubric are:

1. How is language used to both reflect and shape individualised and collective identity?
2. How are cultural perspectives shaped through the text?
3. How does the composer employ textual forms and features to communicate ideas, values and attitudes which influence perceptions about cultural perspectives?
4. How is language used to affirm, ignore, reveal, challenge or disrupt prevailing assumptions and beliefs about individuals and cultural groups?

Mod A - Advanced: Textual Conversations

1. There are two sides to every story. How do the two texts you have studied engage in a textual conversation?
2. The two texts studied were composed in different contexts, and for different audiences.  How do the different textual features of the latter text comment on the ideas of the former?
3. How does the latter text critique the ideas and received meanings of the former? Which aspects are challenged and which are championed?
4. “Meaning is always wandering around between texts.” - Harold Bloom. How does this apply to the texts you have studied?
5. “Literary texts ‘are built from systems, codes and traditions established by previous works of literature’.” - Graham Allan. To what extent is this true when applied to the texts you have studied?
6. Rewritings or appropriations can be an active process of interpretation and intervention. Rewritings can be creation, interpretation, or writing back as critique or correction. How do these ideas apply to the texts you have studied?
7. "English is like a long conversation through time. Like any conversation it moves over various linked themes." - Arthur Applebee. To what extent is this true for the texts you have studied?

Mod B - Standard: Close Study of Literature
This will be examined in paper 2. Your question could be asking you to respond to a general statement about literature. Your question could include an extract from your prescribed text, with a question asking you to demonstrate how the extract is characteristic of the whole text (or set of poems). Sample questions from the rubric are:

1. The text you have studied is regarded as significant and meaningful. Do you agree? Include your assessment of the effectiveness of the textual forms and features in your answer.
2. How is the text you have studied distinctive? Answer with reference to ideas and characteristics.
3. How does the interplay between ideas and the portrayal of people, settings and situations contribute to a significant and meaningful text?
4. How does the interplay between ideas, form and language affect the reader?

Mod B - Advanced: Critical Study of Literature
This will be examined in paper 2. Your question could be asking you to respond to a general statement about literature. Your question could include an extract from your prescribed text, with a question asking you to demonstrate how the extract is characteristic of the whole text (or set of poems). Sample questions from the rubric are:

1. How do the distinctive qualities of the text contribute to textual cohesion and meaning?
2. How has the text’s significance changed over time? Do you find this text to be currently significant?
3. The value and meaning of the texts change according to the contexts of responders. How is this text significant in our society today?
4. The composer skillfully employs construction, content and language to create a cohesive text. How is this done in the text you have studied?
5. The value of texts change according to context. Is the text you have studied still of value? How do the forms and features engage responders today?

Mod C - The Craft of Writing
This will be examined in paper 2. You are likely to be asked to write a creative piece, based on a stimulus, and then a reflection on how what you have learned in HSC English has informed the piece you just wrote. The principle is that you demonstrate your control of language and stylistic devices for a specific purpose and audience. You may be asked to write in a certain text type, however, these are fluid - texts types are often hybrid, eg, creative/persuasive/discursive.  Although you won't be asked a question from the rubric, sample ideas from the rubric are:

1. Writers create texts to describe the world around them, evoke emotion, shape a perspective or share a vision. With reference to a text you have studied in Modules A, B or C, explain how this has been successfully achieved.
2. Stories are meaning making devices. How have the texts you have studied created meanings?