2023 HSC English Advanced Exam Paper 1 and 2 Sample Guidelines

General notes on English Advanced Common Module, Module A and Module B.

As all three extended responses this year are a singular question that is not text or form specific, it is up to the student to identify which aspects of context, language, textual form and features are the most relevant to successfully answer the question. The broad, universal approach to these questions does increase their complexity and will differentiate students significantly.

Read on to see a guide on each section of the exam:

• Paper 1
• Paper 2 – Module A: Textual Conversations
• Paper 2 – Module B: Critical Study of Literature
• Paper 2 – Module C: Craft of Writing
  • Part A
  • Part B

Paper 1 – Texts and Human Experiences

‘A text can ignite ideas about collective human experiences that enrich our view of the world.’

To what extent do you agree with this statement in relation to your prescribed text? In your response, make close reference to your prescribed text.

In this question, students need to address the statement directly throughout their extended response. Only connecting to the statement/question in topic sentences or in the top/tail of the essay would make it difficult to adequately address the question.

As this is a “to what extent” question, students should make a clear judgement about how well the text they have studied demonstrates ideas about “collective human experiences”. As each text could explore many different collective experiences, the structure of their essay should be based around what the students have identified as the particular “ideas” expressed in their text. 

Students should notice that both the “ideas” and “experiences” are plural, so the best responses will address more than one idea. These ideas will be explored/represented throughout the text, rather than particular only to one section/chapter/poem. As the question specifies that the text “ignite[s]” and “enrich[es] our view of the world”, students should assess the way that the text develops the idea, rather than just identifying or describing the idea. Further to this, students should be able to integrate relevant contextual understanding about the composition of the text and their own context. This would be one of the key differentiators of responses in the A range. 

It would be problematic for a student to base their response around techniques or language forms/features in individual paragraphs. This essay should be a highly conceptual and contextual piece of evaluation. Whilst students need to be able to support their thesis with an analysis of judicious textual evidence, this is not a “how” based response. 

One of the most successful approaches to this question would be to build a thesis that clearly articulates the ways that the text impacts the reader, viewer or audience. Although the question asks “to what extent do you agree”, only weaker students would quantify their response directly. It is best to avoid responding with statements like: “to a great extent”, “[the text] has achieved this successfully” or similar phrases. The position the student takes should be implied in their thesis.

Students most definitely should agree with the statement and evaluate the success of the text. The HSC exam is not the time to argue against the relevance of their set text.

As with all extended responses, strong answers will engage with the text holistically, especially for the poetry suites, and the best responses will be conscious of the textual form. Being able to use textual evidence that aligns with the structure and form of the text is a key method of achieving the higher marks. For example, students studying Merchant of Venice should ask themselves, what aspect(s) of the five act structure of Merchant of Venice are important? Is the use of soliloquy important to the text’s exploration of the key ideas about collective experience? Students studying The Crucible should ask, what role do Miller’s stage directions and authorial voice have in “igniting” ideas?  

Finally, it is important to ensure that the evidence is purposeful and specifically responds to the question. Markers will notice when students don’t use appropriate textual evidence.

It is always important to remember that the response needs to address the question, the module and then the text. Students who write copious amounts about the text, whether evaluative or not, without answering the question or making significant connections to the module will not score highly in their responses.

Paper 2 – Module A: Textual Conversations 

When we engage with a text, the question we must ask ourselves is ‘What is this text really about?’

Consider the pair of prescribed texts that you studied in Module A. To what extent does your engagement with the later text make you ask this question about the earlier text?

This question seems to be ignoring the two-sided nature of textual conversations, which is generally emphasised during the study of this module. However, on closer examination, the question engages with the idea of “mirroring” between the texts.

In order to address this question, students need to have an exceptional level of understanding of the individual contextual environment of each text. They will then use this knowledge to assess what ‘value’ the later text reveals about the earlier text. 

For example, what additional understanding of The Tempest can we build after studying Hag-Seed? Does the more modern interpretation magnify or lessen the relevance of the initial text? Or, does the understanding of the later text considerably alter the meaning of the initial text? To answer this question, students will need to be able to cohesively integrate their contextual understanding of both texts into their analysis. It is not enough to only make reference to context in the introduction.

Beyond this deep understanding of context, it is important for students to focus on the “to what extent” aspect of the question before moving to their analysis. Students should critically engage with the idea that our understanding of any text is fluid, and no singular meaning can be locked in for any text. This question wants students to evaluate how the reader or audience reflects on the original text, and how our understanding of the original text is altered, once we engage with the second text. For example — once we have watched Bright Star, does our interpretation of Keats’ poetry change? Is our initial understanding amplified, or perhaps even minimised? This evaluation needs to be more sophisticated than, “Originally text A made me understand _____, but once I read text B I now believe it means _____”. The level of sophistication students apply to their evaluation of this question will differentiate responses across the bands.                  

To successfully address this question, students need to build their argument around the conceptual concerns of the initial text. They then need to look at how the concepts are manipulated in the later text, before returning to the original. One challenge will be to ensure that their extended response is still balanced, i.e. that they devote equal space to analysing both texts. Without significant planning, a response to this question could end up leaning more heavily on the original text, which may make it less successful. With this in mind, a student’s choice of textual evidence choice is going to be extremely important. Having evidence that connects specifically and directly from the original text to the later text is paramount. The evidence cannot be separate: the module is called “textual conversations”, so examiners will be expecting explicitly clear evidence of the mirroring of the concepts. Integrated paragraphs that are conceptually based would make for a stronger response to the question. 

The part of the question that asks students “how does your engagement with the later text make you ask this question?” holds the implication that students could disagree and say that the later text has not made them ask this question. A response that disagrees with the question would suggest that our understanding of texts does not shift or change over time: a thesis that is extremely problematic and hard to argue. 

Finally, the initial statement within the question should allow all students to build a what/how/why argument — what is the text about?, how does the author shape this meaning? and why do we understand the text this way? It is with the “why” aspect that students would be expected to significantly integrate their evaluation of the influence that the later text has on the initial text.

Paper 2 – Module B: Critical Study of Literature

Evaluate how your personal and intellectual engagement with your prescribed text has been intensified by its construction.

In your response, make detailed reference to your prescribed text.

This is a single question that covers all of the text types and individual texts. It is thus important for students to articulate a deep understanding of the “language, form and features” of their specific text. 

In constructing their thesis, students need to understand this is not a conceptually-based question. Instead, there is an emphasis on what the composer has done and the effectiveness of their choices for the audience. It will therefore be important for students to build a thesis around what is unique to their text in relation to its form. For example, students might focus on the unreliable narration and non-linear narrative structure of An Artist of the Floating World, or the five act structure, foil characters and soliloquies of Henry IV, Part 1. However, in addressing the question, students must still be able to evaluate the effectiveness of these decisions about form and features. If a student’s argument does not have a deep connection to the effect on the reader/audience — including what the text is hoping to achieve, and also why — there can only be limited evaluation. 

In order to build a sophisticated evaluation of the composer’s textual choices, students must embed and cohesively interrogate the contextual concerns of the author, the text and the audience in their response. Students need to recognise the individual contextual concerns that have been the catalyst for compositional choices in each text. To succeed in the extended response, students should integrate this contextual understanding throughout their essay and connect it to their chosen textual evidence. 

Further, the question asks students to “evaluate how your personal and intellectual engagement” has been “intensified” by the particular construction of the text. This requires the student to effectively address their personal context as well as their interpretation of the text. It should be noted that “intellectual engagement” would be where students incorporate a sophisticated evaluation of the meaning and purpose of the text. “Engagement with” does not relate to enjoyment of or connection to the text. Students therefore need to move beyond any superficial analysis of the text.

It is imperative that students do not lose sight of the evaluative nature of the question when building their response. They need to make sure that this is a cohesive aspect of their essay, i.e. that it is sustained throughout the discussion. 

It goes without saying that students need to incorporate sophisticated and well-selected textual evidence in their response. This evidence should both demonstrate the effectiveness of the composer’s choices, and provide examples of the key text-specific form and features of the text. Students should avoid merely relying on language techniques to support their thesis, even for the poetry texts. For film/media, students should avoid using dialogue as their evidence unless it is an exceptional example of construction.

Paper 2 – Module C: Craft of Writing

In the middle of the night, around four am, sometimes/often/but not always, a bird sings a four-note song at intervals. It doesn’t wake up but when I lie there I hear it and imagine it is letting all the other birds and the rest of us know that all is well. Morning is coming.

– Stephanie Radok, Under the Bed

Use this extract as the stimulus for an imaginative or discursive piece of writing that explores the hope that comes from anticipation. 

Justify how the stylistic choices you have made in part 9a) demonstrate the hope that comes with anticipation. In your response, make detailed reference to your writing in part (a).

Part A)

In part A) of this question, students should use their previous Craft of Writing assessment and feedback they have received prior to the HSC to decide whether an imaginative or discursive piece will be most appropriate.

Setting aside the form that students choose, the first consideration for this piece of writing should be using the extract as a “stimulus”. The question is not specific in having the student start, end or simply integrate the extract into their work, they should begin by considering what the extract makes them think of or feel. The student should ensure that their writing has a clear connection to the extract. For authenticity and sophistication, better responses would connect to the extract through ideas such as:

• Light/dark
• Dawn
• Birds
• What isn’t seen
• Morning and new days
• What we imagine when we can’t see reality.

When writing in either the discursive or imaginative mode, it is imperative that students develop the connection subtly. The marker should be left in no doubt that this specific extract is the stimulus, but the student’s approach should not be cliched or contrived. 

An alternative approach would be to have a character/narrator/persona moving through their day and reflecting on having their mornings punctuated with the bird noise and what it means for them. Whatever creative choice they make, students should consider why they have used the extract in this way (it’s a significant aspect of the reflection). Taking even a minute or two to ensure there is a clear purpose in how and why the extract has been used will ensure the work is cohesive, both in part A) and part B).

The second important aspect of this question is ensuring that the response “explores the hope that comes with anticipation”. For an imaginative piece, a key way students could develop this is through building a sense of anticipation rather than telling the reader that there is something to anticipate. 

It is important that both imaginative and discursive pieces make use of a range of techniques. For imaginative pieces, students should limit themselves to either a moment/snapshot or a vignette of smaller sequences. Students should avoid the desire to over-craft their writing, ensuring that aspects are left unsaid for the reader to imagine for themselves. This is especially important given that the question asks for anticipation.

Part B)

Part B) is the student’s opportunity to bring the idea of the “hope of anticipation” and the extract together with an effective justification of their stylistic choices.

In part B), students should notice that this is a “justify” question. As such, they need to do more than simply explain the authorial choices they have made in the piece. Instead of focusing only on “what” they have written, students need to explain “how” they have constructed their text and to assess the effectiveness of their choices for the reader. 

This question does not specify that there needs to be any connection to the Module C texts, so more sophisticated students will use this as an opportunity to support their evaluation with textual evidence from any of the texts they have studied. In this part of the exam, the textual evidence students draw on should be predominantly from their own response to part A). However, students should be able to demonstrate that their choices about language, form or features have a connection to texts they have studied, so they should provide additional evidence from their other texts for each specific example from their own work. Using this evidence from other texts will allow students to provide expert knowledge, elevating their personal evaluation.

Students should ensure evidence drawn from their writing in part A) connects to the question. This evidence should also provide insight into macro and micro form and features. This applies for both imaginative and discursive pieces. In their reflections, students should use high modality language, working on the idea that their choices successfully achieve what they wanted as a writer.