2016 VCE exam guide — Media: Zoom in and focus on revision
All students know that they should begin preparing for exams now but with the Media exam on November 14 and so many exams before then and it can be tempting to concentrate on those that come earlier.
This approach is ill advised as evidence shows that to perform at their best students should undertake spaced rather than massed study and exam practice.
Regular revision sessions for each subject allow students to develop their knowledge and skills more deeply which leads to better exam results.
Exams test not only knowledge, just as importantly they test the skill of expressing this knowledge in the time and form required by exam conditions.
This skill develops with practice. So how do you begin?
The key knowledge and skills for each examinable outcome are a good starting point. Download the Media Study Design. www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/studies/media/mediaindex.aspx
Carefully read each area of study — Narrative, Media Texts and Society’s Values and Media Influence.
Do you know the meaning of every term?
Create a glossary and provide examples drawn from the media texts, concepts, theories and terminology you studied during the year. Don’t forget the instructional verbs such as analyse, apply and compare.
Students should develop a very good understanding of the key knowledge and key skills required by each area of study and of the media texts selected for study.
Think of the key knowledge and key skill dot points as headings under which you gather information specific to the media texts and topics you studied.
Organise your notes ensuring that you have multiple examples for each dot point.
Review the previous VCAA exams and Examination Reports to determine the strengths and weaknesses of students’ responses as identified by the VCAA.
This will provide information about how to best prepare for the exam.
One thing you will notice is that there are very few questions that ask students to simply state facts and that these questions are generally worth only a few marks.
Questions that require students to explain, discuss, analyse and compare appear most frequently and are worth the highest mark allocations.
They are also the questions that examiners report are attempted less successfully.
How can students move from knowledge to skill?
Knowing facts is the first step to demonstrating deep understanding and engagement with this subject. Preparing glossaries, lists, examples, definitions, summaries and flash cards is the beginning of your journey.
Most important of all are the skills required to manipulate, interrogate, analyse and synthesise knowledge in order to demonstrate relationships within and between media texts and their audiences, substantiate readings, discuss the media in society and the issues around how and why claims are made about the media influence.
Collecting and collating revision material is easy.
Use your class notes and use textbooks, online resources and lectures.
Remember though that resources sourced from outside your classroom are unlikely to be specific to the media texts, ideas and issues discussed in your class and may not address the detailed knowledge of these that you need to work with.
Collate your resources now in preparation for the real work, developing your skills in manipulating your knowledge to demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationship between the media, its texts and its audiences for each area of study.
The only way to develop your ability to express your understanding in the time and form required by the exam is to practice.
It is difficult to cram for questions that require analytical skills. The more sample questions you undertake, the greater your skill when responding to unseen material and a range of question types with depth and insight.
Start with the 2015 exam and work your way back through each year.
Your teacher will be happy to provide you with feedback on how to improve the quality of your responses.
When you have finished begin again, this time using different examples for each question.
This technique develops a bank of material that you can draw on in different ways on the exam day.
If you like you can rewrite questions so that by the day of the exam you will have attempted questions that address every facet of each area of study.
If you run out of past exam questions create your own by substituting different points from the key knowledge and key skills.
Or try answering questions in different ways by imagining they are worth different mark allocations. The number of marks allocated determines the depth required in a response.
This technique will develop flexibility in adapting your knowledge to different question types.
Although the methodology described here may seem like a lot of work, if approached methodically over the coming months you will find it easier and easier to write increasingly sophisticated responses to any question.
You will become skilled at breaking down and responding to questions and will be able to write quickly, precisely and effectively using the language of media.
You will be confident and in control.
The exam will simply be the culmination of a journey of learning that will help you this year and into the future. I wish you well.
Jo Flack teaches Media at Swinburne Senior Secondary College
EXAM DETAILS
MEDIA
When: November 14, 3pm-5pm
Reading: 15 minutes
Writing: 2 hours
Worth: 45 per cent of study score