UNSEEN HSC 2022 Flashcards
HSC 22-Start with a topic sentence (a mini thesis in 1 sentence-use key
How azam celebrates togetherness
Start with a topic sentence (a mini thesis if you will) essentially summarizing our argument/answer to the question in one sentence. Make sure you DO NOT REPEAT the question but utilize its KEY words.
lastly, finish it off with a strong concluding sentence. Prove to the marker you really answered the question and you know exactly what you’re talking about
Before I read the actual text I like to quickly annotate the question first to see what themes and techniques I should be looking out for. In this case, we have “celebrate” and “togetherness”. As I read the text, I think about HOW Azzam is portraying togetherness and WHY he is portraying it the way he is. Notice the abundance of alliteration and gustatory imagery he uses to draw us into his warm and lively experience. I’m getting hungry from just reading it.
3 marks
Nine Spice Mix
First they tango on my tongue,
nimble couples careening,
then together
form an Arab-style line dance
stepping, stomping, swaying.
West Indies allspice dazzles,
berries tangling with cinnamon sticks,
while cloves, Indonesian natives,
lead with a spirited solidarity solo.
Coriander seeds offer greetings in Hindi
as others toast comrades in languages
beyond borders and blockades.
Lifting up sisterhood, sun-wizened nutmeg
starts a sibling dance with mace.
Cumin demurs, then surprises
with subtle exultation.
Queen of spices cardamom,
host of the party, gives a nod to flavors
in hiding: lemony, sweet, warm,
fragrant, nutty, pungent, hot.
Encouraged, feisty black peppercorns
shimmy center stage, organizing
the unique union of nine
for a vivacious global salute.
This response requires:
An understanding of WHY togetherness is celebrated – what positive benefits does it have?
A focus on the reasons and techniques used by the author to ‘celebrate togetherness.’
At least two analysed examples from the poem, including the language technique used and its effect.
Azzam’s poem captivates readers with his sensory illustrations (how) to celebrate the wonderful togetherness that culture can provide (why). The personification of his gustatory imagery in “Tango on the Tongue” conveys how the warm embrace of food makes it come alive, “stepping, stomping, swaying.” His use of alliteration brings rhythm to his words and mimics the festive celebration of a “global salute,” the metaphor expressing the united sense food provides.(kis tutoring)
Many students just state the technique and forget to actually explain why the composer used it. The personification conveys, the alliteration brings rhythm, the metaphor expresses. Always ensure your technique is combined with a doing verb.
Azzam celebrates togetherness through the personification of the nine spices ‘careening’ and ‘tangling’ together to represent a collective human experience. By detailing the origins of the
spices from all around the world, such as the ‘West Indies’ and ‘Indonesia’, Azzam establishes the diversity of spices and, therefore, humanity. However, Azzam employs the collective terms ‘comrades’ and ‘unique union of nine’ to highlight that like spices, people can overcome their cultural differences to flourish together with ‘a vivacious global salute’. (HSC SAMPLE)
Analyse how Fforde captures narrator’s experience of awe and wonder.
Text 2 — Prose fiction extract hsc 2022 - 4 marks
I was in a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor lined with bookshelves
that reached from the richly carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling.
The carpet was elegantly patterned and the ceiling was decorated
with rich mouldings that depicted scenes from the classics, each
cornice supporting the marble bust of an author. High above me,
spaced at regular intervals, were finely decorated circular apertures
through which light gained entry and reflected off the polished wood,
reinforcing the serious mood of the library. Running down the centre
of the corridor was a long row of reading tables, each with a greenshaded brass lamp. The library appeared endless; in both directions the
corridor vanished into darkness with no definable end. But this wasn’t
important. Describing the library would be like going to see a Turner*
and commenting on the frame. On all the walls, end after end, shelf after
shelf, were books. Hundreds, thousands, millions of books. Hardbacks,
paperbacks, leather-bound volumes, uncorrected proofs, handwritten
manuscripts, everything. I stepped closer and rested my fingertips
lightly on the pristine volumes. They felt warm to the touch, so I leaned
closer and pressed my ear to the spines. I could hear a distant hum, the
rumble of machinery, people talking, traffic, seagulls, laughter, waves
on rocks, wind in the winter branches of trees, distant thunder, heavy
rain, children playing, a blacksmith’s hammer – a million sounds all
happening together. And then, in a revelatory moment, the clouds
slid back from my mind and a crystal-clear understanding of the very
nature of books shone upon me. They weren’t just collections of words
arranged neatly on a page to give the impression of reality – each of
these volumes was reality. The similarity of these books to the copies I
had read back home was no more than the similarity a photograph has
to its subject – these books were alive!
JASPER FFORDE
Lost in a Good Book
This response requires:
An understanding of what sort of ‘awe and wonder’ is being experienced – the cause or consequence of these emotions.
A focus on the language techniques used to capture this experience – at least three analysed examples, with a focus on the language techniques used and their effect.
SAMPLE ANSWER:
**Text 2 captures the powerful feelings of awe and wonder that accompany an individual’s realisation about the power of literature. **Fforde creates a tone of intense excitement throughout the extract **through his use of cumulative listing and italicisation. **“On all the walls, end after end, shelf after shelf, were BOOKS… hardbacks, paperbacks… handwritten manuscripts, EVERYTHING.” The listing creates a building sense of suspense that shows the vast nature of the library, while the italicisation indicates the narrator’s tone of awe, showing that they are overwhelmed with wonder at the scale of the library. This wonder is amplified further by their realisation of the power of literature depicted through the **auditory imagery when they are listening to the books and “heard… the rumble of machinery, people talking, traffic, seagulls…” ** The list of such a diverse range of sounds immerses readers in the vast array of experiences that can be captured by literature, and is used to show the narrator’s amazement at the range of worlds that literature can transport readers into. The powerful sense of wonder felt at this realisation is expressed through the metaphor of “clouds (sliding) back from my mind and a crystal-clear understanding of the nature of books (shining) upon me.” Images of light and clarity evoke the intense, positive emotional response felt by the narrator, while the **final exclamatory statement **– “these books were alive!” – further expresses their awe and exhilaration at this realisation.
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The rich and detailed description by the first-person narrator of the ‘elegant’ and ‘endless’ library at the beginning of the extract creates a setting that shows their awe-struck response to the space. The focus shifts to the narrator’s description of the living qualities of the books, using the senses of touch and sound: the books are ‘warm’, and produce a ‘distant hum’ of
the realities that lie within their pages. Fforde conveys the importance of the narrator’s epiphany by using heightened language to gather momentum, as ‘the clouds slid back from [their] mind’ and the new and awe-filled understanding ‘shone upon [them]’. The exclamatory revelation, ‘these books [are] alive!’ brings the experience of wonder to its climax(HSC SAMPLE)
Explain how Gemmell explores the paradoxes of human behaviour 4 marks
A LINE IN THE SNOWAntarctica’s preservation has been a glorious feat – let’s keep the continent this way.
At the end of our world there’s a wonderland that has an innocence to it, a purity, that feels fragile and spiritual. This extraordinary region is relatively untouched. It’s a region that demonstrates humanity at its best; for that pesky, rapacious species known as human has actually left this place largely alone except in the noble, light-touch pursuit of scientific inquiry. This gentleman’s agreement is honourable and altruistic – astonishingly so, in this day and age – and has been respected for 60-odd years. But how much longer can this arrangement be preserved?
I’m talking about Antarctica, of course. The vast continent that’s a barometer of human goodness. It shows us that wealthy nations can act with consensus and without greed and selfishness when it comes to valuable land and its resources; it’s actually possible. Because, well, humans. What are they, exactly? An entity looking at us from elsewhere would be hard-pressed to come to any other conclusion: we are killers. Plunderers, predators, polluters. The alpha species of a planet we’ve done untold damage to and continue to destroy for our own selfish appetites.
But the marvellous ice-helmeted land at the end of this Earth arrests this image. It is the continent upon which no human lives permanently; just a handful come and go for the good of science. I visited Antarctica on a trip resupplying Australia’s research bases and it felt as if we were intruders in this wonderland. The scientists treated it as an honour to be working with the singular wildlife.
The animals that greeted us seemed fearless and open and curious because they had no knowledge of what we do; of how dangerous humans are. Animals such as a baby seal with its umbilical cord still attached, snap frozen to its belly, who stared at us with deep, soft brown eyes clear with curiosity and trust. Snow petrels circled our ship, calling and dipping and soaring like angels. Penguins fanned away on the ice, waddling like fast metronomes; on land they peered with voracious curiosity, inching forward, movingly trusting. (We would crawl on our stomachs to observe the wildlife, out of respect, because the animals had never known anything taller than them.)
…Antarctica’s preservation in its pristine condition has been a glorious feat of global generosity. It shows that the strange, self-interested species known as human can actually be selfless and bold; it demonstrates the best of our instincts. Let’s keep the continent this way – as a tuning fork for how we want to work with other vulnerably wild regions of our beautiful planet in the long term.
© Nikki Gemmel 2021
Explain how Gemmell explores the paradoxes of human behaviour in this extract.
This response requires:
A statement articulating what the “paradox” of human behaviour actually is.
At least three analysed examples, with language techniques and links back to what each one reveals about the paradoxes of human behaviour.
Text 3 explores the paradoxical contradiction between how humans are inherently greedy and destructive creatures, yet their behaviour towards Antarctica shows their capacity to respect and preserve the natural world. Gemmell establishes humans’ fundamentally selfish nature when she states, “We are killers. Plunderers, predators, polluters.” The collective pronoun “we” creates a generalisation that shows how widespread humanities’ destructive tendencies are, while the listing and alliteration draw attention to the multitude of ways in which mankind has damaged and corrupted the natural world. Despite this, Gemmell reveals how paradoxically, humankind has come to a “gentleman’s agreement” to preserve Antarctica, keeping it in “pristine condition” in “a glorious feat of global generosity.” The use of positive connotations contrasts with her previous description and reshapes humankind as a civilised species with the capacity to treat nature with sensitivity and respect. This shows how two opposing qualities may paradoxically be held within a single species. Moreover, Gemmell highlights how humankind’s more destructive behaviours are inherently contradictory because in trying to sate “our selfish appetites” we harm ourselves by destroying the beauty of the natural world which can provide untold fulfilment. Her vivid description of the curious and fearless wildlife, captured through a series of powerful similes – “petrels… soaring like angels. Penguins… like fast metronomes” – reveal the magical wonders that nature can provide, which humans paradoxically deprive themselves of experiencing because so much of nature has been destroyed.
Gemmell uses alliteration and tricolon to evocatively highlight how humans are ‘plunderers, predators, polluters’ and yet observes, paradoxically, that we have left Antarctica ‘untouched’ except in the ‘pursuit of scientific inquiry’. Further, the inclusive language of ‘we’ and ‘our’ invites the reader to share her perspective about the paradoxical nature of humanity.
Humans have the capacity to preserve ‘our beautiful planet’ when we ‘act with consensus and without greed’ like we have in Antarctica. (hsc sample)
Analyse how Saramago conveys the value of memory 3 marks
The house where I was born no longer exists, not that it matters, because I have no memory of having lived in it. The other house, the impoverished dwelling of my maternal grandparents, Josefa and Jerónimo, has also disappeared beneath a mound of rubble, the house which, for ten or twelve years, was my true home, in the most intimate and profound sense of the word, the magical cocoon in which the metamorphoses vital to both the child and the adolescent took pace. That loss, however, has long ceased to cause me any suffering because, thanks to the memory’s reconstructive powers, I can, at any moment, rebuild its white walls, replant the olive tree that shaded the entrance, open and close the low front door and the gate to the vegetable garden where I once saw a small snake coiled and waiting, or I can go into the pigsties and watch the piglets suckling, enter the kitchen and pour from the jug into the chipped mug the water which, for the thousandth time, will quench that summer’s thirst. Then I say to my grandmother: ‘Grandma, I’m going for a walk.’ And she says: ‘Off you go, then,’ but she doesn’t warn me to be careful, no, in those days, grown-ups had more confidence in the children they brought up.
© Saramago, J. (2009). Small memories. Random House.
**Analyse how Saramago conveys the value of memory in this extract. © NESA 2022
This response requires:
A statement about why memory is valuable.
At least two analysed examples from the extract, including the language technique used and its effect.
The key theme to focus on here is the value of memory. As you read the text you are looking to answer the following questions:
What is the value of memory being conveyed (why does the composer think memory is valuable)?
And how is the composer conveying his idea about memory (what stylistic features is he using)?
Well, the extract talks about how his house is gone but lives on in his mind. We can interpret this in a few different ways, like:
The composer sees memory as a way for individuals to revisit the past and find comfort in nostalgia.
The composer sees memory as the vessel in which past experiences are used to construct present identity.
The composer sees memory as the way in which our minds make transient experiences permanent.
A good way to practice unseen response is trying to find multiple interpretations of a text to really challenge your ability to think on the spot and draw meanings out of texts kind of like what I just did with my three different dot points
Saramago conveys memory as valuable because of its ‘reconstructive powers’ which allow people to revisit the past. He switches between past, present and future tense to highlight how memory helps us to relive past experiences. Through memory Saramago claims he can,at any moment’, ‘rebuild’ his childhood house, ‘replant the olive tree’ and ‘go into the pigsties
and watch the piglets’. These cumulative descriptions emphasise the value of memory,enabling him to return to his ‘true home’ even though it no longer exists. (HSC SAMPLE ANSWER)
**Saramago reflects on his childhood to establish memory as a valuable vessel used to revisit the past and enhance experiences through nostalgia. (Don’t just say ‘Saramago conveys the value of memory’ but how and precisely what this its value was. Basically to add more detail to what’s already in the question.) Though his childhood home has literally “disappeared beneath a mound of rubble,” it figuratively **continues to live inside his mind with his ability to “rebuild its white walls.” (More sophisticated answers can seamlessly integrate evidence into their response. This makes the analysis sound less robotic and repetitive.) The **motif of construction **elucidates memories’ restorative powers and the way it allows physically lost things to permeate into the present. Finally, the reflective and intimate tone in the narrator’s emotive statement “long ceased to cause me any suffering” highlights the comforting presence of nostalgic memories. **Hence Saramago conveys how memories valuably allow individuals to revisit comforting moments of the past to relieve present experiences. **(Here I just restate my topic sentence and summarise the main ideas of my analysis).
When looking for quotes, find ones that build off each other. Many student responses I’ve seen use quotes that do similar things and use up words without actually strengthening the argument. Find a logical structure to the evidence you are putting forward.(KIS TUTORING)
Compare how Falconer $Paine showinteractions betn humns &natral world.
This is my favourite Sydney story. For a few decades, in the middle of last century, a hospital on the north shore sent each mother of a newborn home with a jacaranda seedling. And so when the valleys on either side of the city’s train lines flare violet in October and November, each bright burst represents the beginning of a life. I was born in the old Crown Street Hospital in Surry Hills, long since demolished, so I will not leave my own living ghost behind me, a cloud of bright mauve light.
Unlike Kyoto with its cherry blossom, there is no official aesthetic tradition of jacaranda viewing here. But I cannot be the only person to divert my car up past the long run of trees on Oxford Street to enjoy the way they bloom against the colonial sandstone wall of the barracks, or to look forward to the weeks when their glowing corridors rain purple on to the streets of Elizabeth Bay. There is an uncanny moment, which lasts only for a day or two, when the purple on the trees and the fallen flowers reaches equilibrium, and the trees appear, quite eerily, to cast their own reflections on the ground.
Japan’s flowers are a delicate reminder of the transience of feelings, of life’s bittersweetness. Our traditions are more robust. At Sydney University, the blossoming of the bare tree in the quadrangle – like the cherry, the jacaranda flowers before it leafs – is a sign to lazy students that it is too late to study for their end-of-year exams. In my childhood, they were planted foolishly. Or perhaps sadistically, beside public swimming pools, to the peril of the bare-footed, since the fallen flowers are home to drunken bees. They are often planted next to Illawarra flame trees, marking the streets of our suburbs with companion bursts of violent red and purple. Their unnerving fluorescence and feral vigour, for they are also able to seed themselves in bush and gardens, makes them less filled with gentle longing than Japan’s blossom. They invoke something closer to a hallucinatory yearning. Their colours appear unreal, as if you have suddenly developed the ability to see ultraviolet. But there is more to this uncanny feeling. They are an introduced species, from Central America and Brazil, whose purity of colour does not really fit the dappled tones of our nature.
And so it shouldn’t surprise us to hear that the same stories are told in Brisbane, of a hospital sending mothers of newborns home with jacaranda seedlings, of a tree flowering in the university quadrangle a week before exams. These plants are so lovely we can scarcely call them our own. While I always mourn them, it is almost a relief, a month before Christmas, when their ferny leaves crowd through, and the flowers brown and rot upon the ground.
© Falconer, C. (2020). Sydney. NewSouth Publishing.
This response requires:
Specific ideas about what type of interactions humans have with nature, and what consequences this has.
Explicit comparison of the similarities and differences between the two texts’ ideas and approaches to this common topic.
Analysis of at least five examples, split as evenly as possible across the two extracts. You should try to alternate between the two texts to make sure you are constantly comparing them.
Both Text 5 and Text 6 represent how a positive relationship can be shaped between humans and nature that results in a sense of connection. However, while Text 5 focuses on how an element of the natural word can become part of a city’s collective identity, Text 6 is about a more impulsive moment of individual joy.
Both Text 5 and Text 6 represent the beneficial emotional impact of a connection forged between humans and nature. In Text 5, the jacaranda tree is a central motif representing the happiness humans gain from nature’s beauty. The anecdote about the newborns sent “home with a jacaranda seedling” resulting in “bright bursts” that “flare violet” across the valleys creates a vivid visual image of humans can come to associate the cycles of nature with their own memories of joy, and how sentimental significance can be attached to parts of the natural world. Moreover, the composer explains how she “cannot be the only person to divert my car up… on Oxford Street to enjoy the way they bloom… to look forward to the weeks when their glowing corridors rain purple on to the streets of Elizabeth bay.” Her metaphorical description paints a vivid and immersive picture of the powerful beauty of the jacarandas, which she suggests is a view shared by many inhabitants of Sydney. It is apparent that humans often appreciate the beauty of nature and feel a sense of happiness as a result of it. Text 6 also shows a positive connection forged with nature; the facial expression of the subject is an exhilarated smile, while her stance is one of power and strength, allowing viewers to feel her sense of excitement when in the midst of a natural event. In contrast to Text 5, the photograph does not depict what viewers would typically associate as a ‘beautiful event’; the picture primarily contains bleak and desaturated colours as a result of the titular ‘dust storm.’ This, however, shows that when connected to their environment, humans may find beauty in unlikely places within nature.
While Text 5 depicts a collective identity founded on part of the natural world, Text 6 has a more individual focus. In Text 5, Falconer refers to the anecdote about the jacarandas as her “favourite Sydney story.” This immediately establishes to the reader that the jacaranda tree is an icon of life in Sydney and part of a shared sense of identity. This is reinforced when Falconer uses the collective pronoun “our” when she states “our traditions are more robust,” creating a sense of inclusion, followed by the collective understanding among university students that the jacaranda “is a sign… it is too late to study for their end-of-year exams.” The article therefore represents how humans’ associations with the natural world can be a central part of a shared identity, traditions, and understandings. Contrastingly, Text 6 focuses only on a single subject. The most salient point is the little girl, created through her vivid red clothing and bicycle against an otherwise desolate, empty background. The vector lines created by the road leading into the distance emphasise that there is no one else in this natural landscape.** The composition of the image therefore places focus on how the joy and connection found in nature is unique to the individual subject rather than being the foundation for a shared experience. **
Compare how Falconer and Paine showinteractions betn humns &natural world.
This one is a tough one because the answer isn’t a whole lot obvious. Especially because the prompt is just a girl on a bike in the desert. What the heck is that telling me about the human experience?
Let’s start off by discussing the structure for a comparative response. Your introduction should read something like ‘Both text 5 and text 6 [insert similarity]. However, while text 5 [insert a unique thing text 5 does] and text 6 [insert unique thing text 6 does].’
Yep, two sentences are all you need. Remember it’s only six marks, don’t go crazy. For evidence aim for 5-6. The general rule above tells you five but for some people, it may feel more natural to do 6 (three for each text). Splitting up the text into two paragraphs is also a good idea. Contains your ideas in a logical structure and makes things easier for yourself and the marker (so they can tell which text you’re referring to).
Hopefully, from reading the texts, you have at least gathered that they both explore how humans interact with the natural environment. Namely, they demonstrate the way we become captivated by the beauty and power of nature and it is in searching for natural worlds and immersing ourselves in them that we derive joy and meaning. But while they seemingly have the same overarching theme, they explore it in different ways. Text 5 takes on a more collective perspective while text 6 focuses on the individual. Text 5 celebrates glimpses of natural beauty in an urban landscape to demonstrate how its sentimental significance brings bliss and joyousness. Text 6 embraces the raw power of the Earth and the excitement of adventuring the natural landscape.
Both texts express human interaction with local landscapes. While Falconer focuses on humans using nature to construct a beautiful urban environment, Paine shows humans embracing the raw power of the natural world.In Sydney, the human desire to create natural beauty within a constructed urban environment is clearly represented through Falconer’s opening anecdote about how ‘each mother of a newborn’ was given ‘a jacaranda seedling’, establishing these trees as a symbol of fertility and the cycle of life. Through her vivid description of the trees as ‘glowing corridors’
that ‘flare violet’, she emphasises the aesthetic beauty of this constructed natural world.
A different perspective is represented in Paine’s photograph where the central figure of a young girl, Daisy, sits on her bike in the middle of a road in a vast red and dry rural landscape. Immersed in her natural surroundings, she revels in the elements as she smiles into the wind. Her protective goggles represent her only acknowledgement of the dust storm cloud in the background of the shot. Daisy, resilient and fearless in the face of the dust
storm, is in awe of its destructive power. (HSC SAMPLE)
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compare text 4 and 5
Both Text 5 and Text 6 represent how individuals interact with the natural landscape to derive joy and meaning from daily lives. However, while Text 5 explores how individuals search for nature in the urban world to appreciate the beauty and significance of life, Text 6 demonstrates the immersive strength of Earth’s captivating natural landscape to be all around us.
The desire for humanity to form a deep-rooted connection with nature is established in Falconer’s anecdote about how “each mother of a newborn” was given “a jacaranda seedling,” a means to intertwine nature with the cycle of life. She then contrasts the bright purple “bloom against the colonial sandstone wall” to further highlight how this continoual serach for natural beauty is a way of finding joy and bliss amongst urbanisation’s aggressive mundanity. Ultimately they the jacarandas serve as a metaphorical “reminder of the transience of feelings,” encouraging humanity to embrace fleeting moments and continuously appreciate the beauty in life.
A different perspective is represented in Text 6 where individuals are permanently immersed by the raw power of the natural landscape, fueling the human experience with adventure and excitement. The** vector lines** created by the road leading into the distance allude to the vastness of the natural world while the crazed movement of hair demonstrates the unruly state of the wind with a mind of its own. Despite this, the salient young girl remains smiling and upright in the foreground. She is dressed in boots and goggles stating she is ready to revel against the Earth’s elements. This showcases how nature instills in humanity a thirst for adventure and excitement with its overwhelming raw power and immersive beauty.
**Ultimately, while Text 5 explores the personal desire to search for joy and meaning in natural beauty and Text 6 demonstrates nature’s instillation of excitement and adventure as omnipresent, both texts establish the interactions between humans and the natural world as a positive means of deriving an appreciation for human and natural life.
**
