---
title: 'How to Study for English (Essay Writing) | FREE Essay Scaffold!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=zmkg0-bPT0k'
video_id: 'zmkg0-bPT0k'
date: 2026-08-12
duration_sec: 1000
---

# How to Study for English (Essay Writing) | FREE Essay Scaffold!

> Source: [How to Study for English (Essay Writing) | FREE Essay Scaffold!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=zmkg0-bPT0k)

## Summary

Chloe, founder of Concept English Solutions, shares her journey from a below-average ranking in HSC English to scoring 49/50 in Extension 1. She details her systematic approach to essay writing, including a pre-memorization strategy, a unique essay scaffold, and tips for creative writing, all aimed at helping students achieve top marks.

### Key Points

- **Chloe's HSC Results** [00:29] — Chloe ranked 16th in 2018 and scored 49 out of 50 for English Extension One.
- **Initial Failure** [01:23] — Despite preparing six drafts, Chloe scored only 10 out of 15 on her first assessment, dropping her ranking to over 100.
- **Determination to Recover** [02:13] — She resolved to aim for full marks in all remaining assessments, focusing on mindset and determination.
- **Key Strategy: Drafting and Feedback** [03:20] — For every assessment after the first, Chloe wrote at least five drafts, submitting them to teachers for feedback until she received no criticisms.
- **Essay Scaffold** [05:47] — Chloe created a systematic framework for essay structure and style, emphasizing succinct writing and a minimum of five quotes per paragraph.
- **Pre-Memorization Approach** [07:08] — She memorized generic essays and additional paragraphs (around 2,000 words) to adapt in the exam, allowing her to write a completely new essay on the day of the HSC.
- **Creative Writing Tips** [08:56] — For creative tasks, Chloe advises a clear moral message, avoiding overly complex symbolism, and including elements like social critique, culture, and coming-of-age themes.
- **Common Mistakes** [13:03] — Students often prepare essays too late and fail to practice adapting pre-memorized essays, leading to regurgitation. She recommends at least one week for adaptation practice.
- **Course Structure** [14:46] — Concept English Solutions courses focus on conceptual understanding, then structure and technique, followed by extensive practice to prepare for any question.

### Conclusion

Chloe's story demonstrates that with the right mindset, early preparation, and a systematic approach to essay writing, students can dramatically improve their HSC English results. Her key advice is to start early, seek feedback, and practice adapting pre-memorized essays to excel in exams.

## Transcript

because it was a 10 out of 15. [Music] all know english is one of the hardest subjects to get right and it can be very
first assessment so today we're visiting the campus of and i'm my friend chloe here to share her story on how she went from a below ranking in her hsc english exams so chloe do you want to
hi guys so i'm chloe and i'm the founder of concept english solutions of concept english solutions and i stayed ranked 16th in 2018 when i graduated and did the hsc and also scored a 49 out of 50 for
english extension one and so ever since then i've taught over and i've seen time and time again exactly what it takes to get those top like your actual journey throughout english for
the hsc so my story is a little bit interesting because i actually seriously messed up my first english exam and so throughout all of year 11 i
average kind of student so nothing amazing but i knew that subjects of the hsc because it was compulsory and because of well in your ranking and so given that i made sure to study
super hard for my first assessment i actually started my english draft in the holidays before year 12 began and i had about six drafts of my creative assessment and it was worth 25 so i knew it was a
bit hefty when i got my results back yeah i was shattered because it was a 10 out of 15. yeah and so with that my ranking after the first assessment was actually
over a hundred so it was like obviously i was still above average but it just was quite a hit to my ranking obviously my morale as well first assessment and from that i actually thought there'd
be no way i'd be able to recover but i knew that if i was gonna get the atar that i wanted in the end then i had to put this first assessment really really freaking hard for the rest of my assessments
and if that meant that i would be trying to aim for full marks in all of them then i was going to do whatever it took to get that it first started with the determination and the mindset and i told myself that i was going to recover
this first assessment affect me and so after i made that resolution in order to make sure that i aced my next four exams i kind of thought to myself okay there's four more
rather than get too caught up with my old assessments in making sure that i was because so much of actual
english and exams is all about like your mentality going into that exam room yeah so like after that how did you actually improve from that and get the better results that you are looking for yeah so i knew that the
three exams would all be mostly like essay-focused i knew that as long as i found the type of essay writing that would appeal to then it was almost guaranteed that i was
gonna do well and so with that i would say the key is to really start can start handing them in and pretty much for every single assessment since that first one i had minimum five drafts that i would
teachers with every single time and basically the way ready was when i had no criticisms on my final so we all know that at school the type of feedback you get isn't very extensive
it or they have a question mark or they tick it and so i knew that okay if i have an underline i have to rewrite that means it's good so i would just pretty much keep
redrafting my essay up until every single line was pretty much a tick or there'd be not much feedback and assessments it's all about appealing to your school's english department
and so when you know that then when you hand in your work you're really aiming have no real criticisms from the school's the key takeaway is to really just start your jobs early and keep reworking
them so don't actually wait until even two weeks before your drafting try to get it done as early as possible feedback so you know exactly what you should be
assessment i was actually able to get full marks in everything up until trials where i lost two marks and so in total over like my whole hsc journey i lost seven marks
from my original so you guys lost two marks for the rest yeah so the recipes so like what was the kind of essay framework that you finally realized was the best to use
english drafts and like perfecting your essay yeah so after i was able to hand in all of those essays i started to see that there was almost like a systematic framework or approach that
they were looking for when it came to like what the hse markers want in your essay i would say there is some way to actually figure out the exact type of structure the exact type of style that your english teachers
again emphasis on getting feedback but i'll actually share with you guys today the scaffold that i ended up creating after writing all of those drafts and i pattern with what the teachers were looking for
structure and just the way in general that you argue your essay so one really key tip that i learned was that you really want to try make your writing as succinct as
because you want to pack in as much analysis as can so this meant that as like a general rule of thumb minimum five quotes throughout it so coming in
junior level english you often are told to write in the structure called pedal or teal and with that you end up taking multiple across so i found this was very inefficient and
was an alternate structure which is in the scaffold that you can use to get a lot more analysis in your paragraphs have a greater chance of getting more marks just because you have greater
um and breadth of analysis yeah so like approaching an actual exam like before just those few days before what were like your key steps that you took during that actual exam yeah so i was actually never one of
were naturally really talented at english so i sort of looked at write really well on the spot but i knew i couldn't do that and so i actually took the
pre-memorization approach where i would memorize the perfect generic essays but also a few paragraphs on top of that that i would switch out in the exam that i would switch out in the exam so in total for around my for my module
specific module when it comes to the type of questions they can ask you paragraphs wow how long was that like you had to memorize look it was close to around 2 000 words but this is
really necessary for you to be like absolutely prepared so if person who's really good at thinking on the spot memorizing at the minimum additional quotes or additional pieces
paragraphs that you'd slot into the actual exam so i actually really credit my success through this approach because on the day of my actual hsc
of my actual hsc exam for the final hsc in 2018 i actually ended up writing a completely new essay to the one that i used new essay to the one that i used in my actual generic essay originally
differentiated me as a student from all of the other people who are writing like a generic kind of scaffold and so when it comes to module b especially you really want to differentiate yourself in
personal interpretation of the text and so this is a really good approach just like on the spot engage with the question best just because you are prepared for all different types of questions so of
course like that works for essays and analytical kind of questions reading tasks like do you have any general tips or it comes to creative writing tasks that first
lesson um when it comes to writing something that the markers will actually understand and like so the problem was first assessment it was a creative task and i tried way too hard to be
entire creative metaphor and i would highly recommend so you gotta put your mind in the shoes of the marker who are reading multiple creatives one after another and they're not really going to
give you the time to actually try to figure out what exactly the symbolism is so i would say the biggest tip for creative writing is to make your creative have some type of moral message but at
the same time don't try to make it like super deep or don't try to something because the markers know that you're a going to assume that you're some like amazing
like literary writer or something so i would say try to have a really solid moral message in your creatives but the same time make sure that that's super clear for the marker and don't try to mask all of that in
something that's really difficult to actually decipher to figure it out but then like what happens when in the actual exam for the question that they might
actually a huge believer that some creatives are actually a lot more and so what you actually have to do with your pre-memorized creative is you have it's adaptable by having multiple
so you don't just explore one idea but you explore multiple different ideas and so i really like to go through this checklist with my students so when it comes to having different layers to your
least two out of three of these different checklist i would recommend having some type of social critique within your creative so it doesn't have to be something really extreme like some political
for example your persona could be upset at the way the commercialization of literature nowadays pressures a lot of writers to write something that's more favorable to what will sell as
so it doesn't have to be something hugely critical but it can just be some critique that's embedded within your plotline secondly hsc markers and a lot of school teachers as well love love love
the theme of culture so really try to throughout the entire story mainly because it just gives an extra layer of depth to your story and teachers really love it when it
looks like you've done your research so try to integrate a lot of cultural elements in the details throughout that creative and so lastly is exploring the coming of age experience
and so have your character undergo some type of maturation throughout the creative and the reason why this is so good is something that all people can relate to
actually write something that the markers feel like so they're more likely to connect with your talk about coming of age experience i'm talking about some type of
creative that is reflective of your character undergoing um like maturation so of these elements notice how that gives your creative a
and so if you have all these different elements in your creative then you're on the day just because there's a higher chance an idea within the stimulus so of course
experience and experience yourself like what are the biggest common yourself making other students commonly make as well in english of them don't feel super comfortable with
the same situation that i was where i wasn't super confident but what they do is they prepare their essays way too late because when it comes to having a pre-memorized essay
you've got to make yourself really really good at actually adapting it because otherwise this is like the biggest thing that all hsc markers say question but the students just regurgitate something that they've
of biggest thing that's told by all these so that's why it's actually really important to give yourself the time to practice adapting your pre-memorized essay so as a general rule of thumb i
leave it at least a minimum of one week to actually adapt your essay after you've you're you've got your final generic essay draft ready so i think just sort of the key takeaway
this mistake is really just like the lack of preparation and planning of students do is they only start writing their essay that english notification which is two weeks before the actual exam
already have a draft that's ready and i would say you actually perfect that draft before you're focusing fully on really
memorizing consolidating your argument and then adapting to different types of going to be really quick on your feet during the exam aback by any surprise question that you haven't actually prepared for
yourself to so many different questions really give these students a kind of schedule for them to follow so we actually try to plan
before the actual exam practice after practice um so we go through these practice questions and we samples to them and how exactly to approach that question so that when you
there is almost nothing that can really throw you off because you've already of questions so pretty much the way we hold our courses from start to finish is the first few weeks are really focused
on conceptual understanding so once you have that foundation you know that when you get to the exam you truly understand your text so after foundation we then move on to more of those
terms of the structure how to get that 20 out of 20 or band six and then after it's fully just practice so this is the kind of structure that i've seen work for me and for my students time and time again
small changes to actually really elevate your marks so what i really love seeing is these students get these results that they didn't even know that they themselves could achieve just because they were doing maybe one
high school career and yeah so did you have any other final comments you wanted to say um final comments would be to like and and comment to get that essay scaffold if you guys want to see what i did
well in english as well so make sure to comment so you can get my essay scaffold useful from this video and can apply some of these tips to your own english as mentioned there's an essay scaffold as a free resource so make sure you
down in the comments down below and if you found what chloe said today concept english solutions which is located in town hall down in as always take care and i hope to see you guys in the next video
you guys in the next video bye did y'all say bye no i just like bye did y'all say bye no i just like said goodbye