In VCE English and EAL, there are 3 kinds of essay prompts for text response that examiners use to assess students. Students will need to know what is expected in each of these prompts in order to do well in their Year 11 and Year 12 SACs and exams.
The first thing to remember is that these are essay prompts for Section A of the exam, and specifically for the text response Areas of Study in the VCE English/EAL study designs. This means these essay prompts are ONLY for text response essays, NOT for the other tasks like Crafting/Creating texts or for Argument Analysis!
For this task, there are 3 kinds of essay prompts that are commonly asked:
- ‘Do you agree’ prompts
- ‘Discuss’ prompts
- Quote-based prompts
‘Do you agree?’ essay prompts
A ‘Do you agree?’ prompt will often have a statement sentence, followed by the question, ‘do you agree’, or ‘to what extent do you agree?’
It can also be a question sentence that starts with phrase ‘do you agree that…’
In this kind of essay prompt, students are asked to adopt a position, stance or argument based on the statement provided. They are expected agree with the statement, disagree with statement, or hedge their response and agree and disagree with various aspects of the statement
‘Discuss’ essay prompts
A ‘Discuss’ prompt will often have a statement sentence, followed by the command, ‘Discuss.’
It can also be directive or command sentence that starts with phrase ‘discuss how…’
In this kind of essay prompt, students are asked to explore the consequences and wider implications of the statement. Students are not expected to argue whether the statement is true or untrue, they are instead expected to explore the root and ripple effects of the statement.
Quote-based prompts
A quote-based prompt will have a quote from the text in quotation marks, and is often followed by a question or directive. The question or directive will be about a theme that relates to the quote provided.
In this kind of essay prompt, students are expected to explore the theme(s) present in the quote, and elaborate on and explore how they play out in the text. Students are expected to dive into the dynamics of the theme(s) and demonstrate excellent knowledge of the text.
Here’s a video explainer of the 3 types of essay prompts
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