Haruna Hoshiyama's Blog

This week we took essay exam on Tuesday and Listening test on Friday. Also, we did practice presentation twice on Monday and Friday. 

The essay exam was most tiring for me. Last week, we did practice essay exam but I was not prepared enough. I did not understand how to make the structure of the essay in academic style exactly. From this experience, I studied again how to make each paragraphs such as introduction, main body and conclusion right way. So this time, I think I could include the right information for each paragraphs. However, there are issues that I need to fix. The most significant one was time management. I took too long time for planning and writing introduction so there was just 10 minutes left when I started writing conclusion. That was definitely not enough time to write good conclusion. Also, I did not know enough amount of expression, I used the same phrase many times. To improve my writing, I need to study more synonyms and phrases.

On Wednesday we watched the lecture and took notes, then we did the multiple choice questions on Friday. To prepare this test, I watched Ted talks on You Tube at my apartment. Because I wanted to be used to British accent, I watched videos of British speakers. This helped me feel familiar with the way of talking and speed. So I think I could understand the video mostly on Wednesday. However, I did not practice note taking so I could not make good note for the exam on Friday. Note taking is one of the most important ability for academic study because we need to remember what did we studied at the class until the exam. So, I think I need to practice note taking with watching Ted talks or some news radio which topic is not too casual but academic or official way of talking. I learned how preparation is important through these  assessments.

Next week, we will have a reading exam on Tuesday and a independent presentation exam on Friday.

First, to prepare to the reading exam, I am going to read some articles on the coming weekend to get used to reading long articles . The tutor suggested us some sites which we can read the articles and answer the question so I am going to visit these sites. Also, to skim information, reading novels in English also seems to be a help. Reading this kind of general books seem not so stressful for me so doing both of them would be good preparation for the reading exam.

Second, we will have a presentation on Friday. We did practice group presentation twice this week. Despite there were group members, it made me so nervous to speak in front of the people. In this coming presentation, I am going have a lot more audience than practice presentation because I need to do by myself. I think the most important point to success is to have confident myself. To achieve this, I need to practice so many times. We will have three days to prepare so I think I need to finish making powerpoint in one day and I will spend two days for practice.

On Wednesday, there were our first academic writing and listening exams. Regard to the writing test, I could not be satisfied at all. Our tutor was so kind, she gave us the text in advance however, I was desperate to understand the contents and I forgot how to make the structure of each paragraph. Also, 90 minutes were included thinking times but I was caring too much about the time for writing then I could not focus to think and make notes. Trough these experiences, I realized that how important to preparation and ability to understand context easily. I need to be used to read this kind of long texts first.

There was an essay exam on Tuesday. Because I did not pass the practice essay exam which we have taken in last week, I was very nervous about this writing exam. Through the exam,I found two progressions and two points I need to improve.
Last time We took the practice exam, I could not prepare enough. Despite I understood the meanig of the text, I did not understand how to make each paragraphs especially about introduction and conclusion. I did not have ideas what introduction and conclusion should include. So this time, from this experience, I prepared the list what contents each parts of the essay (Introduction, Mainbody, Conclusion) should include. That helped me feel much easier to make the structure of the essay and I could save time for planning.
Also, to try to make myself sure what each autors are discussing about, I wrote down the summaries of argument of each texts. The topic was about artificial meat or food so I wrote about both advantages and disadvantages which artifisial meat has. There was similar informations by different authors so I tried to gather them to not to skip reference.
Although there were good pprogression as I wrote above, there were still several issues which I need to solve. I will focus on two which seem seriouse.
First, I am really not good at time management.I learned how important to spend 5 minutes for planning at first of writing so I did this. And I decided how to use whole 90 minutes. However,I used too much time on introduction and a following paragraph which explained advantages that artificial meat have, I could not have enough time to write both disadvantages and conclusion. Despite I prepared the list what i can write in conclusion, I could not write everithing.
Second, I could not palaphrase enough. I was too scared to spend time to think without writing.I used the phrase “from the view point of” four times. I need to learn more words and synonyms.
These problem seems happening because of my nervous. To slove these problems, I think I need to prepare enough which will help me to have mental capacity to handle my mind and to become used to writing exam.

There was an opotunity to take a tutorial class on Wednesday.In Japan, we do not recieve an advice from a tutor individualy. So, that was my first experience of tutorial. I could spend this time very useful. I could recieve many feedbacks and I could notice what was wrong.
In this writing test, I could not make enough score to pass the examination. I could imagine this result because I was not fully prepared. Actually, I tried to understand the whole texts which we recieved in preveous day. I made a note of summeries of each papers and I tried to make sure if the autor stand on positive side or negative side. However, that was not needed to do. Of course understand the texts is important but the most seriouse problem was that I did not understand how to make each part of the essay.
In my essay, there was no structures. In introduction, there was no popose of writing and limitation of discussion which i needed to write in introduction. Also, I tried to paraphrase the first sentence which was definition of key terms, that was not needed. I did not understand how to write both introduction and conclusion. In conclusion, despite conclusion need to be brief, I wrote only two sentences and that was not enough to summarize whole essay and make a good impression. These mistakes happend because my preparation was not enough. I tried to understand the whole context and I noted summaries of each papers and I prepared words to paraphrase. However, I did not understand how to write each introduction, main body and conclusion so that I could not make good structure in my essay.
In addion, I did not use time for planning. This is because I did not want to waste my time to write the essay. However this idea was completely wrong. Through the tutorial, I noticed how planning is important in essay writing.
We will have the writing examination on Tuesday. To make good structure in my essay, I need to study again what kind of information good introduction or paragraph includes.

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