Honours English

Naikon

fillefatale wrote: »

Its hard to get a high grade in something you struggle with or dislike.
Its quite an easy subject to study though.. you can practically learn your answers for the exam. Which I don't particularly agree with though.

The great thing though about this subject though, is a lot of the content can be "winged" to an extent.
I can't believe how little I actually studied for this subject in comparison to the others.

SRFC90

Naikon wrote: »

The great thing though about this subject though, is a lot of the content can be "winged" to an extent.
I can't believe how little I actually studied for this subject in comparison to the others.

ha ha! and how did you do...?

Chunky Monkey

Study in your own time man. I repeated my leaving last year. Got a C1 the first time, got an A1 last year. I opened the books for the first time exactly two weeks before the exam. Got Macbeth notes off sparknotes.com. Read the summaries and learned about 35 quotes. Got the rest of my notes off skoool.ie. Admittedly I cheated and only went through the female poets concentrating on Sylvia Plath cos I was sure she would come up. Not the best advice really I was lucky, so study well before two weeks but it's not that bad doing it in your own time. I didn't go to school. Don't be too quick to blame it on your teacher especially if you're repeating. It's your own determination that will get you through at the end of the day.

prod_igy

Sometimes the tachers should be blamed.

I did my LC 4 years ago and had the best english teacher ever. However she contracted cancer some time around christmas and we got a substitute teacher. Now im not bragging here or anything, but i never got less than an A1 in an essay in english since i started junior infants, and have been told many times i should be a writer.

Anyways, this substitute teacher proceeded to give me 28% in my essay in higher level english in the mocks. His reason........'he couldn't understand it and it was too complicated'......!!!!?? Like what the f***!!:mad: He's an english teacher! surely he has read more complicated books than a 17 year old student!!! Well i asked for the opinion of my old teacher and she said that he was extremly harsh and unreasonable and i should have gotten a much higher mark. She said to ignore him and his advice and proceed as i had done beforehand.

So i did, and i got an A2 in the LC (would have gotten an A1 only i left the studying till the night beforehand and only studied one poet. Needless to say she didnt come up, so i bull****ted about Heaney for a page or two:D)

Chunky Monkey

You got the grade anyway so what is there to 'blame' your teacher about? How they mark you during the year doesn't matter. For the junior cert, for three years, I was consistently given Cs and Ds and was told to drop down to pass. I still got an A at higher level because I decided to ignore my teacher and study myself. I'm not that good at English either so it kinda shows...

prod_igy

Because in no way whatsoever did he help me during the year, influence me positively or encourage me like other teachers had. Im not saying he should have being doing 'all' of these 'all' the time, but he was the opposite, influencing me negatively, giving me wrong info on how to write etc. and generally being a prick to me just because of a runin we had earlier on in the year.

And what i really couldn't understand and really frustrated me, was his excuse for giving me 28% in my essay. What kind of english teacher is he if he couldn't understand my essay. Surely he has read some more complicated literature than that of a 17 year old.

Plus, more or less the same theme came up in the LC, and i wrote more or less the same type of story (although with different setting and characters etc.) and i must have gotten around full marks for that if i got A2 with my poet not coming up on the paper and bull****ting on that Q.

All im saying, as that your teacher isn't always right...........:)

Chunky Monkey

Oh ye I agree, sure my JC English teacher was very wrong too. Actually my LC one was as well. He consistently gave me As and I got a C but anyway

He sounds like a right prick to put it frankly but have you ever noticed that sub teachers are always like this...Anyway, why do so many students opt to pay for extra grinds? Because across the board the standards of teaching here are fairly poor. I know you get your brilliant teachers, I had them too, but unfortunately they seem to be in the minority (I'm basing this on seeing that €50 million is spent annually on grinds here). I do think though that you can make it if you are determined and decide to ignore the teacher (if they're crap that is). Don't get me wrong though, it still isn't fair on those that might need a little push though and it isn't fair to expect everyone to have to ignore their teacher. You should be able to trust in their ability.

prod_igy

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

He sounds like a right prick to put it frankly but have you ever noticed that sub teachers are always like this...

lol, yes. Substandard should be used instead of substitute. Not sure if i ever had a good substitute teacher.......and this guy was just terrible.

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

Don't get me wrong though, it still isn't fair on those that might need a little push though and it isn't fair to expect everyone to have to ignore their teacher. You should be able to trust in their ability.

This is very true. To be honest i was (and still am) quite a lazy student, who needs to be pushed and encouraged etc. to achieve their abilities and i know of quite a few others who are the same. This is why i liked my old teahcer, and a few others. I trusted their judgement and abilities and was encouraged to do work by them. This is where many teachers fail. Students really need to be encouraged to do work because not all are sufficiently self motivated. Personally i found that complimenting me made me feel better and encouraged to to do even better in the future, while giving out or remarking negatively on my work made me feel useless and therefore make me feel negative towards the subject (chemistry:()

Also i forgot to mention, this teacher also said that ' he didn't like the type of story that i wrote (was kinda sci-fi/fantasy) and that i should write a story/essay that would appeal to the examiner and that he/she would like'. I couldn't believe this when he said it, as a student has no idea of the personality of the examiner correcting their exam and would in no way be able to write an essay to suit 'their' examiner. Surely it is up to the examiner to be passive while marking exams and if they feel a connection with the particular story, then well for the student, maybe an extra mark or two. But to mark an exam negatively just because the examiners taste clashed with that of the student.....this is ridiculous!

As you can see, i really hate this teacher:D

Piste

Teachers are very slow to compliment and much more quick to criticise, sure constructive criticism can help people improve their weaker areas, but teachers aren't so quick to comment on strengths, most of school is about correcting your academic shortcomings, not developing your strengths.

JC 2K3

Naikon wrote: »

The great thing though about this subject though, is a lot of the content can be "winged" to an extent.
I can't believe how little I actually studied for this subject in comparison to the others.

Agreed.

However, I think English is a subject that's supposed to be "winged". Learning off other people's notes is hardly a proper way to study English.

dfx-

As someone who steered away as quickly as possible from English/languages after the LC and is now a graduate in Chemistry, English to me was always a test of how quickly you could write and how middle-of-the-road you could be.

Any different points of view now matter how well argued was a gamble because of who marked it. If your booklet wasn't 5,000,000 pages long, you were already in C territory and from my experience, the result in the exam is largely down to the opinions of those marking it.

For something like the Leaving Cert, you should be either right or wrong, not down to subjective opinion. My English teacher was staunch in his opinions and marked accordingly. He refused to teach Manley Hopkins' poetry because of his views.:rolleyes: :mad:

For 2003, I did enjoy MacBeth, The Remains of the Day, Far From The Madding Crowd, WB Yeats and Sylvia Plath, so there are jewels in amongst the dross of Heaney, Death of a Salesman, Frost and Elizabeth Bishop - even for a critic of the subject like me.

Chunky Monkey

dfx- wrote: »

Any different points of view now matter how well argued was a gamble because of who marked it. If your booklet wasn't 5,000,000 pages long, you were already in C territory

Not necessarily true. The first time I wrote a lot more pages than the second time. In fact my answers were very short this year, I didn't want my hand seizing up again, yet I went from a C1 to an A1.

Guess what I've decided to study this year...The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Truman Show...whoop! Haven't decided on poetry. Eliot and Longley were my favourites over the last two years. I can't stand Plath and I really don't want to do her again though she got me an A1. Definitely staying away from Yeats too, I can't remember is he on the course this year? I'm going to study all the female ones at least anyway. At least one always comes up. Macbeth was brilliant and Othello seems pretty good too.

Ugh, need I say any more about that teacher of yours Prodigy. It sounds like he deserves a good throttle.

JC 2K3

dfx- wrote: »

Any different points of view now matter how well argued was a gamble because of who marked it. If your booklet wasn't 5,000,000 pages long, you were already in C territory and from my experience, the result in the exam is largely down to the opinions of those marking it.

I got an A2, and both my booklets were only about 8/9 pages each. While subjectivity is an issue, examiners are audited, one can apply for a recheck and every attempt is made to ensure the impact of this is minimal.

That said, my paper was randomly recorrected, and it went from a B1 to an A2...

SRFC90

prod_igy wrote: »

So i did, and i got an A2 in the LC (would have gotten an A1 only i left the studying till the night beforehand and only studied one poet. Needless to say she didnt come up, so i bull****ted about Heaney for a page or two:D)

good lord how did ya manage that!!!?:eek::eek:

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

For the junior cert, for three years, I was consistently given Cs and Ds and was told to drop down to pass. I still got an A at higher level because I decided to ignore my teacher and study myself. I'm not that good at English either so it kinda shows...

cant relate to that alot!!!! much the same as above, how did you jump grades like that!! any tips on studying orhow ya did it!!!?? spill da beans maan!!:D

1huge1

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

Not necessarily true. The first time I wrote a lot more pages than the second time. In fact my answers were very short this year, I didn't want my hand seizing up again, yet I went from a C1 to an A1.

Guess what I've decided to study this year...The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Truman Show...whoop! Haven't decided on poetry. Eliot and Longley were my favourites over the last two years. I can't stand Plath and I really don't want to do her again though she got me an A1. Definitely staying away from Yeats too, I can't remember is he on the course this year? I'm going to study all the female ones at least anyway. At least one always comes up. Macbeth was brilliant and Othello seems pretty good too.

Ugh, need I say any more about that teacher of yours Prodigy. It sounds like he deserves a good throttle.

As much as I enjoy studying the Truman Show I really wouldnt like writing a answer to it.

PurpleFistMixer

It's handy enough. Cultural context is interesting because it's an artifical culture (and you can talk about the "outside world" too for added length if you so desire). Theme, well, that depends on what your theme is. The only problem I have with it is that it's a little tricky comparing it to my other texts (Lies of Silence and The Crucible), but I think that's the point of the question.

....shell....

haha my god am i glad to be out of homours english. i hated it!! dreaded that class! othello was grand when we done it thought it was very interesting, i hated all the poetry though and sylvia plath?? that woman needed serious help!loved some of her poems tho like child and the beebox

prod_igy

SRFC90 wrote: »

good lord how did ya manage that!!!?:eek::eek:

to be honest i dont know!!

i had a general idea of all the questions and i had read through the comparatives and every thing else during the year in class time with the teacher, so i had a general idea of things.....just didnt 'study' till the night beforehand and to be honest i basically bull****ted my way through it. If it sounds like you know what your talking about, and using fancy words and good prose etc. it's possible.

I just checked the past exam papers, it wasn't Heany (darn my memory!), it was Patrick Kavanagh! This was the question asked

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Bold]

2. [/FONT]Imagine you were asked to select one or more of Patrick Kavanagh’s poems from your course for inclusion in a short anthology entitled, “The Essential Kavanagh”.

Give reasons for your choice, quoting from or referring to the poem or poems you have chosen.

This here is perfect bull****ting material!! I hadn't a clue of his work, but it only asked for one poem and knew he wrote a poem about the famine, so proceeded to discuss how this affected him etc etc etc.......easy:D

Nikkio237

I have to say that I totally agree with prod_igy about "substandard teachers". My English teacher last year was great. She knew the subject and she was well-read enough to be able to analyse our answers properly. Sadly for us, this year she took maternity leave with her first kid. They stuck us with a Student Teacher. Seriously, for both Leaving and Junior Certs they hired a girl fresh out of college. It's crazy.

Now I adore English, and I really think that even with her (and our horrible texts, Strictly Ballroom and Wuthering Heights are fine but Lies of Silence and Othello are just atrocious) I can do ok in the exam. But honestly, the girl has no lesson plan, we're convinced she downloads her notes then reads them to us, and she told us herself that she got a C in the LC and she's primarily a History teacher. Can anyone make sense of that? My class and the Junior Certs are freaking out.

Corruptedmorals

I got an A1, I wrote very little..about 7 pages for Paper 1, nearly 11 for Paper 2, and only because I wasn't able to condense my comparative and it ran to 6 pages.

Btw, unseen poetry doesn't matter. I wrote 5 lines for it, it even said in the marking scheme 'Does not have to be long, as long as main points are there' or something like that.

Plath's a really good choice, pity she won't come up. Concentrate on other women poets, and Irish poets.

Anyway yeah, an A1 isn't really that hard. I got a C in JC English and a C1 in the LC mocks..

Chunky Monkey

Nikkio237 wrote: »

and she told us herself that she got a C in the LC and she's primarily a History teacher.

Very bad thing for a teacher to say. Looks like they didn't teach her common sense at college.

It is easy to wing it. But a little preparation is needed IMHO. Read lots of classic books by the likes of Dickens or even the Bronte sisters and such. In fact anything that's written in good English That way you'll pick up the fancy English that examiners like to see And keeping sort of up to date with current affairs helps for the essay writing. It did for me anyway. I say sort of cos my essay was factually total bull. It was about this dude who joined the Irish army and went to Palestine and I threw in the Gulf war, George Bush Snr and Sadaam Hussein though I think I might have got mixed up between that war and the current war in Iraq Anyway, it gave me an idea for a story and it got me an A1 so something must have worked and it doesn't matter if it's a load of crap so long as it reads nice