anyone learning an english essay off by heart?

kevogy

and fitting it in to the picture on the exam

i dont know whether to do this or not

K4t

Learn it off so you'll at least have it as a back up if you start getting stressed in the exam. I'll probabaly learn off one or two, the gist of them.

It usually takes me a month or so to write an essay (short story) in school so it's probably my best option to learn one off.

PurpleFistMixer

There wasn't a picture story on the exam last year so I wouldn't bet on that... Knowing the vague gist of a story could be useful, if you're dire at writing stories (that said, if that's the case, why are you doing the short story option)...

qz

Best to learn an essay on Paper 2 I'd say (that's the one with all the poetry and drama isn't it?).

I learned my Plath essay for poetry over my 6th year and got firing it down no prob, it definately helps having a detailed map in your head into which you can slot your references to the actual question.

Prowetod

I am learning off 4 personal responses for the poetry!

Will probably learn a few paragraphs for Gen Vision and Viewpoint, and Cultural Context.

We

Bah the English essay section is easiest imo... there's so much choice of what style essay you want to give and subject you want to write about. Especially articles, speeches etc... if you want to do well in these, just write about something you actually have an opinion on, or read a lot about..

For me, short stories are a night-mare.. too much mechanics to it, descriptive and emotive writing, plots, climaxes etc... bleh..

These questions are from the 2008 paper:

“...advised adults to treat adolescents with sympathy, appreciation and respect...”
Write a magazine article (serious and/or light-hearted) in which you give advice to
adults on how to help teenagers cope with the “storm and stress” of adolescence.

For me, I'd keep this one serious and I'd also direct the topic specifically towards the aspect of school and the stress it causes teenagers, it being a pretty big part adolescence in general. With regards to the content, I dont think I really need to give you an outline plan as we've all read enough articles on exam stress and study techniques to fill more than a 4 page essay...

“…the new global society.” (TEXT 1)
Write a speech in which you argue for or against the necessity to protect
national culture and identity.

Another easy enough one, either side of the argument having enough justification to fill a fooking library..

If you want to write in favour of protecting the culture, which is probably the easier option, you can easily go down the route of how we are identified by the rest of the world, guinness, rediculously violent sports, patricks day, Gaeilge, traditional music/dance, etc.. Simply write a paragraph on each of these things, and conclude with the usual 'we wouldn't be who we are without these things' type jargon..

If your going to try write against, though more difficult, if you pull it off well, you'll probably do better than you would have if you took the above approach.

If I was doing this, I'd base most of the essay around the fact that cultures change and modernise along with everything else and to try 'protect' them is both retarded and futile. The culture of Ireland that we have now isn't the same as it was 500 years ago, or even 100 years ago and it will continue to change as it has in the past. The culture changing also isn't a bad thing, it's just different - an adaption of the old one, ie. the Irish dancing we have now isn't the exact same as the dancing they did 200 years ago. Chances are if you showed some culture warrior of that time, the Irish dancing we have now he'd probably be like 'wtf is this shít'..
In essence, culture is only a representation of who we are and what we do, at a particular time. Things fade in and out, and to try and 'protect' the culture is only an attempt to drag along something that was popular in the past, and will inevitably fade out..
Now obviously this isn't as clear in it's intended structure as the other argument, but it's just an idea ;D

In conclusion... .. if you are anyway opinionated, you can whip these yokes up without too much trouble by just directing the topic towards something your actually interested in, enough so that you can actually write an essay about it obviously..

bleh, dunno if I actually contributed anything here..

cheekay

last year i learnt off two esays for paper one. they were easier to learn than the paper two ones as they were interesting stories. Even without the pictures i managed to fit in one of the essays perfectly. it totally relieves the stress on the day

leesmom

my teacher said theyve scrapped the pic option as people were just learning essays off and sticking them in wherever, and im in the institute where they almost encourage learning them off but not for this as supposedly will penalise heavily if its suspected youve just stuck in something not exactly related to the title given

Piste

I've learned off persoal responses for Bishop, Longley and Mahon, I've learned the outline of a few Macbeth essays and I have a general Comparative essay I'll have to tweak to fit whatever question comes up.

phasers

I never learn off essays, I always think it's so obvious when somebody does, having read a few of my friends exams.

LivingDeadGirl

I never, ever learn off answers for English. I think it defeats the purpose tbh. For me English is about expression of how I feel about and what I think of the subject matter in question. I'm not going to think about the essay title/poetry of X and use almost the exact same words as I did in a different essay/the last time I wrote about it! It seems a shame to me when I see people learning off sample Quesion Bs and Essays on Paper 1 out of some revision book, it isn't your own original work.
It's more understandable for Paper 2, and I would have some kind of general plan(aka what points to make on the theme or whatever) but never anything memorised bar a few quotes! Then again maybe this is all easy for me to say as I've never had a problem with English. I'll get my B1/A2 with very little work. Fair dues to anyone who has the patience to learn them off I guess, they do deserve reverence for that!

xOxSinéadxOx

Maybe I would if I had a good essay to learn off!

K4t

It would take some f**king student to write an A1 English essay on Macbeth/Poetry/Comparative without having at least vaguely learnt off essays beforehand.

I'd say that the majority of A1s in English consist of mainly learnt off essays.

PurpleFistMixer

I never "learned off" anything for my English, in that I didn't learn anything word for word. But well, most of studying English comes down to "preparing" your answers, that is to say, for poetry etc., you already have a vague idea of what you're going to say before you go in. You know if you have to say that Adrienne Rich is good (as you will inevitably be asked, should she come up), you'll back it up by saying a few things about her style/themes, and you'll know which poems to use for what points, what quotes etc. I wouldn't call that learning off an essay though, but maybe that's what people are talking about.

For the story, as I said earlier, I'd never learn it off (god, in my LC I wrote this mad thing about the Atacama Desert or something, lord knows where that came from), but as far as preparing beforehand goes, I suppose if you had a well-fleshed out character you could try to stick them in to a story, or if you had a few ideas already prepared they could come in useful. I dunno... the idea of trying to twist a story to fit a starting point doesn't seem like a good idea to me, but I never had a problem with coming up with a story on the spot, so maybe I'm being too harsh.

JSK 252

K4t wrote: »

It would take some f**king student to write an A1 English essay on Macbeth/Poetry/Comparative without having at least vaguely learnt off essays beforehand.

I'd say that the majority of A1s in English consist of mainly learnt off essays.

dead on

dragonfly!

phasers wrote: »

I never learn off essays, I always think it's so obvious when somebody does, having read a few of my friends exams.

+1

Des23

'Learning off' is quite ambiguous, like I mean how else are you supposed to study for english without practicing exam questions, and inevitably what you write down while practicing you are going to write down come exam time. So if your interpretation of learning off is reproducing what you have already practiced but not word-for-word and actually accomodating the question, I don't see how else you are supposed to do it.

Realistically the majority of your PII will be learned off one way or another. No one in the country goes in and just writes a poetry answer off the top of their head. Whether you want to or not you will write pretty much the same stuff as you have written about that poet before, so in a way that is learning off.
Macbeth answers require a bit more thinking on your feet though.

For PI it is kind of a grey area.. I mean regurjitating (sp?) an answer word-for-word is a bit risky at the best of times. But again if you have written an essay on topic x and a similar topic comes up in the exam you are obviously going to run with it. You will just be rehashing what you have done before, but is that not the only way you can study for PI?

Please excuse the lack of coherence I was kind of just thinking aloud more than trying to answer anything...

LivingDeadGirl

You can still definitely get an A in a Paper 1 essay you made up on the spot anyway.

brennaldo

eoccork wrote: »

I am learning off 4 personal responses for the poetry!

Will probably learn a few paragraphs for Gen Vision and Viewpoint, and Cultural Context.

I would because theme or issue and literacy genre came up last year so,

Personally i wouldnt learn off an essay, our english teacher told us that if you learn an essay for paper 1 and theres no title that fits into it well, you'll end up a bit disapointed and maybe be thrown off focus ( a tiny bit)

I reckon il learn off essays for paper 2 though, definatly learning off cultural context and gen vision and viewpoint for all the comparitives,
For poetry im studying bishop in great detail and longley and keats in decent enough detail,
And for Macbeth, well, just learn off something on the theme of good/evil as it appears often enough, also learn a character question on Macbeth and maybe Lady Macbeth

lou91

They always warn that they punish "slavishly learned-off answers" but in P2 the only way they really do that is by putting words like "impact" and "enjoyment" in the question, and you'll be marked down if you don't parrot them back throughout your answer. If you can't insert a few extra words into the essay, you're probably not smart enough to learn off the 4+ A4 pages. This is sadly the reason why many average English students get B1s/As.

torrential

I did literally ALL of the revision for English the morning of the exam. Just make sure you have a vague idea of a story and you can probably twist any title in your favour. I don't remember what I did for mine, but I obviously did something right as I got an A1 in Higher English.

Kopf

K4t wrote: »

It would take some f**king student to write an A1 English essay on Macbeth/Poetry/Comparative without having at least vaguely learnt off essays beforehand.

I'd say that the majority of A1s in English consist of mainly learnt off essays.

I didn't learn anything off for honours English in 2004 and got an A1.

I'm not "some f**king student" either. You're doing a bad job excusing your own ignorance.

bricky10

Im learning essays...

Dante

Anyone know any good places to get good essays to learn off?....I'd write them myself but I suck balls at English!

leninbenjamin

K4t wrote: »

I'd say that the majority of A1s in English consist of mainly learnt off essays.

i'd say the opposite. in fact i know it to be the case. anyone correcting an essay learned off can spot it a mile a way, it leads to people not answering questions properly and in many cases causes more stress as people become more obsessed with learning the essays word for word than they do knowing the significance of the material.

btw, since it seems to matter to you, i didn't learn off any essays or prepare answers and I got an A2.

btw you don't even need to quote the poem's and plays if you can show you know the imagery and significance well enough.

Liam O

leninbenjamin wrote: »

i'd say the opposite. in fact i know it to be the case. anyone correcting an essay learned off can spot it a mile a way, it leads to people not answering questions properly and in many cases causes more stress as people become more obsessed with learning the essays word for word than they do knowing the significance of the material.

btw, since it seems to matter to you, i didn't learn off any essays or prepare answers and I got an A2.

btw you don't even need to quote the poem's and plays if you can show you know the imagery and significance well enough.

You do need to back up your answer with relevance to the poetry/play and quotes are the easiest way of doing that without being vague imo.

PhilMickelson

In my school there were 2 A1's
Both learned off essays but pretty original ones that could be adapted to previous years titles.
I made mine up on the spot(the speech question 2008?)
Never did a speech before :P(A2:()
I never did short stories but wish i had learned one, even just for a back up.
Sure last year they were asked about a "special place" or something. EASY!

Heres a link to an essay that got full marks.....and it sucks

http://homepage.eircom.net/~splash/waiting.html

And heres one that doesnt suck that also got full marks

http://homepage.eircom.net/~splash/life.html

pandemonium

Paper 1 is all about practice honestly and depth of detail. I wouldn't learn off an essay for the composition q,choose which composition type works best for you and do practice essays and ask a teacher to correct it and comment on what you need to work on. Paper 2 is just too monumental to learn whole essays,instead make plans for various questions and learn off the plan,when you get to the exam, first pick your questions then write out the plan of each of your questions before doing anything else. Its a confidence boost to and its handy to do it first. Thats how i revised last year and i got an a2

thats not a good idea. i did it last year and it didnt really work. ended up with a c3 though! yay!
hehehehehhe....

Nihilist21

I have absolutely no intention of learning off any essays, frankly I find my work is better if I produce it in exams since its more original, my short story in the mocks recieved the highest grade in the class and many of the people that chose to regurgitate learned off pieces recieved the lowest. For paper 2 I know what I'm going to be writing my paragraphs on if cultural context / theme or issue comes up, but I'm not learning anything off by heart.

Fince

DaaaaaaaaaaN wrote: »

Anyone know any good places to get good essays to learn off?....I'd write them myself but I suck balls at English!

i was gonna ask the same thing, but if you can find it on the internet, i don't think it would be a good idea to use it.
best to get an essay off a good student from last year that just did a good essay in class or something.

on the other hand if u find a source of good essays (as in paper 1 compostion), i'm all ears.