English Poets... Would it be ok to...

chaoticmess

Opinions from everyone else but here's my thinking.
4 different poets will come up, and seeing as two from the course came up last year (walcott and keats) chances are they won't come up again this year. Which only leaves a possible of 6 poets to choose from.

Seeing as 4 out of those 6 have to come up, wouldn't it make sense to only do three poets? Then at least one of your chosen ones has to come up.

Or.... I highly doubt that both walcott and keats will come up, but MAYBE one of them would do, just to trick us... but if that's the case it's 4 out of a possible 7 poets - so surely doing 4 poets would cover you?

I've done Boland, Rich, kavanagh and Yeats.. and am wondering if I really need to longley or whether I'll be ok without him...??

zam

You could risk it - and many people do - but to be COMPLETELY safe you need to do 5. It is the Leaving Cert, and if you want to do well in English, it just really really is not worth the risk.
That being said, you could just learn 3-4 (that you think will come up) really well and leave the other 1-2 in the back of your mind in case of emergency...

chaoticmess

I suppose it is a big enough risk... Do you know if two poets have ever come up two years in a row before?

English isn't one of my priority subjects but would be nice to do well in it!

dpipistrelle

Seamus heaney came up two years in a row once.. there was war over it. But that's not to say something similar couldn't happen again. Because of the english paper mess last year it's very hard to predict because longley came up on the first paper but not on the 2nd.. That could either mean he'll definately come up as he hasn't been on for years or that he definately won't as he almost came up last year:S
I'd say there's a good chance eliot will come up and if he does there'll be a simple enough question on him because his poetry is so complex. I'm hoping he will anyway!
Out of the irish males too there's a decent chance that kavanagh could come up as he hasn't been on the paper for a good while(before yeats)
Also, there's usually one female poet on the paper so if you do the two females and a couple of others you should be pretty covered I'd say.
Personally I'm gonna do Eliot, Boland, Rich and Kavanagh. So hopefully that'll work out okay:]
Like there is a chance that they could put one that was on last year on the paper, but the chances that they'd put two that were on last year? Highly doubtful.

Sid_Justice

zam wrote: »

You could risk it - and many people do - but to be COMPLETELY safe you need to do 5. It is the Leaving Cert, and if you want to do well in English, it just really really is not worth the risk.

Do you really think so? The poetry (seen) part counts for so little in the whole scheme things. I think anyone who is an A student will be able to whip up a well composed answer on any poet they have at least a superficial knowledge of. They may not get full marks for the poetry question, but I'd imagine not lose enough to change grades.

My advice is to you remind yourself how much those questions are worth and not over prepare for them, spending days learning quotes from poems etc.

gant0

I'm covering Boland,Rich(one of which will come up so it technically covers me for the exam),Kavannagh and longley because I like them and find it easy to write about them.

RHunce

i dont know what female poets are on your course as im doing my lc in '11 but we have three female poets, rich, dickinson and boland.. 1 female poets always comes up according to our teacher because of sexist issues etc etc.. so learn the female poets inside out, if you want to take a HUUUUGE chance!

zoom!

They don't have to pick a female poet. It's not sexist to not pick a woman to some up. At the end of the day a poet is a poet rregardless of danger.

SnowPretzel

zoom! wrote: »

They don't have to pick a female poet. It's not sexist to not pick a woman to some up. At the end of the day a poet is a poet rregardless of danger.

Female poets are very dangerous alright.:p

fauxshow

They're trying to get away from people cutting corners and only learning the female poets so I'd be wary of that! As RHunce said they've put THREE female poets on for 2011, for the first time. One doesn't ''has'' to come up, one just always has. There was uproar over paper predictions last year and people trying to adapt learnt off answers to the contingency paper... people were predicting a deception question would come up for Macbeth and it did on the original but not on the contingency paper, and at the marking conferences examiners were told to be particularly harsh on anybody who tried to manipulate their answer to be all about deception. So I'd say they're going to pull some tricks and be unpredictable for the next few years to stop the problem of people learning off entire essays and playing the predictions game and going to grinds etc, the female poet predictions rule could be the victim this year!

fufureida

fauxshow wrote: »

They're trying to get away from people cutting corners and only learning the female poets so I'd be wary of that! As RHunce said they've put THREE female poets on for 2011, for the first time. One doesn't ''has'' to come up, one just always has. There was uproar over paper predictions last year and people trying to adapt learnt off answers to the contingency paper... people were predicting a deception question would come up for Macbeth and it did on the original but not on the contingency paper, and at the marking conferences examiners were told to be particularly harsh on anybody who tried to manipulate their answer to be all about deception. So I'd say they're going to pull some tricks and be unpredictable for the next few years to stop the problem of people learning off entire essays and playing the predictions game and going to grinds etc, the female poet predictions rule could be the victim this year!

That is so dumb in my opinion. Thie policy of trying to stop people from being able to predict. It isn't dire to know the works of 6 poets in and out nor should anyone ever need to know King Lear like tge back of their hand. It's ridiculous. Giving a student nothing to speculate on is tge height of callousness. We have lives. We don't care about Lear or tge poets FFS!

Rant over. But it was a rant true to heart.

chaoticmess

I think that if they make it so unpredictable each year that you have to learn everything, there will be a lot more people doing ordinary level - there will be plenty of people like myself, who would of course like to do well in english but at the same time, it's not a priority subject. People aren't going to put all their time into English when they need other subjects.

I do think it's risky to just learn two women though. I'm learning Boland really well and like writing about Rich, so if a woman does come up I should be covered. However also going to learn Yeats and Kavanagh just in case.. Don't think I'll do the 5 though... If Elliot, Longley, Keats and Walcott come up... well then that would be really unlucky!

UnknownSpecies

I learned two poets last year that I thought were bankers, as did all my class! Both came up...

zam

fufureida wrote: »

That is so dumb in my opinion. Thie policy of trying to stop people from being able to predict. It isn't dire to know the works of 6 poets in and out nor should anyone ever need to know King Lear like tge back of their hand. It's ridiculous. Giving a student nothing to speculate on is tge height of callousness. We have lives. We don't care about Lear or tge poets FFS!

Rant over. But it was a rant true to heart.

Unfortunately that's the LC for you, you're not supposed to be able to predict it. Like they repeated 2008's Stair na Gaeilge in 2009 word for word.

Lawliet

fufureida wrote: »

That is so dumb in my opinion. Thie policy of trying to stop people from being able to predict. It isn't dire to know the works of 6 poets in and out nor should anyone ever need to know King Lear like tge back of their hand. It's ridiculous. Giving a student nothing to speculate on is tge height of callousness. We have lives. We don't care about Lear or tge poets FFS!

Rant over. But it was a rant true to heart.

Of course they're trying to stop people from predicting things, and of course they expect you to know a Shakespeare play and six poets! It's on the syllabus! And they expect us to be somewhat educated in this sort of thing by now. It's not callousness to expect an honours leaving cert student to be able to answer on a play and a poet without having preprepared an answer, it's common sense. This is suppose to be a test of your knowledge, not of a test of how accurate your predictions are.

fufureida

Lawliet wrote: »

Of course they're trying to stop people from predicting things, and of course they expect you to know a Shakespeare play and six poets! It's on the syllabus! And they expect us to be somewhat educated in this sort of thing by now. It's not callousness to expect an honours leaving cert student to be able to answer on a play and a poet without having preprepared an answer, it's common sense. This is suppose to be a test of your knowledge, not of a test of how accurate your predictions are.

more like a test of memory! No one can remember every single thing about king Lear from 5th year. To presume so is BS of tge highest order. Everyone flukes a little in tge exam... Not a single person knows everything on the sylabus! Not for any subject for that matter.

You can predict something and still do well. English is just one of those subjects. Know tge entire syalbus? Pfffft, my ar*e... Preparing an answer doesn't mean you have to learn it off... I do it and believe me their is no way I produce 20+ pages of learnt off material in the exam!

Height of callousness. We have other subjects too. Sheesh...

Lawliet

fufureida wrote: »

more like a test of memory! No one can remember every single thing about king Lear from 5th year. To presume so is BS of tge highest order. Everyone flukes a little in tge exam... Not a single person knows everything on the sylabus! Not for any subject for that matter.

You can predict something and still do well. English is just one of those subjects. Know tge entire syalbus? Pfffft, my ar*e... Preparing an answer doesn't mean you have to learn it off... I do it and believe me their is no way I produce 20+ pages of learnt off material in the exam!

Height of callousness. We have other subjects too. Sheesh...

There's a difference between knowing every single little thing about a play, and knowing enough about it to be able to form a decent answer. And having studied the play in detail -and presumably revised it again at some point this year- that's hardly an unreasonable request. They're not looking for a thesis on King Lear, just a relevant, coherent response to the question with a few quotes and direct references to the text. Anyway, it's ridiculous to accuse to the SEC of being callous just because they don't spell out what's coming up on the paper. It's an exam, you're suppose to like, know stuff for it.

MavisDavis

fufureida wrote: »

That is so dumb in my opinion. Thie policy of trying to stop people from being able to predict. It isn't dire to know the works of 6 poets in and out nor should anyone ever need to know King Lear like tge back of their hand. It's ridiculous. Giving a student nothing to speculate on is tge height of callousness. We have lives. We don't care about Lear or tge poets FFS!

Rant over. But it was a rant true to heart.

No, it's actually called "an exam" here in reality.

You need to know about five poets - their general themes and a few quotes.
For Lear, it's the basic storyline, general themes and a few quotes.

You don't need to go preparing loads and loads of material, because at the end of the day you will have to answer the question asked of you in the exam, not the question you would like to have been asked. A good knowledge of your texts (which you have had two years to do and revise!) will get you very far in English once you read the question!

Don't get so stressed, there's no point. Just have a look through whatever notes your teacher has given or you have made. Read a summary of King Lear on www.sparknotes.com or somewhere. You'll be fine!

fufureida

I understand what you guys mean now lol. My bad.

paigeward101

my english predictions for poetry are boland, kavanagh, longley and def elliot!!!! happy learning

Da Shins Kelly

Sure, I'm just going with all the Irish men. One of them has to be on it. I might scan over Boland, but I'm not bothered about either of the women. They're both sh*t, so I'm just sticking with the lads.

paigeward101

k! also the compariritive essays are literary genre and gvvp! gudluck.

chaoticmess

Does anyone think cultural context will come up again this year??

Our class has only done LG and CC....

fauxshow

chaoticmess wrote: »

Does anyone think cultural context will come up again this year??

Our class has only done LG and CC....

So did mine! The vast majority of English teachers will only do two modes, it doesn't really matter what two modes you learn, there are three on the course, two show up on the day. I'd just focus more on learning LG really really well, it's tipped to come up, that said after last year's debacle they might make it really unpredictable so you never know, don't worry about that too much just learn your LG and CC!

chaoticmess

I know two have to come up..but I would have preferred to have done general vision and view point rather than cultural context though since cultural context came up last year.
As now it feels a bit pointless learning CC...! haha

irish_man

they are not going to put the same poets on two years in a row especially after last years disaster.

dazco

Tbh honest I don't think there will be many surprises this year, after last year the last thing the English examiners want is bad press. All they want is for people to say it was a fair exam. My money's on Elliot and three out of Boland, Rich, Yeats and Kavanagh......

orlabobs

chaoticmess wrote: »

Opinions from everyone else but here's my thinking.
4 different poets will come up, and seeing as two from the course came up last year (walcott and keats) chances are they won't come up again this year. Which only leaves a possible of 6 poets to choose from.

Seeing as 4 out of those 6 have to come up, wouldn't it make sense to only do three poets? Then at least one of your chosen ones has to come up.

Or.... I highly doubt that both walcott and keats will come up, but MAYBE one of them would do, just to trick us... but if that's the case it's 4 out of a possible 7 poets - so surely doing 4 poets would cover you?

I've done Boland, Rich, kavanagh and Yeats.. and am wondering if I really need to longley or whether I'll be ok without him...??

You can get away with 4 or even 3 if you work smartly.
There is an extremely good chance that one of the women will come up. Theyre under no obligation or anything but every year theyres been one.
That already
Boland
Rich.

They always put an Irish poet on, those are:
Yeats
Boland
Longley
Kavangah

They always put a non irish:
Rich
Keats
Walcott
Eliot

They always put a "hard hitter" one of the poets deemed harder:
Eliot
Yeats
(and either keats or walcott, we havn't done them so I can't remember what my teacher said)

That taken into account, theres an excellent chance that Boland/Rich, Eliot/Yeats or Longley/Kavanagh.

As both Keats and Walcott came up last year its extremelty unlikely they will come up, perhaps one at the very most.

But chose wisely and you don't have to do 5. I'm only doing Boland, Rich, Eliot, Yeats.
R

FordieMUFC

Nothin to do with gender at all I don't think, but In my knowledge something with regards to Irish poets must come up, at least one I think.
So Boland being a woman AND Irish should be a safe bet

L.C.2010

defo elliot...that's a cert
and id say.....boland prob, but i wudnt totally forget rich
yeats or kavanagh

Indigo Sunrise

I hope Eliot comes up! He's the only poet I find mildly interesting.