Two poets enough..?

katie007

Will i be safe enough to just learn Yeats and Kavanagh?

Or is it too big a chance to take??

Also i havent even looked at Lear yet, what will be safe enough to learn to get me by on a question, general themes most likely to appear?

Help please, fast!

ldxo15wus6fpgm

Learn 3 at the very minimum. I recommend 4 though.
For Lear, just make sure you know the general storyline, and then make notes on each character - their roles in the play, their flaws and general characteristics etc.

yourmother

Just 2 poets is a risk! Remember Kavanagh is on the 2011 course too..

As for Lear, concentrate on the main themes - Love as a redempting force, Good vs Evil etc

unknown13

2 is a bit of a risk but at the end of the day it is up you how many you want or chose to study.

gemxpink

I think Yeats will come up [if we get a nice paper :P] but Kavanagh I'm really thinking they'll save him for next year. You might be better off learning the two women if anything, one comes up every year usually (for the past 9 years at least). Longley is also highly tipped - was on the original paper last year and was the only poet on the original that was not on the official. Learning two is really risky and it's likely that neither of your chosen two may come up.

Tl;dr if you're only doing 2, doing the two women is your best bet.

Reillyman

2 is fine, I'm only doing Boland and Yeats and thats enough tbh. As long as you study 2 of the ones that everyone is tipping to come up.

If they don't come up it just gives ya more time for the other Q's!

MaggieNF

everyone is saying Boland and Yeats, definately doing those but might have rough idea of another

zam

Reillyman wrote: »

2 is fine, I'm only doing Boland and Yeats and thats enough tbh. As long as you study 2 of the ones that everyone is tipping to come up.

If they don't come up it just gives ya more time for the other Q's!

You'll also lose 50 marks...

If it's important to you to do well in English and you need the points, learn 5. If you want to take a gamble and there's not much at stake if you lose 50 marks, learn 2.

ldxo15wus6fpgm

Reillyman wrote: »

2 is fine, I'm only doing Boland and Yeats and thats enough tbh. As long as you study 2 of the ones that everyone is tipping to come up.

If they don't come up it just gives ya more time for the other Q's!

I am sick and tired of this speculation nonsense.
No one on these boards knows who will come up. My guess is as good as yours, which is equally as good as a random 7 year old's. Please note that past appearances on LC papers do not influence any poet's likelihood of coming up, and speculations mean nothing. As far as we're concerned, every single one of those poets has an even chance of coming up.

I'm going to show you the odds you're facing with the poetry question. I'll give the workings too just for clarity. From there, it's your decision.

There are 70 different combinations of poets that could come up.

If you study only two, there's 15 ways (6 Choose 4) that either of the 2 you studied will not show up on the paper. That's a 2/7 (15/70) chance that you're stuffed. Not nice odds.

if you study 3 poets, there's 5 (5 Choose 4) ways the poets could come up where you're stuck. That's a 1/14 chance (5/70) that you can't answer the poetry question. Pretty decent odds.

If you study 4 poets, there is only 1 combination (4 Choose 4) out of the total 70 possible where you will be stuck. 1/70 = Very nice odds.

If you can't do the poetry question, you've lost 12.5% (50) of your marks. Seeing as you don't exactly seem too prepared for the exam you may well need some of those 50 marks to scrape a pass. It's possible.


Whatever you do, please don't listen to other people telling you "X amount is fine". They are trying to justify their own laziness; they aren't studying more than X and are simply trying to make themselves feel a little better about it because they know they could do more but can't be bothered.

You should study however many poets it takes for you to feel comfortably confident going into the exam, and no less.

Psychedelia

I think the answer is obvious to everyone.

You don't have time to get a desperate justification of only learning two! Go learn what you can in the time that is left!

gant0

Im doing 4 to be on the safe side....3 very very well and then rich just incase im totally screwed over with the poets so i can do a decent answer on her

FordieMUFC

Well I know many who are studying one...

Professional Griefer

FordieMUFC wrote: »

Well I know many who are studying one...

I'm there too, only doing V+V too, if neither my poet or VV come up, then I'm rightly screwed, but thats my fault.:D

Making It Bad

Holly Low Wife wrote: »

I am sick and tired of this speculation nonsense.
No one on these boards knows who will come up. My guess is as good as yours, which is equally as good as a random 7 year old's. Please note that past appearances on LC papers do not influence any poet's likelihood of coming up, and speculations mean nothing. As far as we're concerned, every single one of those poets has an even chance of coming up.

I'm going to show you the odds you're facing with the poetry question. I'll give the workings too just for clarity. From there, it's your decision.

There are 70 different combinations of poets that could come up.

If you study only two, there's 15 ways (6 Choose 4) that either of the 2 you studied will not show up on the paper. That's a 2/7 (15/70) chance that you're stuffed. Not nice odds.

if you study 3 poets, there's 5 (5 Choose 4) ways the poets could come up where you're stuck. That's a 1/14 chance (5/70) that you can't answer the poetry question. Pretty decent odds.

If you study 4 poets, there is only 1 combination (4 Choose 4) out of the total 70 possible where you will be stuck. 1/70 = Very nice odds.

If you can't do the poetry question, you've lost 12.5% (50) of your marks. Seeing as you don't exactly seem too prepared for the exam you may well need some of those 50 marks to scrape a pass. It's possible.


Whatever you do, please don't listen to other people telling you "X amount is fine". They are trying to justify their own laziness; they aren't studying more than X and are simply trying to make themselves feel a little better about it because they know they could do more but can't be bothered.

You should study however many poets it takes for you to feel comfortably confident going into the exam, and no less.

Lies. The LC isn't made out by a machine designed to use a random number algorithm to chose the poets. It's made by people and the people follow a pattern.

Junco Partner

i'd throw boland in on top of kavanagh and yeats to be safe the one poet i know really well and actually like, walcott came up last year so he prob wont come up that just aint fair

lc2010

Holly Low Wife wrote: »

I am sick and tired of this speculation nonsense.
No one on these boards knows who will come up. My guess is as good as yours, which is equally as good as a random 7 year old's. Please note that past appearances on LC papers do not influence any poet's likelihood of coming up, and speculations mean nothing. As far as we're concerned, every single one of those poets has an even chance of coming up.

I'm going to show you the odds you're facing with the poetry question. I'll give the workings too just for clarity. From there, it's your decision.

There are 70 different combinations of poets that could come up.

If you study only two, there's 15 ways (6 Choose 4) that either of the 2 you studied will not show up on the paper. That's a 2/7 (15/70) chance that you're stuffed. Not nice odds.

if you study 3 poets, there's 5 (5 Choose 4) ways the poets could come up where you're stuck. That's a 1/14 chance (5/70) that you can't answer the poetry question. Pretty decent odds.

If you study 4 poets, there is only 1 combination (4 Choose 4) out of the total 70 possible where you will be stuck. 1/70 = Very nice odds.

If you can't do the poetry question, you've lost 12.5% (50) of your marks. Seeing as you don't exactly seem too prepared for the exam you may well need some of those 50 marks to scrape a pass. It's possible.


Whatever you do, please don't listen to other people telling you "X amount is fine". They are trying to justify their own laziness; they aren't studying more than X and are simply trying to make themselves feel a little better about it because they know they could do more but can't be bothered.

You should study however many poets it takes for you to feel comfortably confident going into the exam, and no less.

That is so not true. They do not pick the poets at random, therefore they do not have equal possibilities of coming up. like would you just say it is a coincidence that there has been a woman on the paper for the last fey years?
Mathematically speaking they all have an equal probability but in reality some have a higher probability than others of coming up.
Also if you look up the papers only once did they ever repeat a poet two years in a row and that just happened to be a woman. Therefore Keats and Walcott are unlikely to show up.

ldxo15wus6fpgm

Making It Bad wrote: »

Lies. The LC isn't made out by a machine designed to use a random number algorithm to chose the poets. It's made by people and the people follow a pattern.

As I said, as far as we are concerned there is no pattern. We cannot tell who they are going to pick - there are no set rules on which poet must come up when or how often. For all we know there could be no female poets on the paper this year, as there is no rule saying there has to be one. As we have no way of telling who will come up, it may as well me a machine picking them at random.

lc2010 wrote: »

That is so not true. They do not pick the poets at random, therefore they do not have equal possibilities of coming up. like would you just say it is a coincidence that there has been a woman on the paper for the last fey years?
Mathematically speaking they all have an equal probability but in reality some have a higher probability than others of coming up.
Also if you look up the papers only once did they ever repeat a poet two years in a row and that just happened to be a woman. Therefore Keats and Walcott are unlikely to show up.

See the above. It could very well be a coincidence as there is no rule stating a female has to come up. This has been said thousands of times on this forum, but some people just don't want to accept the fact that it's not guaranteed that a woman will come up. I was speaking mathematically - I even gave calculations and statistics. Was that not mathematical enough? :P

You're saying Keats and Walcott are unlikely to come up based on an assumption that it's not purely by chance. You simply cannot say with certainty that they won't come up. Speculation about something this important is definitely not a good thing. I could also speculate that perhaps because Walcott has only appeared once ('09) he is likely to come up, but that does not make it so.

FordieMUFC

Ix Deadmau5 wrote: »

I'm there too, only doing V+V too, if neither my poet or VV come up, then I'm rightly screwed, but thats my fault.:D

Tbh you'll be grand I say.
Maybe one poet is pushing it, but learning one poet well and being familiar with another is good. 4/8 poets are coming up, and learning 2 you'd wanna be pretty unlucky for one not to come up. And with regards to V&V just learn that well and be familiar with another. One of them has to come up.

It's what I hate about English, you can learn all the stuff you want off but might still be writing poorly despite of how much you know

gant0

Making It Bad wrote: »

Lies. The LC isn't made out by a machine designed to use a random number algorithm to chose the poets. It's made by people and the people follow a pattern.

That's exactly why the real odds are BETTER than these.These just take in maths while the others account for patterns which means if you study the 3 most likely/tipped poets you 99% covered.

brian1991

Personally, as I've wasted so much of the past few years, I'm only studying two poets; WB Yeats and Evan Boland. I will try to be somewhat familiar with Adrienne Rich as well and I really hope this will be enough. I remember last year's English poet predictions were very accurate.

ciano1

f0ggy92 wrote: »

i'd throw boland in on top of kavanagh and yeats to be safe the one poet i know really well and actually like

Bit of a poet orgy going on there! :eek:

Im sticking to the 4 Irish Poets..Should be pretty safe

Victoria.

katie007 wrote: »

Will i be safe enough to just learn Yeats and Kavanagh?

Or is it too big a chance to take??

Also i havent even looked at Lear yet, what will be safe enough to learn to get me by on a question, general themes most likely to appear?

Help please, fast!

I wouldn't just learn 2 poets! The ones you have chosen are likely to come up but you are really taking a gamble. There's nothing wrong with concentrating on two that are tipped but have two others as backup that you know the general points on. I'm doing Eliot, Kavanagh, Yeats and Longley because those seem to be the ones most likely. Female poets are too but I only did Boland and wasn't impressed.

For Lear I would learn a general question on Lear himself, a bit about imagery used in the play, nature as a theme and filial ingratitude linking in the sub plot.

For the comparative i studied gv and cc but cc came up last year so concentrating on gv. Haven't got a clue what lg is about!

Good luck anyway we're all in the same boat crammin away.