3 female poets for HL English.

jonesy93

Hello, I have studied all three of the Female poets for my LC (Rich, Boland and Dickinson) and was wondering is it safe to only revise these poets for the exam?
Is it a written rule that a female poet comes up?
Thanks...

njd2010

No, it's not a written rule. Nothing's stopping it being an all-male exam, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Boland and maybe Dickinson are tipped to come up, but if you just study those 3 it's very possible you'll get stuck with a horrible Boland question, and you could be screwed.

what.to.do

Nope, not a written rule.

And since its a female setting the paper this year (maybe last year, too, I'm not sure) she could easily leave a female poet out without being called 'sexist'.

partyatmygaff

what.to.do wrote: »

Nope, not a written rule.

And since its a female setting the paper this year (maybe last year, too, I'm not sure) she could easily leave a female poet out without being called 'sexist'.

I thought multiple people wrote exams and the SEC chose which was best? Surely it'd be a security risk to name the person who wrote the exam?

Wolfe Tone

I remember the reaction when Boland( I think?) didnt come up last year, some lad down the back said really loudly "wtf is this sh!t!?"


Dont bank on ANYTHING coming up for definite.

what.to.do

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I thought multiple people wrote exams and the SEC chose which was best? Surely it'd be a security risk to name the person who wrote the exam?

Maybe, I'm not sure actually!
My teacher told us it was a woman.. Ah sure, makes no difference, really.
One still must do one's work! :P

UrbanSea

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I thought multiple people wrote exams and the SEC chose which was best? Surely it'd be a security risk to name the person who wrote the exam?

This is correct.

loike

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I remember the reaction when Boland( I think?) didnt come up last year, some lad down the back said really loudly "wtf is this sh!t!?"


Dont bank on ANYTHING coming up for definite.

Yeah i was ****ed when boland didn't come up and missed out on all my poetry marks

delta_bravo

jonesy93 wrote: »

Hello, I have studied all three of the Female poets for my LC (Rich, Boland and Dickinson) and was wondering is it safe to only revise these poets for the exam?
Is it a written rule that a female poet comes up?
Thanks...

Simply no, it is very unsafe as you may end up with 0 poets you have studied turning up on the paper.

NotExactly

loike wrote: »

Yeah i was ****ed when boland didn't come up and missed out on all my poetry marks

Unseen poetry is still worth 20 marks

partyatmygaff

To be fair (And I know this is irrelevant) it would make an awful lot more sense to allow people to have a copy of the texts and poems in question during the exam.

It's not your memory that should be tested, it's your ability to write English.

what.to.do

partyatmygaff wrote: »

To be fair (And I know this is irrelevant) it would make an awful lot more sense to allow people to have a copy of the texts and poems in question during the exam.

It's not your memory that should be tested, it's your ability to write English.

Quoted for truth. The A-Level papers get to bring in an unmarked copy (well the paper I looked up anyway).

As my Physics teacher put it, the Leaving isn't a measure of intelligence, its a memory test.

lisa1

If I were you, I'd learn EITHER Boland or Dickinson and Either Frost or Wordsworth. I'm doing the LC too and aparently you'll be safe doing that, so Boalnd is my #1 and Wordsworth is my #2

LC2010HIS

partyatmygaff wrote: »

It's not your memory that should be tested, it's your ability to write English.

I sat the leaving cert last year and i felt they did that with the poetry ! And it worked in my favour with the Eliot question on characters.:)

No texts at hand though but i used about 3 quotes and got the full marks when i viewed the script! *thank you imagination*

LC2010HIS

Heres what im contemplating learning:

1. Boland - various essay points/notes
2.Yeats - personal response
3.Frost - personal response, speech
4. Kavanagh - personal response

Not sure about the 5th. Dickinson?
But our teacher didnt cover her :eek::eek: and from what im seeing, she could very well come up?

So that had me very stressed today since i havent a clue about her only that she was a recluse and I cant find any personal response to learn off about her(As a back up)

And Rich came up last year!

Or will i be ok with my choices?

LilMissCiara

lisa1 wrote: »

If I were you, I'd learn EITHER Boland or Dickinson and Either Frost or Wordsworth. I'm doing the LC too and aparently you'll be safe doing that, so Boalnd is my #1 and Wordsworth is my #2

Last year if you learnt Boland you were apparently going to be safe!

what.to.do

Have a look at Rich, do five, just to cover yourself if worst comes to worst.

Bishop came up three consecutive years, so don't count last years out.

musicloverx

partyatmygaff wrote: »

To be fair (And I know this is irrelevant) it would make an awful lot more sense to allow people to have a copy of the texts and poems in question during the exam.

It's not your memory that should be tested, it's your ability to write English.

never thought of this but thats so true, its crazy anyway how everything is such a memory test, its a shame english especially isn't done like this.

As for poets, I think you'll need to study a man yea as you can never be sure, i'm doin 2 of each, so thats four, and looks like to be completly safe I should study a fifth.

NotExactly

LC2010HIS wrote: »

Or will i be ok with my choices?

We can't predict the future. All I know is that you're guaranteed to be covered if you have five poets done.

ride-the-spiral

I'm studying Wordsworth, Hopkins, Dickinson and Frost, and I'd be able to do Boland capably if I needed to. My reasoning is that Yeats, Kavanagh and Rich all came up last year, and although I wouldn't be surprised if any of them appeared again, the chance of all three of them coming up is pretty small.

And lisa1, learning only two poets is a terrible idea. For example Frost, Dickinson, Kavanagh and Hopkins is not an unlikely combination to come up at all.

orlabobs

Nothing is a written rule.... but the idea is that one female poet will come up, one irish poet will come up and one non irish poet will come up. Sometimes the female can be irish or not also.

But basically, since the course has started, there has always been a female poet on the paper. However, because of this, a huge chunk of the population decide to only study the female poets. This leads to a lot of boring papers for the correctors. And as english is so subjective, it's hard to stand out.
For my lc last year, I didn't study the female poets at all (ok I had rich on back, back up for an emergency, but it would have been a horrid essay!) I studied Yeats and Elliot. Only two, yes, but it was well thought out. I can't remember the logistics of it now... it was a year ago! Basically, I went into the exam and could answer 2 (or 3) q's on the poetry section. Basically, If I were you I would leave out the women and choose some other poets. But, that is only my opinion.

J_E

I've got Boland, Dickinson, Wordsworth, and Frost ready, with Kavanagh as an emergency. Not even going there with Yeats, all the politics in his poetry flies right above my head.

musicloverx

i've the four above ready as well but no back up, i'll have to study a fifth this week just to be safe.:)
just wondering how other people are doing it, if your studying a few do you learn off an essay you can adapt to the question or are ye just studying poems in general and writing up from your head on the day, i've personally just studied the poems and bits from past essays I've done

livelaughlove

A lot of people last year only learned Boland because she was apparently "definitely" on the paper and BOOM... She wasn't. It was kind of funny looking around the exam room to see the panic on the faces of those who had only learned Boland. However I only learned the two female poets that were on the course and somehow I ended up getting an A1. Just remember that the poetry question isn't really a big percentage of the marks compared to the essay and that.

randylonghorn

jonesy93 wrote: »

Is it a written rule that a female poet comes up?

No.

No.

No.

orlabobs wrote: »

But basically, since the course has started, there has always been a female poet on the paper. However, because of this, a huge chunk of the population decide to only study the female poets.

Which is exactly why, one of these years, there will be no female poet on the paper.

And it could be soon, it could even be this year, as the SEC seem to be making an effort to decrease the predictability of papers, esp. English, over the last couple of years.

lisa1

ride-the-spiral wrote: »

And lisa1, learning only two poets is a terrible idea. For example Frost, Dickinson, Kavanagh and Hopkins is not an unlikely combination to come up at all.

I totally agree with you, ride-the-spiral. I did state that wrong. Boland and wordsworth are my two main poets, but that doesn't mean that i haven't studied other poets. I would be perfectly capable of doing both a Dickinson and a Frost poetry question, without hesitation.

Also, how much are you all focusing on the composing section? My teacher barley does anything else in class.

lisa1

partyatmygaff wrote: »

It's not your memory that should be tested, it's your ability to write English.

Unfortunatley, your memory is tested! Does anyone who done the LC last year actually remember any quotes or poems? We have no choice, though. If we don't get a place in college ther's not a lot else out there for us.. We get one chance to go into that exam hall and try to nabb more points than our classmates, maybe even pushing them out of a college place. sad bu true!!

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT!!!.... Hope it's in place for when I have kids!

nommm

The way I look at it is, in the time you've spent worrying about whether or not 3 poets is enough, you probably could have done some revision on another 2 poets. The amount of people posting on boards about it is ridiculous imo. Learn 5 poets in total, even if you don't learn the last 2 to the same standard as the 3 female poets and that way you will avoid getting a nasty shock on the day.

Healium

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I remember the reaction when Boland( I think?) didnt come up last year, some lad down the back said really loudly "wtf is this sh!t!?"


Dont bank on ANYTHING coming up for definite.

Haha, that was the first thing I checked when I got my paper. Laughed out loud when I realized how SCREWED half of the country were

Half of the students on here only studied Boland :pac: Noobs!

AislingMarie

I think it will be Dickinson Boland Frost and Hopkins.

I want Wordsworth but unforch I doubt he'll be on the paper.
I'm studying in detail Dickinson, Boland and Frost.
Hopefully I'll be covered.
Perhaps on Monday I'll look over Rich and Kavanagh as backups.