How to survive Higher Level English

implausible

Ok, after being on this forum for quite a while, it's quite obvious that the same few things are being panicked about and the same few questions are being asked, so I'm going to attempt in one post to clear up and hopefully calm down some of the worriers here:

PAPER I

1. For Paper I, you can learn off a short story/essay and reproduce it on the day, but it must answer the question exactly. A fabulous short story will not get an A if it's not relevant to the question asked.

2. Part B questions are often quite structured e.g. formal letter, speech, interview, but spending hours learning off formats for these is a waste. You must answer the question asked, it's far more important than the structure. I was amazed at a conference one year when I was told that as long as it read like a letter, the layout wasn't important.

3. Style questions come up Question A every year, often in every text. Revise terms like metaphor, rhetorical question, anecdote, etc and practice finding them in a text.

PAPER II

1. Remember that this paper is worth the same marks as Paper I. Despite the fact that you may have spent a term doing Hamlet, it's still only 60 marks i.e. 15% or a full grade.
#A character question, a theme one or something to do with the structure of the play (soliloquies, tension) will come up. Spending 2 days revising the character of Laertes is a waste of time, knowing enough about him to mention him in the theme of revenge is less so.
#You need enough quotes to show you know the play well, but make sure you use them in relevant places, not just to show off.

2. The comparative probably takes up more time than any other part of the course but is worth less than your Paper I essay.
#You should have essays prepared, but it's more important to have an essay structure prepared.
#Quotes are not as important here as in Hamlet, reference to moments in the text is.
#If you're panicking or not sure of one of your texts, consider doing the 30/40 question - you've a better chance of picking up marks than doing the 70 marker.
#You only need to prepare 2/3 modes, there's no need to have three, it makes no sense time-wise.
#The most important thing in the comparative is to Answer The F#@king Question. A perfect comparative is useless if it doesn't refer to the wording of the question, ideally in each paragraph and especially in the intro and conclusion.

3. Poetry causes huge stress and it's only worth 50, less than a grade.
#Have your essay structure learned off. Poem by poem is the easiest, but thematically is fine too.
#You must answer the question asked, but that doesn't mean you have to rewrite your essay. Just get the phrasing of the question into your answer.
#Personal response is essential here.
#DO NOT under any circumstances leave out the unseen. A decent unseen answer will bring a sh@te essay up to a decent mark.

Overall on Paper II, answering the question is more important than an excellent essay. (If you don't answer the question, you're down on your marks for P and you cannot get more for C and L than you did for P.)

CODING: it's important to know how the examiner marks your Paper II essays - every time you make a relevant reference to Hamlet's procrastination for example (if the essay title was "Hamlet's procrastination and self-awareness are the causes of the tragedy") you'll get a HP written on the margin of your paper. You would need to have one of these in every paragraph to maximise your marks under P (and C and L will follow). Even if you haven't a notion and your predicted essay doesn't come up, throw in a sentence referring to the title at the end to get some marks under P.

Please stop stressing about the length of answer; everyone's writing is different, everyone has a different approach to answering a question and the examiner only cares that you answer the question!

Stop panicking about small details. Every examiner has not read every one of the 33 texts that are on the comparative course and neither does s/he have the time to go and check a page number, an exact quote or a character's name. Guess it and wing it if you go blank on a small detail.

A good tip for revising Paper II is to have your essay plans done out as a diagram or table on a sheet of paper. This is all you should be looking at the night before the exam.

Good luck and hope this helps!

grandfinale

Very much appreciated , I say you have put many peoples minds to rest.

roguey

Thanks for this! Made me feel a little less worried!!

marko93

Thanks! This advice is great, some amount of planning for tomorrow :')

Iceboy

Legend, best advice I've seen

implausible

Bump, because I forgot to mention the coding:o

GV_NRG

brillaiant advice thankss very much for that

best of luck to everyone tomorow in ther exams

Dragonmanirl

Excellent advice mate thanks a million
also good luck to all you boards people doin exams tomorrow, English paper 1 , bring it on :P

galwayman17..

this has been a massive help! paper 1 is where i need most of my marks!
thank you!

I COULD KISS YOU!!:D:D

murphp

Brilliant stuff cheers. Going to make spidergrams on all my essays now

B_Fanatic

That is really great. Thank you.

Also, one quick question... What IS the layout for a letter? Seriously, I'm not entirely sure and it's likely that is the one I will do. I know you said it isn't that important but it would be really helpful if someone could let me know!

Violafy

Thanks, that's great advice.

Also, I wasn't sure where else to ask this... I just remembered how we're not allowed to write our names on the exam paper, so what do we do if we have to write a letter for English? Should we sign it with our exam number :rolleyes: or make up a name?

implausible

B_Fanatic wrote: »

Also, one quick question... What IS the layout for a letter?!

Personal - your address in the top right and date underneath it
Formal - your address in the top right and date underneath it, addressee under this again over on the left.

I tend to use three paragraphs - 1. why you're writing 2. body of the letter 3. conclusion/request for feedback

There's a whole pile of rules about using Yours sincerely or Yours faithfully at the end, but I've never used or taught it. Yours sincerely does for everything.

Oh, and for those who are messy - use a small indent or leave a line between each paragraph (which also allows you to shove in something you might have forgot.)

Violafy wrote: »

Also, I wasn't sure where else to ask this... I just remembered how we're not allowed to write our names on the exam paper, so what do we do if we have to write a letter for English? Should we sign it with our exam number :rolleyes: or make up a name?

Make up a name. It's not the end of the world if you use your real name or address. If everyone made up convincing fake addresses, examiners would never be able to entertain themselves trying to figure out where the papers are from (it's a looooong 3 1/2 weeks):D

randylonghorn

deemark wrote: »

Make up a name. It's not the end of the world if you use your real name or address. If everyone made up convincing fake addresses, examiners would never be able to entertain themselves trying to figure out where the papers are from (it's a looooong 3 1/2 weeks):D

Bold! :mad:

BOLD deemark!

Go to the bold corner ... oh, wait ... !

delousional

OMG you're a lifesaver, thank you so much!

crayon1

Thank you sooooooo much!

r0cks0l1dd

Say for a short talk, could you refer to the actual text?

implausible

r0cks0l1dd wrote: »

Say for a short talk, could you refer to the actual text?

Yep, use it as another source: e.g. "In an article I read recently...."

Don't base your entire answer on it though, unless you're really obviously being asked to e.g write a talk giving your opinion about the topic discussed in the text.

OneOfThem Stumbled

'... or some craven scruple.... of thinking too precisely on the event: a thought which, quartered, hath one part wisdom and ever three part coward.

I do not know why yet I live to say "this thing's to do"; sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do it. Example gross as earth exhort me!'

implausible

Bump for those panicking about Paper II and to save a bit of repetition.

implausible

Last minute bump for this.

Last bit of advice - be really strict with yourself on the timing. A perfect poetry essay that took you 2 hours can still only get 50 marks. You cannot do well if you don't answer ALL the sections.

Put the pen down when the time is up and jot down some points if the essay is unfinished. That way, if you finish another Q early, you can come back to it and finish it off.

Mods, you can lock this @2:00!

randylonghorn

Thanks, deemark!