Were you happy with English Paper 2?

PJelly

I instantly planned Dickinson, then stopped to look at the Frost question, was a bit indecisive though. Hopefully Dickinson was the right choice!

Framble

AdamD wrote: »

The fact that the poets people thought would come up, actually came up does not make it an easy paper. Can't really see how this paper is any different to previous years tbh, some people got away with only studying Boland, but I doubt that many people did that.

Well, as well as the expected poets coming up the Hamlet and comparative were pretty straight forward. Along with the fair paper yesterday I think everyone's pretty delighted with English.......

PJelly wrote: »

I instantly planned Dickinson, then stopped to look at the Frost question, was a bit indecisive though. Hopefully Dickinson was the right choice!

Just like in The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost!

AislingMarie

I just did the personal response.
I wrote how I could relate to it as I like writing poetry, how I understood her feelings and liked the images she used.
That's all I said except I mentioned alliteration once and something about the flow of the poem.
My anwer was long and I would consider it good except I now don't think I responded right.
Was I just supposed to discuss techniques?

PJelly

Also, did anyone else blatantly lie in the personal response to the unseen?
"As I have tried, and failed to write two books." etc.
I wrote about how familiar the metaphors for inspiration were, and how they reminded me of the time I was a burgeoning author

Fbjm

UN. BE. LIEVABLE!!! the paper was WRITTEN for me, EVERYTHING I studied came up!!! We are a very, very lucky year...

Dougal.Maguire

Essay on Claudius was perfect. Q on Dickinson was perfect. Cultural context and "how it made you uncomfortable" however ... struggled with ! Only did setting, relationship and prejudice for each text .. anybody else find it a bit of an odd Q?

J_E

PJelly wrote: »

Also, did anyone else blatantly lie in the personal response to the unseen?
"As I have tried, and failed to write two books." etc.
I wrote about how familiar the metaphors for inspiration were, and how they reminded me of the time I was a burgeoning author

Yeah, "I could relate to this poem, because as an aspiring poet, I could understand blah blah blah " :P

citizen_p

Frost was awsome,
Hamlet OK just missing a few quotes,
comparitive not sure, did theme qustion 1


unseen poem, wtf was that sh!t?

Aileen123

Ok I'm freaked now! Couldnt have gone any worse for me! I was really depending on Hopkins and Wordsworth sorta learned Boland so did her but didn't refer to the question hadn't a clue what it meant! Hamlet was a disaster I'd no Claudius done so made up the revenge one said nothing about justice! Then i did the comparative and got the 30 mark done and like a page of the 40 mark! I'm going to fail

citizen_p

C__ wrote: »

What did you write about?

I just said how somone quickly glancing at it would assume because of his use of everyday laungage that his poems were simple in subject, just nature etc... when really they are deep philosophical, themes like lonliness etc...

Dr.Evil

Only got three and a half pages on the comparative..didn't finish it, the uncomfortable thing in cultural context threw me a bit.

eveyn

GoldRush4821 wrote: »

Either i did that question perfectly or terribly because i found it to be a lot easier than people in my year were saying... metaphors would be language.. i just went poem by poem, seeing as it talked about reflective insight it means history and thats what she writes about so lets say in "this moment" i talked about the simple but precise language she uses which mirrors the insight that extraordinary things are often found in seemingly ordinary places. So metaphors, similes and all that wouldn't really come into it. I mentioned them but I tried to avoid it as much as possible.

i cant really remember what i wrote but it was similar to you. i talked about how in this moment she uses everyday language to reflect on this universal moment. and how in the famine road she uses the language of comparison to join the two poems together. i kind of just waffled on about the metaphor of the horse to reflect her insight into war etc

citizen_p

Aileen123 wrote: »

Ok I'm freaked now! Couldnt have gone any worse for me! I was really depending on Hopkins and Wordsworth sorta learned Boland so did her but didn't refer to the question hadn't a clue what it meant! Hamlet was a disaster I'd no Claudius done so made up the revenge one said nothing about justice! Then i did the comparative and got the 30 mark done and like a page of the 40 mark! I'm going to fail

revenge is the main theme of hamlet, i just ****ed on about hamlet pursuit of revenge and how it affected those arounfd him, did they deserve to die etc...

RHunce

Unreal! I knew all four poets inside out, i had a choice between my two hamlet questions which i had gone over and the cultural context was a beauty! took a good stab at the unseen too! what a paper!

snicket

Wuthering Heights: I had a feeling about Cathy ^_^ not sure I answered the question too well though, the "like vs dislike" thing got repetitive really quickly and I think I concentrated on some aspects of the story too much & didn't take the rest into account! Overall not terrible.

Poetry: So mad, Wordsworth where were you?? I could have done A1 answer on him... went for Dickenson instead, it was bit waffly but again, not terrible. Annoyed I didn't go over Yeats last night like I'd planned, had good notes on him as well, and the question was handy enough.

Didn't write enough for the unseen poem I think.

Comparative: LOVED the cultural context question, the entire thing I had planned for that was basically about uncomfortable attitudes. Wrote 7 pages, went really well =]

Anyway, apart from Wordsworth it was a pretty good paper!

Hope93

PJelly wrote: »

Misinterpreted a question slightly... I think.

The talk about the mysterious in books, I did a talk about the mystery genre.

Don't know if its going to be marked down or not.

Nah you were allowed to do that, I did that as well. I talked about the mystery genre and the appeal it has using the headings (Setting, atmosphere and suspense) Hope it was right anyway :S


Anyway does anyone know for the CC question (i) did you have to constantly refer to the question? I just compared/contrasted the moments that made me feel uncomfortable(Like war, violence and corruption) I never actually said they make me feel uncomfortable I thought you just had to write about the things that made you feel uncomfortable

Iceboy

Im not sure if if answered the unseen very well.

I talked about how the pen hated being chewed or something like that i didn't have a club tbh prob got like 2 marks out of 20 although i did write a good 3/4 of a page i don't mind tho coz im awful at analyzing poems, I have to read notes on them to understand them

BrendaN_f

Hope93 wrote: »

Nah you were allowed to do that, I did that as well. I talked about the mystery genre and the appeal it has using the headings (Setting, atmosphere and suspense) Hope it was right anyway :S


Anyway does anyone know for the CC question (i) did you have to constantly refer to the question? I just compared/contrasted the moments that made me feel uncomfortable(Like war, violence and corruption) I never actually said they make me feel uncomfortable I thought you just had to write about the things that made you feel uncomfortable

even though i felt silly writing it, i made sure to say that I/one could find x uncomfortable/unsettling/disconcerting etc..

Hope93

BrendaN_f wrote: »

even though i felt silly writing it, i made sure to say that I/one could find x uncomfortable/unsettling/disconcerting etc..

Ah damn I was contemplating it as well I just basically Compared/contrasted for a whole 4 pages.. Would be happy with 40/70 from that now then..

Iceboy

For the CC question i talked about family life, poverty and male dominance

BrendaN_f

Hope93 wrote: »

Ah damn I was contemplating it as well I just basically Compared/contrasted for a whole 4 pages.. Would be happy with 40/70 from that now then..

well i wouldn't be too despondent about it, it did say to compare the extent of how uncomfortable it made you feel, so i think it'd be possible the gather that, depending on how you compared of course

partyatmygaff

BrendaN_f wrote: »

even though i felt silly writing it, i made sure to say that I/one could find x uncomfortable/unsettling/disconcerting etc..

I kept repeating the fact that such and such a key moment made me feel uncomfortable that it must have sounded as if I find reading in general to be uncomfortable It's amazing how many different ways you can manage to say "feel uncomfortable" :pac:

Hope93

BrendaN_f wrote: »

well i wouldn't be too despondent about it, it did say to compare the extent of how uncomfortable it made you feel, so i think it'd be possible the gather that, depending on how you compared of course

Ahh man I feel really bad now

I came out of the exam so happy and now I'm finding out I didn't actually do so well..
I'd be wise to hope for 40/60 for Hamlet, 40/70 for Comparative and 40/70 for Poetry now then..

BrendaN_f

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I kept repeating the fact that such and such a key moment made me feel uncomfortable that it must have sounded as if I find reading in general to be uncomfortable It's amazing how many different ways you can manage to say "feel uncomfortable" :pac:

haha yep. i was impressed with how many synonyms i thought of, but now that you wrote it, i really wish i thought of "uneasy"!

Hope93 wrote: »

Ahh man I feel really bad now

I came out of the exam so happy and now I'm finding out I didn't actually do so well..
I'd be wise to hope for 40/60 for Hamlet, 40/70 for Comparative and 40/70 for Poetry now then..

if it makes you feel better, i only wrote just over 3 pages for the comparative!

Aoifums

Hamlet - Lovely Claudius question. I looked over it as I was walking into school (walking and speed reading )

Comparative - Theme (i) I felt was a little dodgy. I'm not sure how well I did on that and I was banking on comparative to bring up the average mark.

Poetry - I did Dickinson. I'm a little worried that my response was a little too personal. It did say write your response so I might be ok. I had such a good time writing that essay. It was very personal, I wrote what I thought about her in relation to each point I had and how they related to the essay title. I think I wrote something about how writing about death wasn't a very original thing for a poet to do and she was no Wilfred Owen so her work isn't startling either.

Hope93

BrendaN_f wrote: »

haha yep. i was impressed with how many synonyms i thought of, but now that you wrote it, i really wish i though of "uneasy"!


if it makes you feel better, i only wrote just over 3 pages for the comparative!

Haha I wish it did, although 120/200 wouldn't be bad seeing as I hope I got 75+ on paper 1!
I failed P2 in the pre's and still got 60 over all so lol

PJelly

I thought my unseen went rather well actually. I did the kind of thing that the writers of our poetry book do. Talk such BS but you can't exactly disagree because its their opinion.
Example
The consonance on "Tease, trawling" gave the line a bouncy feel and set the rhythm of the poem
The alliteration on "vowels in your vaporous image" (though the O isn't that noticeable) made the line broader and longer. Also, the broadness of the vowel sounds imitate the broad, all encapsulating aspect to the "vaporous image"
Oh and the sibilance becomes more pronounced in the second stanza, making it relaxed, esoteric, magic etc. Which echoed the mysterious facets to inspiration.

That's mostly what I talked about, though I feel the rhythm bit might be pushing it

BrendaN_f

Aoifums wrote: »

Hamlet - Lovely Claudius question. I looked over it as I was walking into school (walking and speed reading )

Comparative - Theme (i) I felt was a little dodgy. I'm not sure how well I did on that and I was banking on comparative to bring up the average mark.

Poetry - I did Dickinson. I'm a little worried that my response was a little too personal. It did say write your response so I might be ok. I had such a good time writing that essay. It was very personal, I wrote what I thought about her in relation to each point I had and how they related to the essay title. I think I wrote something about how writing about death wasn't a very original thing for a poet to do and she was no Wilfred Owen so her work isn't startling either.

yeah i wrote about death too, but i said the way in which she writes about death in the first person is quite original. which may or may not be true haha

Fireball07

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I kept repeating the fact that such and such a key moment made me feel uncomfortable that it must have sounded as if I find reading in general to be uncomfortable It's amazing how many different ways you can manage to say "feel uncomfortable" :pac:

Yeah, and I forgot disconcerting still used about 4 or 5 different words.

Iceboy

Aoifums wrote: »

Hamlet - Lovely Claudius question. I looked over it as I was walking into school (walking and speed reading )

Comparative - Theme (i) I felt was a little dodgy. I'm not sure how well I did on that and I was banking on comparative to bring up the average mark.

Poetry - I did Dickinson. I'm a little worried that my response was a little too personal. It did say write your response so I might be ok. I had such a good time writing that essay. It was very personal, I wrote what I thought about her in relation to each point I had and how they related to the essay title. I think I wrote something about how writing about death wasn't a very original thing for a poet to do and she was no Wilfred Owen so her work isn't startling either.

Haha so was I, so glad when I turned the page and saw that question

RHunce

I did 3 pages on the unseen to try and get as many marks as I could, quality stuff btw not three pages of sh!t

HxGH

The Single Text
Hamlet
Did the question on theme. It was ok. Last piece I did. Didn't get to finish really. (3.2 Pages)

Comparative Studies
Theme/Issue
I was never good at Comparative Studies. Did 3.6 pages of dribble.

Poetry
Unseen
Did the personal response question. It was fine. My teacher always told us we can say what we like as long as we back it up/show evidence for our beliefs. (1.5 Pages)
Prescribed Poetry
Did the question on Eavan Boland. I. Am. The. Luckiest man alive. I only learned her off this morning. I was an idiot to do that. Quality wise, it was fine. Bit messy here and there. (4 Pages)

PAPER II TOTAL = 12.3 Pages.

Very difficult to predict my result. I'd like a C. It sounds possible.

Hope93

BrendaN_f wrote: »

yeah i wrote about death too, but i said the way in which she writes about death in the first person is quite original. which may or may not be true haha

I also wrote about death and I said it was extremely clever of the way she described death and mocked it in 'I Heard a Fly Buzz'

I mainly said though how it was a disturbing theme to read but kept me coming back to find out more about her poems and her as a poet. I also talked about Nature/Hope and Mental Anguish as themes.

I tried to talk as much as about themes as possible without talking in detail about poems.

kilo1

o god the smile on my face when i seen the poets come up the supervisor prob thought i was nuts ha ha. sittin outside goin over dickinson in case frost didnt come up and then all them come up together best paper yet!! frosty me aul buddy you save me again

Iceboy

Frost is a legend

Aoifums

kilo1 wrote: »

o god the smile on my face when i seen the poets come up the supervisor prob thought i was nuts ha ha. sittin outside goin over dickinson in case frost didnt come up and then all them come up together best paper yet!! frosty me aul buddy you save me again

I think I can out-weird you!
I'm on my own in the exam centre. I was almost crying from nerves before the paper, up to the point where the supervisor gave me a mini pep talk before she gave me the paper. Upon opening the paper I got a face on seeing Claudius and giggled from glee when I saw the poets!

RHunce

HxGH wrote: »

The Single Text
Hamlet
Did the question on theme. It was ok. Last piece I did. Didn't get to finish really. (3.2 Pages)

Comparative Studies
Theme/Issue
I was never good at Comparative Studies. Did 3.6 pages of dribble.

Poetry
Unseen
Did the personal response question. It was fine. My teacher always told us we can say what we like as long as we back it up/show evidence for our beliefs. (1.5 Pages)
Prescribed Poetry
Did the question on Eavan Boland. I. Am. The. Luckiest man alive. I only learned her off this morning. I was an idiot to do that. Quality wise, it was fine. Bit messy here and there. (4 Pages)

PAPER II TOTAL = 12.3 Pages.

Very difficult to predict my result. I'd like a C. It sounds possible.

The Single Text
Hamlet
Did the question on the theme of revenge and the theme of justice. It was far from the best Hamlet question I have ever done, pretty poor tbh, I found it really difficult not to retell the story the whole time because of the way the question was phrased (6 Pages)

Comparative Studies
Cultural Context
Felt this went fairly well. Did the question about attitudes making the reader feel uncomfortable. Felt this went really well. (6 pages)

Poetry
Unseen
Did the personal response. felt I had to do loads on it to try and get near full marks. I dealt with the images, the language and the techniques then over all why I liked the poem. 4 paragraphs. (3 Pages)
Prescribed Poetry
I had a choice of all four pets thankfully, in fact a few of u laughed out loud when we saw it :pac: I ended up doing my question on Dickinson and I felt I got on really well with this, definitely thought it was my best question by far Excessive amount written but it was hard to fit 6 poems and an opening and closing paragraph into 4 pages. (7 Pages)

PAPER II TOTAL = 22 pages

JamJamJamJam

Aoifums wrote: »

I think I can out-weird you!
I'm on my own in the exam centre. I was almost crying from nerves before the paper, up to the point where the supervisor gave me a mini pep talk before she gave me the paper. Upon opening the paper I got a face on seeing Claudius and giggled from glee when I saw the poets!

You probably out-weirded me too, but I went to the toilet to celebrate seeing Dickinson's name on the paper!
I was terrified she wouldn't be there and I'd be stuck with some inferior poet So I didn't look at the poetry section until I'd finished everything. Oh how I smiled...


EDIT: Sorry for saying you were weird

partyatmygaff

JamJamJamJam wrote: »

You probably out-weirded me too, but I went to the toilet to celebrate seeing Dickinson's name on the paper!

That's an odd way to celebrate... :P

aranciata

partyatmygaff wrote: »

The prescribed and unseen poetry questions were quite nice.

Hamlet and the Comparative were completely unexpected though. I did the revenge and justice theme question for Hamlet which in retrospect went reasonably well.

The Comparative was nasty though. Not one nice question on the paper. I ended up doing the cultural context question about how the cultural context of a text can make the reader feel uncomfortable. I think I managed to do it reasonably well save for the fact that I repeated the words "discomfort" "uncomfortable" "disquiet" "ill at ease" "uneasy" in almost every single paragraph.

I found I was more thrown by the value and attitude component to the question. I settled on having religion being the value in society and the attitude of the society reflected in how people are divided and organised into class. Mentioned the uncomfortable part just at the end of every paragraph though, maybe 4 or 5 times in the essay. Very happy with the cultural context question, wrote 6.5 pages and I think I had some original insight and creative comparisons aswell. Hoping for 70/70!

Aoifums

JamJamJamJam wrote: »

You probably out-weirded me too, but I went to the toilet to celebrate seeing Dickinson's name on the paper!
I was terrified she wouldn't be there and I'd be stuck with some inferior poet So I didn't look at the poetry section until I'd finished everything. Oh how I smiled...


EDIT: Sorry for saying you were weird

Weird isn't bad :P We all have our exam freakishness.
I was just so wound up over paper 2 because I didn't do enough work over two years and honestly I don't think I deserve to be feeling as good about it as I do now.
And I dove into the paper because I'd rather know if I was screwed at the start and spend all my time on Hamlet, Comparative and Unseen.

floutingmaxims

Eoin MurMur wrote: »

Ditto

What'd you say was the line that impressed you most?

Used the last line(s). Im pretty sure it was one sentence but it was like the last 3 lines so hopefully the examiner doesnt think ive taken 3 sentences and avoided the question! Cant remember rightly what i said about it though, something along the lines of it being the most graphic image and standing out from the rest yada yada yada!

aranciata

Really enjoyed reading that unseen poem, and I usually hate the unseen poems and criticise them in my personal response - didn't have to do that today! Got to mention the metafictional quality of the poem and was delighted - I had a little prepared on the metafictional quality of Hamlet (Mousetrap, breaking the 4th wall, Osric) but couldn't mention that in the Revenge answer so I put it in the unseen!

what.to.do

LittleMissLost wrote: »

COMPARATIVE
I did CC Q1. Felt a bit of a to0l saying "this made me feel uncomfortable" all the time. What sh1te English!

At least I'm not the only one, hahaha.

I was sitting there thinking, "HOW the hell can I rephrase this???". I think I used the word 'uneasy' once, but I felt..uneasy about that, so it was back to "it made me feel uncomfortable"..

Iceboy

RHunce wrote: »

The Single Text
Hamlet
Did the question on the theme of revenge and the theme of justice. It was far from the best Hamlet question I have ever done, pretty poor tbh, I found it really difficult not to retell the story the whole time because of the way the question was phrased (6 Pages)

Comparative Studies
Cultural Context
Felt this went fairly well. Did the question about attitudes making the reader feel uncomfortable. Felt this went really well. (6 pages)

Poetry
Unseen
Did the personal response. felt I had to do loads on it to try and get near full marks. I dealt with the images, the language and the techniques then over all why I liked the poem. 4 paragraphs. (3 Pages)
Prescribed Poetry
I had a choice of all four pets thankfully, in fact a few of u laughed out loud when we saw it :pac: I ended up doing my question on Dickinson and I felt I got on really well with this, definitely thought it was my best question by far Excessive amount written but it was hard to fit 6 poems and an opening and closing paragraph into 4 pages. (7 Pages)

PAPER II TOTAL = 22 pages

22 PAGES! how the f...

I wrote really fast for the whole thing non stop basically and got in 13 pages, your writing must be visible from space..:rolleyes:

LittleMissLost

what.to.do wrote: »

At least I'm not the only one, hahaha.

I was sitting there thinking, "HOW the hell can I rephrase this???". I think I used the word 'uneasy' once, but I felt..uneasy about that, so it was back to "it made me feel uncomfortable"..

Awh crappp I didn't rephrase it at all.. Usually would too, all the synonoms are rushing to my head now, uneasy, unnerving, disconcerting... etc.. :P Oh well.. done now!

HxGH

Iceboy wrote: »

22 PAGES! how the f...

I wrote really fast for the whole thing non stop basically and got in 13 pages, your writing must be visible from space..:rolleyes:

I hope so too :pac:

flyaway.

Iceboy wrote: »

22 PAGES! how the f...

I wrote really fast for the whole thing non stop basically and got in 13 pages, your writing must be visible from space..:rolleyes:

I had 20 pages and my writing is certainly not big. Most people I know wrote about 20 or so...

HxGH

flyaway. wrote: »

I had 20 pages and my writing is certainly not big. Most people I know wrote about 20 or so...

There's such a huge difference in teaching styles :pac:

Making the predicting of my result even more difficult!

I went over a few sample answers provided by examit the other night and you guys are writing alot more for unseen poetry that's for sure.

I'm only going for a C here. No judging :pac:

randylonghorn

Number of pages is not how they determine your results, stop comparing ffs! :P

(Believe me, the examiners would be delighted if it was that easy!)

partyatmygaff wrote: »

That's an odd way to celebrate... :P

Someone else informed us yesterday that if X came up, he would be so delighted that he would eat his pencil-case.

I think that one wins, in fairness!