Dropping to OL English?

Saxo

Not feeling the most optimistic about English at the moment, been really behind on study for it as I've been concentrating on my better subjects.. Not sure if I should move down or not? I'm not the best at spreading out my answers, I find it hard to write 4 or 5 pages on a question when the point can be gotten to in 2 pages I also get narrative and I don't know how to combat this.
I got 40% in my mocks but I didn't do a poetry question and I half assed paper 2 Also can anyone give me some tips for studying poetry? really don't know what to do guys.

Lollipop95

For poetry what I find works is start by bullet pointing the quotes in blue pen or black and beside the quote write out your thoughts on what the quote means,etc.. No need to know the poem in full, just have a good understanding of the poem and know key quotes. Also, for every poet after I've finished I write out a basic overview of the poet analysing their work - I say what kind of style they employ and distinguishes them from other poets, etc... Most important thing that our teacher consistently reinforced last year and in particular this year was attempt to link poems: try to make comparisons and use comparitive terms such as "like in poem x" or for example "Similar to poem X, in poem Y (name of theme) also features heavily" You can also try mind maps to study poetry What does your teacher think? She should have adviced you on levels. I think an A in ord is like a C in higher. Only you will know yourself what level you're capable of. If you genuinely don't feel like you should be in higher and you're not counting it for points then maybe drop. Our teacher told us higher and ordinary are totally different courses so you need to be aware of what comes up at ordinary - one obvious different is the poem is printed on the ordinary paper, it's not for higher. For Macbeth, write out the quotes for each character and similar to poetry, write out your thoughts on the quotes. Don't summarise the play(this applies to everything in English, I learned the hard way in the mocks the examiners hate it but thankfully I have improved since this and rectified the problem) just know key quotes and have an excellent knowledge of the play in general.
Now for conparitive - for cultural context write out the headings you can discuss - poverty,marriage,gender roles,money, status,etc... Include quotes from both novel and play that can be included and analyse how you can compare them. Include the film too in less detail is what our teacher advices. For general vision and viewpoint know the outlook of both texts - in general is it pessimistic/bleak or optimistic/positive? Our class got very lucky as our teacher is excellent. She told us to have an anchor text for the comparitive which is essentially one main text that you will use - don't make the film your anchor text. For paper 1, I can't really advice much on that as it all depends on what comes up. I suppose the examiner will be impressed as this demonstrates your flair at the English language. This can really give you a chance to show off natural ability if you happen to be a better paper 1 student than a paper 2 student. Know what you're best at.
If your passion is writing short stories then don't touch speech writing (of course it all depends on the topic of the short story) And yeah that's all I have hope I helped in some way good luck!

Saxo

Lollipop95 wrote: »

For poetry what I find works is start by bullet pointing the quotes in blue pen or black and beside the quote write out your thoughts on what the quote means,etc.. No need to know the poem in full, just have a good understanding of the poem and know key quotes. Also, for every poet after I've finished I write out a basic overview of the poet analysing their work - I say what kind of style they employ and distinguishes them from other poets, etc... Most important thing that our teacher consistently reinforced last year and in particular this year was attempt to link poems: try to make comparisons and use comparitive terms such as "like in poem x" or for example "Similar to poem X, in poem Y (name of theme) also features heavily" You can also try mind maps to study poetry What does your teacher think? She should have adviced you on levels. I think an A in ord is like a C in higher. Only you will know yourself what level you're capable of. If you genuinely don't feel like you should be in higher and you're not counting it for points then maybe drop. Our teacher told us higher and ordinary are totally different courses so you need to be aware of what comes up at ordinary - one obvious different is the poem is printed on the ordinary paper, it's not for higher. For Macbeth, write out the quotes for each character and similar to poetry, write out your thoughts on the quotes. Don't summarise the play(this applies to everything in English, I learned the hard way in the mocks the examiners hate it but thankfully I have improved since this and rectified the problem) just know key quotes and have an excellent knowledge of the play in general.
Now for conparitive - for cultural context write out the headings you can discuss - poverty,marriage,gender roles,money, status,etc... Include quotes from both novel and play that can be included and analyse how you can compare them. Include the film too in less detail is what our teacher advices. For general vision and viewpoint know the outlook of both texts - in general is it pessimistic/bleak or optimistic/positive? Our class got very lucky as our teacher is excellent. She told us to have an anchor text for the comparitive which is essentially one main text that you will use - don't make the film your anchor text. For paper 1, I can't really advice much on that as it all depends on what comes up. I suppose the examiner will be impressed as this demonstrates your flair at the English language. This can really give you a chance to show off natural ability if you happen to be a better paper 1 student than a paper 2 student. Know what you're best at.
If your passion is writing short stories then don't touch speech writing (of course it all depends on the topic of the short story) And yeah that's all I have hope I helped in some way good luck!

Wow thanks that's a bundle of information! My teacher isn't the greatest tbh she's not very informative! she wants me to stay in higher as she feels I'm capable but I'm not sure. I'm okay with comparatives and general vision/viewpoint but like I said I tend to begin summarizing once I run out of things to say. I think I'd be capable of the A in ordinary level! short stories are my strong point, I could write for days at this and find it easy to make up a whole story on the spot. :P thanks so much for your input, every little helps

Lollipop95

Saxo wrote: »

Wow thanks that's a bundle of information! My teacher isn't the greatest tbh she's not very informative! she wants me to stay in higher as she feels I'm capable but I'm not sure. I'm okay with comparatives and general vision/viewpoint but like I said I tend to begin summarizing once I run out of things to say. I think I'd be capable of the A in ordinary level! short stories are my strong point, I could write for days at this and find it easy to make up a whole story on the spot. :P thanks so much for your input, every little helps

no problem! I myself only recently stopped myself from summarising and had the exact same problem. It meant I got a C3 in the
mocks where I could have gotten a high B. To add to this my writing is massive so have to write loads cos it wouldn't be that much in "normal" hand writing teacher just told me to answer exactly what's asked and refer to the question in answer ocassionally throughout the answer -
This means you're keeping yourself on track as well as demonstrating to the examiner that you understand what's being asked it's a very good thing that you like short stories as our teacher always encourages us to do them as they really impress examiners.
At the end of the day only you yourself know what you're capable of - if you feel you could prosper at ordinary then go for it - if you get the A, it would be a C in higher. Equally, stay at higher if you think you can put in the work from now and the 4th June.
After all you can be indecisive up until the very last minute on the day of the exam and can change levels. If you really want to do ordinary I would strongly advice you to look up past ordinary level papers and marking schemes(all available on examinations.ie) to familiarise yourself with the structure of the paper. Maybe look up the Chief Examiners Report aswell which outlines what examiners are looking for and mistakes which students make,guidelines they should follow, etc. I'm pretty sure there's one for higher as well as ordinary. I only know all of this because like I said, brilliant teacher and she spends some time with the ordinary level students in the class and takes them on different days to go through the course with them.
But yeah, she does stress higher and ordinary are completely different.
Summarising is acceptable at ordinary level. So yeah, know your courses and make the decision which you think will best benefit you