Am I screwed?

nobodythere · 04-05-2005 11:26am #1

We recently had to get a new English teacher for various reasons. He's a good teacher, but only when he actually teaches. He tends to waste a lot of time. It now being the 4th May, am I screwed?

We've only covered two of the comparative texts and I'm still not too sure what is required in the answer. We're in the middle of doing Hamlet and he spends the whole class writing a short note ON THE BOARD for us to take down.....

Any thoughts?

rugbug86 · 04-05-2005 11:33am

ehm talk to your form tutor or year head about your concerns. might help.
comparitive is easy enough. get a revision book for english that has some sample answers in it and read through them. and read through the 3rd comparitive text yourself.

read through them all and make notes of things that are the same - time period, main character (ie male/female, outcast, family life, money, health...) and just anything else that you can think of.

for hamlet learn some info on the main characters and some quotes. unless something like imagery comes up you should be sorted for that. again, a revision book should go through that.

hope this helps.

good luck.

Scarinae · 05-05-2005 1:34pm

REad the third comparative text yourself. You don't have to know it really in-depth, just know the key moments and be able to compare them all. Get a Hamlet revision book, there's loads available. I'd agree with talking to your form teacher as well, but you're not screwed yet. You're screwed if you do nothing about it

nobodythere · 05-05-2005 4:59pm

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go get a Hamlet revision book. My real uncertainty is not that I don't know things about the play, it's that I'm not sure about how much I should write, what they're looking for in an answer etc.

As regards to the comparative, I'm a fairly slow reader and Home Before Night will take me a while to read (Other two texts are 'Of Mice and Men' and 'Playboy of the Western World'). What I'm wondering is, can any three texts be used for a comparative? Are there simliarities between them all? I was thinking that if I need to get it out of the way quickly I could pick one that's a movie and devote more time to Hamlet.

Would they notice if I put more concentration into two of the three texts for my answer?

MrJoeSoap · 05-05-2005 5:04pm

Theres plenty of stuff on Hamlet here

Best of luck with the exams.

Scarinae · 05-05-2005 10:29pm

grasshopa wrote:

Would they notice if I put more concentration into two of the three texts for my answer?

I don't THINK so... But then again I couldn't be sure. A fil would actually be a very good text to have for a Genre question, because there's lots you can talk about. You're probably best off getting a third text that does rougjly correlate with your first two texts, for ease of comparing. What are the first two you've done? You should write them up, cos it's qute likely other people will have studied them and can tell you which ones they compare well with.

As for Hamlet... It is important to know quotations to back up your answer. It's a bit of a chore learning them, but someone said in another thread that for a really good Hamlet answer you need one quotation per paragraph - I'm not sure if that's true, and it does seem a bit excessive, but they are undoubtedly important. I typed out all of the ones my teacher asked us to learn, so let me know if you want me to fax/email them to you, I can let you know what exactly each one is useful for as well.
Also, others can correct me if I'm wrong - but I've heard that in Hamlet there tends to be one question on characters, and one question on a more general theme like death/revenge/providence etc. So if you can talk really well about the characters, and know the general themes, then you should be grand for those 60 marks

*Angel* · 06-05-2005 12:20am

grasshopa wrote:

Would they notice if I put more concentration into two of the three texts for my answer?

I haven't got my papers with me, but I'm pretty sure they hardly ever ask for 3 texts to be compared, except for in the split question, so in theory you could just work off 2 texts. Check it out and please don't blame me if I'm wrong.

Bright Smile · 07-05-2005 12:00am

Right, i personally think it would be important to cover all 3 texts, because all you have to cover are the two questions, such as literary genre and theme and issue and leave out the other one because if you have them well covered, you will know one of the two qs that come up. Very important to have all 3 texts done.

Dont panic, theres a month left, you will get those covered and dont be stressing, it wont help

chickens · 07-05-2005 5:57pm

You see here? http://www.sip.ie/sip069/Documents/englishliterature.html there bit on lot of comparative text and on how to answer question, I find it very helpful.

Leprachaun · 07-05-2005 8:00pm

yeh you have enough time

4Xcut · 07-05-2005 10:48pm

yes.you Are Screwed

Fantasy · 07-05-2005 11:12pm

I had a teacher like that for junior cert english last year.. he was a nightmare ! Always talking about his wife and kids never about english. I just studied everything myself and while he was blabbing on in class I'd be answering questions from the book or reading or something. It worked fine for me , I got an A, obviously leaving cert is harder but I'm sure if you do the same it'll work out ! Good Luck

nobodythere · 09-05-2005 9:10am

Thanks a lot, gonna take your advice... except the guy who said I was screwed:P

Am I screwed?

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