English Paper 2 - TOO INTENSE

Muiriosa

Hey Everyone,

I think you'll agree with me that the English paper 2 exam is crazy. I did mine yesterday and I literally was writing for three hours straight as were most other people. How can this be right for a modern exam? Paper one is a doddle compared to it. There is too much on paper two which requires heaps of writing. In some cases people know all the info - it's just a sad fact that they can't get it all written in that space of time.

It should surely be reviewed should it not?

abercrombie

well they've given us an extra 20 mins this year for each paper! i had 5 mins to spare when i did mine..i just wonder how last years leaving certs coped with the exact same paper with less time than us!

Creamy Goodness

i could of done with that extra 20 minutes last year, as i didn't do the unseen poem

exiot

We had 3 hours to do ours today, it was crazy. My hand was writing one word and my mind was already on the second word. I was starting to forget to write words!
I messed up on the unseen poetry because of the time, I never read it right. Apparently it was a mother watching her son go away to school, I thought it was teenage love.. ha ha

abercrombie

haha i love unseen poetry! technically there's no wrong answer as long as you back up your point with a quote...technically!

Kwekubo

abercrombie wrote:

well they've given us an extra 20 mins this year for each paper! i had 5 mins to spare when i did mine..i just wonder how last years leaving certs coped with the exact same paper with less time than us!

Actually, the extra 20 minutes (making it 3 hours 20 minutes in total) have been around for the last three years at least! Same goes for Irish, Geography and History. I remember 'cause I noticed the red highlighting on the LC timetable when I was doing my JC.

Rockerette

exiot wrote:

I messed up on the unseen poetry because of the time, I never read it right. Apparently it was a mother watching her son go away to school, I thought it was teenage love.. ha ha

oh we had that one too...

in the middle of it it dawned on me.. "wait.... the kid didnt die did he??"
but i dont think so..!


we have 3hrs 20, but our school is only giving us 3hrs for the mocks.. if i had those extra 20 mins i woulda been grand, but instead i fecked up my comparative cos i left that till last...

Dave Larkin

I'm facing my English Paper II on Monday afternoon. Let's hope I survive it. I do History, so I'm well used to the non-stop writing! Here's to hoping that Theme or Issue comes up in the Comparative Study...

NADA

Kwekubo wrote:

Actually, the extra 20 minutes (making it 3 hours 20 minutes in total) have been around for the last three years at least! Same goes for Irish, Geography and History. I remember 'cause I noticed the red highlighting on the LC timetable when I was doing my JC.

Geography has been cut back to two hours and fifty minutes along with history I believe!

casanova_kid

I had 20 minutes to spare at the end of English Paper 2. It was grand, once you went in prepared you were sorted.

OctavarIan

I found it ok timewise. Only question that bothered me was the comparison.

deisedolly

Rockerette wrote:

oh we had that one too...

in the middle of it it dawned on me.. "wait.... the kid didnt die did he??"
but i dont think so..!


we have 3hrs 20, but our school is only giving us 3hrs for the mocks.. if i had those extra 20 mins i woulda been grand, but instead i fecked up my comparative cos i left that till last...

I wrote a whole feckin thing about the poet grieving over the loss of the child and blah blah blah, only to find out from my teacher that the child didn't die at all! Ah well, it's only 20 marks!

I got 3hrs 20mins, and was finished after 2hr50mins and thought i wrote a good load!

Rockerette

hehe i hate that moment of realising "oh.... THATS what the poem was about...!"

yeah i did my poetry essay first on elizabeth bishop, only i spent too long on that... so that kinda messed me up for the rest.. then i spent a wee bit too long on pride & prejudice for main text... rushed through that unseen poem, and then did a very dodgy comparative which didnt get finished!
my own fault really.. but at least i got 2 decent essays done (i hope..)


with the extra 20 minutes i should be grand

OctavarIan

So the kid didn't die? Hmmm, I don't think I said that, but I said something like she was sorrowful because of the loss of her child. So that's not really right or wrong.

proletarian

Ok, I had a totally different unseen poem, about a son talking about his mother and her being like a brass band, very touching stuff. Timing wasn't really a problem for me, they gave us the full 3hrs20 for it, but I didn't know my poetry properly which kind of messed me up. On the plus side, my As You Like It and comparitive were both basically essays that I've already done in class before and got As for, must've looked slightly weird doing a tiny 'Yes!' going into each essay with a little grin on my face, because I seriously thought I was hanged for English.

I was for Maths, but that's a different story, damn impossible problems I never practised...in fairness, I do draw little cartoons instead of listen in Maths. Might be problematic for the whole knowing what's going on endeavour. She's just a terrible teacher, it's hardly worth my time listening to her when she doesn't even know what she's doing.

But back to topic, yeah, English Paper 2 is IMO fine as long as you have your stuff prepared. Once you know exactly what you're writing the timing thing isn't much of a problem. Three essays and an unseen in 3hrs20mins in English is a way better deal than the History paper, which is 3 essays and timewise the equivalent of another in 2hrs50mins. THAT my friend, is a wrist-wrenching experience. My hand is disgustingly contorted from all the essays!

Shelga

Yes it is far too intense!! At the moment it is 1am on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I have English Paper1&2 on Monday and yet I am still messing around on the computer! And I have applied maths on tuesday which I am sooo screwed for. But back to English...I just planning on learning loads of quotes, re-reading old essays, that type of thing...but I am quite worried.

Ah feck it, it's only the mocks! Perspective is all I need.

d4gurl

I didn't think it was too bad! Then again I didn't study as much as I should of for it! I finished about an hour early! Plus I was dying of a cold that day! Its very tiring but not too bad!

Faith

Paper 2 is actually not too bad once you've got a good idea of what's coming up. You can learn off answers for pretty much everything and just transcribe them. It's not difficult to guess which poets will come up and the comparative shouldn't be too bad either. For the core text, as long as you know character profiles you should be okay.

Setun

I was fecked for paper 2, I was doing fine until I realised I wasn't writing. My brain was completely melted after it aswell, too much thinking too suddenly.