Those English Comprehensions.

IbanezFreak

Hey I was just wondering how long do people here spend on the english comprehensions on Paper 1? The recommended time is 35 minutes for pt A and 35 minutes for pt B. I stuck to this plan for the mocks and I ended up doing terrible. By the time I have the whole comprehension read and im answering the first question about 10/15 minutes are already gone, which leaves about 20 minutes to write the answers! Does anybody here just dive straight into the texts looking for answers instead of reading it fully first? Im not complaining about them theyre handy marks but the timing is just really hard for them.

Rockerette

do you read all 3 of them??

cos i read all the QB's first, and pick the most interesting of those ones.. do that first.. then i have a quick flick through the other 2, look at the questions, and then decide which one to do..
i read the questions, then read the passage, and underline relevant stuff when im reading.. saves a bit fo time

thats just my method, im sure loads of people have their own

Dagnir Glaurung

I do the essay first, then the best B. That leaves me with about an hour to an hour and a half to do the comprehension.

NADA

I think the best thing do is pick a question B first. After that decide which question A you are going to do by reading the questions and then take it from there. Starting at A then B and then the composition. The question A and B's don't have to be too long.

IbanezFreak

Dagnir Glaurung wrote:

I do the essay first, then the best B. That leaves me with about an hour to an hour and a half to do the comprehension.

Thanks for the replies guys.
Thats a pretty interesting way of doing it. I was thinking about that way before. Im not a strong essay writer so if I got it over and done with at the beginning of the exam I could focus on the other questions. The only bad thing about that is that some of the texts relate to the essays.. Reading them gives you some ideas and inspirations of how to write them. Still though I reckon it beats rushing through the comprehension questions and pt B's to get on to writing a crap Essay!

deisedolly

Dagnir Glaurung wrote:

I do the essay first, then the best B. That leaves me with about an hour to an hour and a half to do the comprehension.

:eek:
That is a really stupid way of going about Paper1!! The comprehensions are very helpful at getting the juices flowing and filling you with different ideas about the essay because the essay titles are always closely related to the comprehensions!

Dagnir Glaurung

deisedolly wrote:

:eek:
That is a really stupid way of going about Paper1!! The comprehensions are very helpful at getting the juices flowing and filling you with different ideas about the essay because the essay titles are always closely related to the comprehensions!

Maybe for you. Narrative writing is my strength. I pick the short story and bang out 3-4 pages. I don't need to get 'juices' flowing. I needed that I'd turn up early and write something before the exam begins.