Leaving Cert English

The-Ry-Man06

Im going in to sit my mock paper 1 tomorow morning and im brickn it! Im not bad at the comprehension question but im really not looking forward to the Composing. Does anyone have any tips on last minute revision, possible themes, how to prepare for it

oh and what sort of length should i be looking at for each question??

Sourcream

First thing you gotta do is relax my friend. The english course was changed a couple years ago to be anchored around "Personal response" and pretty much anyone off the street with a little reading of literature and skill in the language can easily do very well sometimes with no effort at all.

This does not mean not to study though! My advice that works for me as regards the composing question is as follows. Me I always choose the short story essay, but this applies for whichever suits your style:

Instead of doing essays the night before or learning one off(which bigtime can stress you out if you blank on the day) What is my advice is to go back through the exam papers and take each year for the past 4-5 and pick the one essay that you would pick if you got it in the exam and just do out a fairly comprehensive plan for them. And as you go through planning all the 4-5 you do. You will find ideas flooding to you at the exam. At least it worked for me!

For the comprehension the amount you should write is as much as answers the question. If you are asked to describe a charachter use as much points from the text as you can get while time allows. Just write as much as you think answers the question.

If in doubt, write 3 major points backed up by referance to the text.

Hope I helped and didnt ramble too much!(Which i tend to do)

ohthebaby

"dought"?

paddyb125

The-Ry-Man06 wrote: »

oh and what sort of length should i be looking at for each question??

Shoudn't your teacher have told you this??

Heggy

Well I think it can very between teachers what they recommend. Mine says at the very very least 3 and a half pages. I know people who did between 6 and 7 for their essays. Personally I'm not capable of that, I usually get to the 4 page mark.
As was said above do plans, and after you do a plan on the day you shouldn't have too much trouble getting enough to write. If you work it out, you actually have 1h 30m to do it, so there should be plenty of time.

shanethemofo

paddyb125 wrote: »

Shoudn't your teacher have told you this??

Believe it or not, there are such thing as bad teachers.

degausserxo

Does nobody read the exam papers anymore? Jeez.

Just like at the start of the HL Irish papers, a nice sample essay on

bochtanas

and what came up on the mocks...?

Heggy

Some people want this to be an actual mock of their Leaving and not throw away an opportunity to find out what they need to do. They are paying for it after all.

degausserxo

Heggy wrote: »

Some people want this to be an actual mock of their Leaving and not throw away an opportunity to find out what they need to do. They are paying for it after all.

Was that meant to be directed at me?

Heggy

Uh yeah, I usually don't bother with quotes when the message is right after the one it's referring to, I'll probably have to do it more though sometimes it can be confusing.

degausserxo

Heggy wrote: »

Uh yeah, I usually don't bother with quotes when the message is right after the one it's referring to, I'll probably have to do it more though sometimes it can be confusing.

Eh.. right.. but that's what the spoilers are there for. I'm merely advocating the proper use of papers :P

Heggy

degausserxo wrote: »

Eh.. right.. but that's what the spoilers are there for. I'm merely advocating the proper use of papers :P

But they are awfully tempting for people. It's like procrastinating, everything's there for you, and it's hard not to make use of it, even though it's not good for you.

degausserxo

I'm not forcing anyone to highlight it. Don't blame me for your weakness :P

PurpleFistMixer

Keep the stuff about the mocks in the mocks thread. If you put the spoilers there, if people think they won't be able to resist the temptation to look, they can simply avoid that thread. If spoilers were in every thread, it would be somewhat more difficult...

Gavin "shels"

For length I always go with 70 marks = 70 lines (min), usually add on 5 lines for every 10 marks.

70 marks = 105 lines



That's just the way I usually do it. I always aim for quality rather than quantity aswell.:cool:

The-Ry-Man06

Cheers theyre great tips. So sat it today it wasnt the best paper i could have hoped for but i feel i did fairly good. my parts A and B were very strong and the essay wasnt bad either altough i only managed 3 pages. Is this enough? I know they always say quality over quantity but surely if you wrote only a page even if it was excellent they would have to dock marks, No?

ironictoaster

The-Ry-Man06 wrote: »

Cheers theyre great tips. So sat it today it wasnt the best paper i could have hoped for but i feel i did fairly good. my parts A and B were very strong and the essay wasnt bad either altough i only managed 3 pages. Is this enough? I know they always say quality over quantity but surely if you wrote only a page even if it was excellent they would have to dock marks, No?

I done paper 1 today as well. I could only write 2 pages!. I'm really struggling to write long answers. Anyone have tips on how to writer longer answers?

I'm sure you did good Ry-man

TheSpecialOne

is knowing longley enough for lc wud ye say!?

Purple Funk

Wouldn't bet on it.

Though I think Longley has a decent chance of coming up.
Walcott's virtually a certainty, being both new to the course and having been quoted by Obama.
The other two I'd put money on would be Keats and Bishop.

Don't take a chance on one poet. My teacher recommends 6. I'd go with 4 minimum.

Ricky91t

Did the english HL paper one today i found it fine essay took up four pages of small writing which was about 1000 words i think :pac:

Des23

we have been told ~1000 words is a good limit to aim for but a bit less is fine if its any help

Daemos

In regards to poetry, our teacher's been telling us that Keats is almost guaranteed, as well as one of Bishop and Rich.

Des23

DaPoolRulz wrote: »

In regards to poetry, our teacher's been telling us that Keats is almost guaranteed, as well as one of Bishop and Rich.

Well Rich came up last year so its unlikely (but not impossible) she will come up again.
Fingers crossed for Johnny Keats though!:D

candlegrease

creggy wrote: »

I done paper 1 today as well. I could only write 2 pages!. I'm really struggling to write long answers. Anyone have tips on how to writer longer answers?

I'm sure you did good Ry-man

No wonder!

PurpleFistMixer

Also, "did good" is grammatically, incorrect while we're at it. "Good" is an adjective, to combine it with the verb "did" you're going to want the adverbal form which is "well".

"Her results were good; she did well in her exams."

Now someone come and tell me my semicolon usage is incorrect, and we all might learn something.

(Edit: Now, if one wants to get pernickity, they could argue it's actually a new verb "to do good", the past tense of which would be, for example, "She did good". This still grates to me, though*. If one were to insist on combining "did" and "good" they'd be better off appending a noun for good to qualify, for example; "She did good things", which becomes grammatically acceptable.)


*Imagine how I feel when people use text speak.

Homicidal_jesus

i done my paper 2
macbeth question took 3 and half pages
derek walcott!!4 pages
comparative 5 pages and 1 page on the unseen poetry!!

The-Ry-Man06

TheSpecialOne wrote: »

is knowing longley enough for lc wud ye say!?

I wouldnt think if you are only studying one poet i would think Bishop would be the way to go considering that Rich came up last year and they have always put up a female poet. I'm studying Walcott, Bishop and Longley well and then just be able to write on montague and mahon if they appear.

Heggy

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

Now someone come and tell me my semicolon usage is incorrect, and we all might learn something.

It can be a bit ambiguous to me but it seems right enough. :P

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

*Imagine how I feel when people use text speak.

I hear you loud and clear.

You would die a painful death in my English class. (My English teacher can barely spell) He once wrote, if the irony of being an English teacher wasn't enough, 'language defficenciey'. I kid you not. I made sure to write it down elsewhere it was so shockingly bad.

TheSpecialOne

cheers for the tips!longley would be unreal!ill go wit bishop nd john m aswell !:D.........btw nyone else doing "the crucible" as single txt?

Piste

Teachers often harp on about "quality not quantity" but if you write anything less than 4 pages the examiner will think it's too short. Well I can't speak for all examiners, but in my mock I wrote about 3.75 pages (I have small writing, came to about 1200 words) and the examiner wrote "shortish".


She was probably just enjoying it so much she was sad for it to end.

Heggy

Piste wrote: »

Teachers often harp on about "quality not quantity" but if you write anything less than 4 pages the examiner will think it's too short.

Yep, that's pretty much what we were told. It's terrible how subjective the whole thing is. I've seen people who generally have about 6 or 7 words on a line with absolutely colossal writing, and they'll probably get marks for having such long essays. I know I have to scale my writing up a bit for the leaving cert. I only got about 3.75 for my composing essay, still waiting on the results though.

Futurism

Piste wrote: »

She was probably just enjoying it so much she was sad for it to end.

Oh, definitely!

Piste

She was also probably bitter about sitting alone correcting exams on Valentine's night >_>

iloverocknroll2

I'd be thinking of:

Part A answers: 1-1 and a half pages
Part B - 2/3 pages
Essay - 4/5 pages
Unseen poetry 1-1 and a half pages
Prescribed poetry - 4/5 pages
Comparative - 3/4 pages
Single text - 4/5 pages

Futurism

Essays are my weakest point in English. Writing 4+ pages would take me ages. I should get practicing them but I don't have the time

Des23

iloverocknroll2 wrote: »

Comparative - 3/4 pages

I would think since the comparative is worth 70marks compared to 50 and 60 for poetry and single text respectively it should probably be the longest answer on paper II

K4t

Comparative should be at the very least 5 pages.

Homicidal_jesus

iloverocknroll2 wrote: »

I'd be thinking of:

Part A answers: 1-1 and a half pages
Part B - 2/3 pages
Essay - 4/5 pages
Unseen poetry 1-1 and a half pages
Prescribed poetry - 4/5 pages
Comparative - 3/4 pages
Single text - 4/5 pages

thats basically what i did for pres but did 5 pages for comparative!you would probably be ok with 4 for perscribed poetry id say

helpful

Our teacher told us at least 3 pages for essays, poetry, macbeth and comparative.She gets at least 1 person that gets 100 marks in english every year, now another teacher told her class at least 5, where as i think thats quite a lot for the examiner sure its better to have 3 pages of good solid points than 5 pages of waffle!!! my friend wrote 22 pages for paper 2 i wrote twelve, oh and another boy in our class called lady macbeth an evil bitch and macbeth an evil so and so we havnt got our results but i thoink that ill wake the examiner up a bit!!do you think theyll mark him down???

sorry if this is too long, i know visual indegestion and all that

coffey-16

iloverocknroll2 wrote: »

I'd be thinking of:

Part A answers: 1-1 and a half pages
Part B - 2/3 pages
Essay - 4/5 pages
Unseen poetry 1-1 and a half pages
Prescribed poetry - 4/5 pages
Comparative - 3/4 pages
Single text - 4/5 pages

correct me if im wrong but is the comparative study not worth the most amount of marks in that section but yet your doing the least amount of pages for it!:p

Des23

While it's being discussed 'pages' is a very loose term, handwriting has such a significant part to play. I mean, I average about ~200-250 a page but that can vary drastically from person to person.

Also 22 pages as a person posted above is just too much it's probably a combonation (sp?) of large handwriting and talking out of their hole I would think. Has anyone ever been told that some answers can be just too long and the examiner will get bored?

Homicidal_jesus

helpful wrote: »

Our teacher told us at least 3 pages for essays, poetry, macbeth and comparative.She gets at least 1 person that gets 100 marks in english every year, now another teacher told her class at least 5, where as i think thats quite a lot for the examiner sure its better to have 3 pages of good solid points than 5 pages of waffle!!! my friend wrote 22 pages for paper 2 i wrote twelve, oh and another boy in our class called lady macbeth an evil bitch and macbeth an evil so and so we havnt got our results but i thoink that ill wake the examiner up a bit!!do you think theyll mark him down???

sorry if this is too long, i know visual indegestion and all that

He most likely will our teacher told us that if you use profanity! where its totally unecessary like a macbeth essay!they will dock you marks but she said its ok if its used in your composition if it is tied in with the personality of a character!like a rebelious teen!oh ya!!but obviously it shouldnt be in every secound sentence

Homicidal_jesus

Des23 wrote: »

Has anyone ever been told that some answers can be just too long and the examiner will get bored?

Indeed i have and 22 pages seems to fall into that bracket fair play at the same time 22 pages in 3 hours and 20 minutes!

Well its not so much bored as if you talk about a certain area of the question a lot it dramatically increases your chance of repeating yourself and going off the point no matter how good you are!best to keep it shortish lik where told 1 paragaph=1 point in poetry or macbeth so intro,main answer bout 4-5 paragraphs,conclusion thats easily at least 3 can go up to 5 or 6 dependin on your knowledge

degausserxo

Paper 2 for me was 22 pages too, and I've pretty average sized handwriting, but the waffle was kept to a bare minimum, if there was any. English is probably my strongest subject, and there can be way too much information to include, so you've to be selective because of time and the length of answers.

Homicidal_jesus

degausserxo wrote: »

Paper 2 for me was 22 pages too, and I've pretty average sized handwriting, but the waffle was kept to a bare minimum, if there was any. English is probably my strongest subject, and there can be way too much information to include, so you've to be selective because of time and the length of answers.

nice one!i did about 15 myself!ya id agree with too much info especially for poetry!!