English Paper 2 - How can I control my timing?!

Lollipop95

So I did my English mock paper 2 today and my timing was atrocious!

For my Macbeth answer, I spent about over an hour on it. Quite a few Other people I have talked to spent about 45-55 minutes on it. For my comparitive,we had a question A where we were asked to talk about a single text and question B where we compared/contrasted the text with two others o our course. Question A was 30 marks and I spent so long on it and wrote so much(well my writing is very big so it may have just looked that way to me!) that I looked at the time,realised that if I didn't wrap it up quickly,I wouldn't have time to do a relatively good poetry question. So I went on part B and did a very shoddy,short comparitive So I spent more time on the 30 marker than the 40 marker. Rushed throught it and I am sure that if I had controlled my timing better I would have been able to write a high standard answer as the question was ideal!

I wrote quite a bit for the poetry question, but I totally SCREWED UP the unseen! I was extremely irritated with myself following the exam as I know that if I had more time I would have able to produce a well written, high quality answer. However,I was desperately running out of time and as a result rushed through it , didn't even get a page out of it

I suppose that at least it's better for all this to happen now,rather than on the day in June! I would really appreciate if someone could offer me advice on timing or just simply how I can learn how to speed up because if I think if I repeat on Paper 2 what I did in June,I certainly cannot guarantee myself a high grade. English is my favourite subject so I would love a high grade in the actual exam but I really fear timing is a major issue for me! Paper 1 (which I love) was generally okay for timing,however I definitely went over the reccomended 10 minutes each for all of the questions in the Part A. Wrote quite a bit for the essay and was definitely my favourite part of it - I came across as very opinionated I feel (it asked you to write a personal essay) which I'm not really sure is a good thing or not??

Anyways,any advice for me would be greatly appreciated! Like maybe tips on how long you should generally spend on each section? Thank you!

dee_mc

Here's a few tips I put together for grinds students, and a timing guideline for both paper 1 and paper 2. I used this strategy and got an A1; it has also proved successful for my grinds students. Hope you find it helpful.

Leaving Cert English: General rules
Timing: allocate a certain amount of time to each question AND STICK TO IT! If you run out of time on a question, leave it: if you are very nearly finished, write a quick conclusion (no more than 5 minutes work) and move on to the next question. If you have time at the end you can always improve on your quick conclusion, but at least with this strategy in place you have a complete answer (any conclusion is better than no conclusion, as there are marks specifically allocated for this).

Paper 1
Read entire paper; mark off best questions (5 minutes)
Comprehension (40 minutes)
Question B (40 minutes)
Composing (1hr 15 minutes)
Read over answers & finish any answers you didn’t finish (10 minutes)

Paper 2
Read entire paper; mark off best questions (5 minutes)
Single Text (1hr)
Comparative (1hr)
Studied poetry (45 minutes)
Unseen poetry (20 minutes)
Read over answers & finish any answers you didn’t finish (10 minutes)

Reading time is very important as it will focus you for the entire paper. As you read, mark with a highlighter anything that jumps out at you as a ‘key point’: this will make it easier for you to pick out the bits you need later.
Read every question on the paper carefully, even if it doesn’t grab you at first glance, so that you can make an informed decision as to which questions to choose.
One of the easiest ways to pick up marks is to have a very clear structure: Clearly mark question numbers and use the ‘page numbers’ section at the bottom of each page. Mark it very clearly if you write an extra piece of any answer out of sequence so that your examiner has every opportunity to read your complete answer in the correct order. This may sound obvious but will apply for every exam.
If you decide to delete any section that you have written, don’t obliterate it! Bracket the section and cross it out with one line, so that it is still legible. This gives the examiner the opportunity to read what you have written and decide if it warrants any marks. (Again, this applies in every subject).

d1234

Paper 2 - 200 marks 200 minutes

As a general rule, you should spend 10 minutes for every 10 marks for example for the comparative, 70 marks so 70 minutes.

The only way to improve is by writing. Try as many questions as you can between now and June and time yourself. Bring a highlighter with you into the exam and highlight exactly what you have to answer.

Also with the comparative, it is debatable as to whether it's better to choose the single question or the question with two parts. Personally I find the single question easier particularly if you plan well and stick to the question.

Good luck!

Lollipop95

Thanks guys Do you think the fact that I'm a strong paper 1 student would pull me through so that I could obtain a half decent markn even if my paper 2 wasn't that great? (well... the comparitive and unseen definitely weren't, but I will work very hard on the comparitive so that I feel prepared in time for June) I really enjoy writing essays as I feel generally I can voice strong views about a pariticular topic

d1234

Absolutely - the main function of paper one is to showcase how good you are. This section is where most students will do better in, naturally. Make sure you can cover a broad range of essays and also, make sure you can write a letter or report - our teacher is always telling us about the amount of students who can't answer these properly. For paper two, make sure you understand the texts/poems well and then build on that. Don't learn any sample answers as if something unusual or difficult comes up, you wont be able to answer it well whereas if you know your general material you will be fine.

nailforhammer

Do whatever question you know best first. You will be fastest at that and won't have to think about what to write as much saving you time and building your confidence. Do the single question comparative if you are stuck for time. Rather than having to write two openings and two conclusions you can save time. Plus you aren't expected to write as much because it's easier to write more when you are doing two questions.

Unseen poetry: read the questions first. Decide which one you want to do and then as you are reading the poem see what techniques, style, images suit that question. This helps you to answer the question faster.

thelad95

Lollipop95 wrote: »

Thanks guys Do you think the fact that I'm a strong paper 1 student would pull me through so that I could obtain a half decent markn even if my paper 2 wasn't that great? (well... the comparitive and unseen definitely weren't, but I will work very hard on the comparitive so that I feel prepared in time for June) I really enjoy writing essays as I feel generally I can voice strong views about a pariticular topic

Hmmm... similar to you, I also like to voice my opinions on a wide range of topics but I'm not sure a personal essay is best for this. You should try a few articles as well as talks/speeches.

Lollipop95

Another problem I have(well I'm not sure you would call it a problem as such) is I have my really big writing so what I think is loads to write, may not actually amount to that much pages in small hand writing So it's difficult for me to assess if I have an adequate amout written or not - for my mocks, I nearly filled out 3 exam booklets(7 pages in each) so I must have written close to 17 pages in total! But if you take into account my writing, it wouldn't be an enormous amount if done in average hand writing! I CAN write smaller, though I find it difficult as it's not my natural hand writing and I know that if I was to condense my writing in the exam it would massively slow me down(and with my time management skills at the moment I really can't afford to slow down on the day )

Lollipop95

thelad95 wrote: »

Hmmm... similar to you, I also like to voice my opinions on a wide range of topics but I'm not sure a personal essay is best for this. You should try a few articles as well as talks/speeches.

Yeah I do generally like speeches too

dee_mc

Lollipop95 wrote: »

Another problem I have(well I'm not sure you would call it a problem as such) is I have my really big writing so what I think is loads to write, may not actually amount to that much pages in small hand writing So it's difficult for me to assess if I have an adequate amout written or not - for my mocks, I nearly filled out 3 exam booklets(7 pages in each) so I must have written close to 17 pages in total! But if you take into account my writing, it wouldn't be an enormous amount if done in average hand writing!

If it bothers you, work out your average words per page and compare it to that of some friends who have average sized writing; having said that, I wrote a lot less than most (My Macbeth essay was less than 2 pages long, and I had average sized handwriting) and got an A1, so obviously it's about quality over quantity.
The obsession of 'I only wrote 2 pages and Imelda wrote 17' is just silly, because Imelda might have written 17 pages of utter guff.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting for a second that what you wrote was 'guff', and I picked the number 17 randomly, I promise!

thelad95

dee_mc wrote: »

If it bothers you, work out your average words per page and compare it to that of some friends who have average sized writing; having said that, I wrote a lot less than most (My Macbeth essay was less than 2 pages long, and I had average sized handwriting) and got an A1, so obviously it's about quality over quantity.
The obsession of 'I only wrote 2 pages and Imelda wrote 17' is just silly, because Imelda might have written 17 pages of utter guff.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting for a second that what you wrote was 'guff', and I picked the number 17 randomly, I promise!

Who is this fabled Imelda who wrote 17 pages? :P

But really this is extremely important. I wrote 2 good pages in the mocks on

Lady Macbeth

and got a B1 whereas one of my friends went into light and darkness imagery and the theme of kingship to make it longer and depsite writing 4 and a half pages he got a D1.

dee_mc

thelad95 wrote: »

Who is this fabled Imelda who wrote 17 pages? :P

But really this is extremely important. I wrote 2 good pages in the mocks on

Lady Macbeth

and got a B1 whereas one of my friends went into light and darkness imagery and the theme of kingship to make it longer and depsite writing 4 and a half pages he got a D1.

Sure you know Imelda, lives down by the church, funny walk.
Imeldas aside, it's so important to keep focused on the day, and this is so much easier to do if you're consciously stopping at the end of each paragraph and asking yourself 'Is this relevant?', 'Am I rambling?', and crucially 'Am I answering the question?'. I'd argue that this is easier to do when you write less. Ignore the people who glory in having the pen ripped from their hand 5 minutes after the exam has officially ended

Lollipop95

dee_mc wrote: »

If it bothers you, work out your average words per page and compare it to that of some friends who have average sized writing; having said that, I wrote a lot less than most (My Macbeth essay was less than 2 pages long, and I had average sized handwriting) and got an A1, so obviously it's about quality over quantity.
The obsession of 'I only wrote 2 pages and Imelda wrote 17' is just silly, because Imelda might have written 17 pages of utter guff.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting for a second that what you wrote was 'guff', and I picked the number 17 randomly, I promise!

Haha it's grand just counted the words per line for a few answers in my copy I have here in front of me and average is 6 words per line.. However in another answer I've got in 9(same size writing just depends on how many letters in word but generally I'm pretty much 6-7 ish) Not sure if that's way larger than average or not

aleatorio

Lollipop95 wrote: »

Haha it's grand just counted the words per line for a few answers in my copy I have here in front of me and average is 6 words per line.. However in another answer I've got in 9(same size writing just depends on how many letters in word but generally I'm pretty much 6-7 ish) Not sure if that's way larger than average or not

I fit 12/13 words per line and I have pretty average size writing imo :L So Id say for every 1 page recommended youd need 1.5? Idk

nailforhammer

aleatorio wrote: »

I fit 12/13 words per line and I have pretty average size writing imo :L So Id say for every 1 page recommended youd need 1.5? Idk

12 words per line is above average I would say. I'm pretty sure the average is around 9/10. I usually fit 8 per line. My writing isn't big I just never shed that primary school rule of a finger space between words.

spurious

dee_mc wrote: »

<snip>crucially 'Am I answering the question?'<snip>

This and then this again.

robman60

To be honest I completely disagree with the timing advice given here. The approach of giving equal time to each mark isn't really the best way to approach an exam in my opinion, especially if you want a high grade.

Take this example from my mocks:
For the A question in paper 1, I had to read the comprehension as the questions were based on it. For the B question there was no benefit to reading the comprehension. Which takes longer, three questions and reading a comprehension or a stand alone question that doesn't require reading of a passage prior to starting? The A question obviously takes far longer.

My timing might seem a bit drastic, but here's how it was:
A question - 1hr 5 mins
B question - 35 mins
Essay: 1hr 10 mins

I'll be very surprised if I get less than a B1. For paper 2 I was far more rigid with time, but this idea of reading the whole paper to begin with is absolutely terrible in my opinion. It will make you feel overwhelmed and anxious straight away. I think you're best to tackle one question at a time rather than focusing on the next piece you have to do.

dee_mc

robman60 wrote: »

To be honest I completely disagree with the timing advice given here. The approach of giving equal time to each mark isn't really the best way to approach an exam in my opinion, especially if you want a high grade.

Take this example from my mocks:
For the A question in paper 1, I had to read the comprehension as the questions were based on it. For the B question there was no benefit to reading the comprehension. Which takes longer, three questions and reading a comprehension or a stand alone question that doesn't require reading of a passage prior to starting? The A question obviously takes far longer.

My timing might seem a bit drastic, but here's how it was:
A question - 1hr 5 mins
B question - 35 mins
Essay: 1hr 10 mins

I'll be very surprised if I get less than a B1. For paper 2 I was far more rigid with time, but this idea of reading the whole paper to begin with is absolutely terrible in my opinion. It will make you feel overwhelmed and anxious straight away. I think you're best to tackle one question at a time rather than focusing on the next piece you have to do.

I think it's great for the OP to have differing advice, as everyone is different.
Just to give a bit of background on my system of reading all the questions at the beginning, in my view it allows the student to feel more calm and in control, and even to have an outline plan of their main essay in mind by the time they get to it. It's horses for courses of course, I'm not saying that my system will work for every student, but not allowing any time to read over (and possibly finish) your answers is very dangerous.
Edit: I also disagree that the A question typically takes longer than the B - any students I've worked with would say quite the opposite!

robman60

dee_mc wrote: »

I think it's great for the OP to have differing advice, as everyone is different.
Just to give a bit of background on my system of reading all the questions at the beginning, in my view it allows the student to feel more calm and in control, and even to have an outline plan of their main essay in mind by the time they get to it. It's horses for courses of course, I'm not saying that my system will work for every student, but not allowing any time to read over (and possibly finish) your answers is very dangerous.
Edit: I also disagree that the A question typically takes longer than the B - any students I've worked with would say quite the opposite!

I suppose there is an element of different systems suit different candidates. I typically write 1-1.5 pages for each of the three A parts and three pages for the B question. Would that not be fairly standard?

Part of the reason the A question takes me longer too is that I need to start from scratch three times effectively and can't generate much momentum in an answer as they're so short. Once I get started on the B question I can let my mind takeover to a degree so I write more quickly.

dee_mc

robman60 wrote: »

I suppose there is an element of different systems suit different candidates. I typically write 1-1.5 pages for each of the three A parts and three pages for the B question. Would that not be fairly standard?

Part of the reason the A question takes me longer too is that I need to start from scratch three times effectively and can't generate much momentum in an answer as they're so short. Once I get started on the B question I can let my mind takeover to a degree so I write more quickly.

Totally understand what you mean, I suppose from my point of view the B question requires more planning and is in effect an essay with more structural requirements. Just goes to show, there are so many different ways of approaching the paper! 1-1.5 pages per section of question A sounds like a lot more than average to me. My own A question answers would have been less than 1 page in length (average writing size), while my question B answer was definitely less than 2 pages, more like 1 and a quarter to be honest! To be fair that's slightly less than most of my A and B standard students would typically write for those sections. I think there is far too much emphasis on the number of pages covered in all exams but especially in English!

aleatorio

robman60 wrote: »

I suppose there is an element of different systems suit different candidates. I typically write 1-1.5 pages for each of the three A parts and three pages for the B question. Would that not be fairly standard?

Part of the reason the A question takes me longer too is that I need to start from scratch three times effectively and can't generate much momentum in an answer as they're so short. Once I get started on the B question I can let my mind takeover to a degree so I write more quickly.

I generally write about 1 page for A questions, and just shy of 2 pages for B questions

robman60

My writing size may be partially attributable to the number of pages I write. Once I get started and get into a flow I can end up writing quite a bit. Doesn't mean you can't answer better by being succinct.

nailforhammer

dee_mc wrote: »

I think it's great for the OP to have differing advice, as everyone is different.
Just to give a bit of background on my system of reading all the questions at the beginning, in my view it allows the student to feel more calm and in control, and even to have an outline plan of their main essay in mind by the time they get to it. It's horses for courses of course, I'm not saying that my system will work for every student, but not allowing any time to read over (and possibly finish) your answers is very dangerous.
Edit: I also disagree that the A question typically takes longer than the B - any students I've worked with would say quite the opposite!

Question A definitely takes longer than question B especially since last year the part A texts are getting much more verbose. I find for the part A I end up reading it a few times which takes a lot of time because I've forgotten the start by the time I finish it. Question B takes about 5-7 mins planning/picking which q, then 25 mins writing for me. So in total less than 35 mins and still write just over 2 pages.

thelad95

I completely and utterly disagree with this concept of reading the whole paper, no matter what exam it is. For me, when you receive the paper the adrenaline is coursing through your veins and if you look through the paper and see a few horrible questions you can panic and information you had in your head for easier parts can get muddled up and you can start making a mess of things.

The best thing I find is do the easiest parts first eg. SQ's at the start or a handy few 'a' parts in Maths or a comprehension in Irish etc. After this the nerves will have calmed, take a few deep breaths and look through the paper and select your questions.

For English paper 1, the first thing I do is read the A part questions and based on that I select which one I will answer. After I have the A part answered, I select and do the B part and then and only then will I look at the 100 mark essays.

For paper 2, I just go straight to the unseen poetry, then the studied poetry, then Macbeth and then the Comparative.

oncex

thelad95 wrote: »

For paper 2, I just go straight to the unseen poetry, then the studied poetry, then Macbeth and then the Comparative.

I'm not sure would i recommend doing the unseen poetry first if the OP is finding timing hard. If your left with 10 mins at the end for unseen so be it, 10/20 marks for unseen is much better than eg 30/50 for studied poetry.