Best way to study HL LC English

jbloggs1245

5th year over and done with next week and have been consistently poor in tests and on poetry essays handed up. Tests on poetry, Macbeth and comparative all in 50's

I guess im not really a creative or descriptive writer. But for someone like me what is the best way for me to study to get myself to near a H3 (70%) Learn H1 sample essays off? Constantly read key notes? Would Studyclix or grinds be a help?

Thanks

hasdanta

I got a 78% (H3) for my leaving cert last year. For poetry, my teacher chose six poems from 5 of the 8 poets. I jotted down notes as she read through the poems in class and explained them as she read through them. As the LC got closer I went through each of the poems and highlighted the important quotes in the poem. I would then write the quote out and write bullet points about the quote explaining what it meant, poetic techniques used in this quote, what it symbolises etc. It’s also really important to have a general summary of the poems in mind too. I got 42/50 in the poetry section, if memory serves me correctly from reviewing the scripts, so these methods worked fairly well for me.

For the essays, it’s all about practice. I typically practised the personal essays or the argumentative / debating ones. For the personal essays it’s really important to have good anecdotes (i.e. little stories) and relate them back to the question, how these anecdotes changed you, changed your perspective etc. For the argumentative / debating essays just make sure you don’t come off as extremely biased, you can still chose a side in essay but try and include stuff about how the other side makes valid points but.., or how you can see it from their perspective but... etc. I typically stayed away from the short stories because I find them difficult to write to a good standard under the time constraints of the exam. My English teacher also mentions how she’d advise most people to stay away from them unless they are a very creative person when it comes to writing.

For the comparative, I did the vision and viewpoint question. I think it’s really important to know key moments from the beginning, middle and end sections of the books. For vision and viewpoint, talk about how these key moments impact on the overall vision and viewpoint of the book and how did vision and viewpoints of the books compare to each other. It is the comparative, so it is really important to COMPARE! People tend to forget that and tend to just spout a summary of the books rather than comparing them one another and how they are similar or vary. Similarly with them, know the key moments that relate to your theme and compare them with the same theme in the other books.

I did pretty good in those sections. Single text was by far my worst sections so take my advice with a grain of salt as I didn’t try in this section as much as the others. What I basically did for this section was learn summaries for each of the scenes in the play (we did Hamlet). So basically, know your book / play REALLY well and learn the important quotes. I think people often dwell too much in quotes in this section.

Best of luck!

jbloggs1245

Thanks you! Really appreciate the advice

lildaisy

In my opinion i only started getting good at english when i became more opinionated. Dont always go off what your teachers opinions are for comparative or poetry. why do YOU think something. what triggered that thought? why does it relate to the text or question?

This made me get into the habit of understanding whats infront of me instead of trying to remember what my teacher personally believed. Remember , unless its a stretch, anything is possible.

spurious

Make sure you answer the question you are asked. It may seem obvious, but every year many people don't.

randylonghorn

This ... ^^^^^^^^^^^