How to study for English Paper 1?

jc2008 · 03-02-2008 9:35pm #1

Hi everybody

Have my English Paper 1 Higher Level mock in a few days. I'm just wondering how would one prepare for it? This is the layout

Section 1 (30 mins) - Reading comprehension
Section 2 (60 mins) - Essay (Personal Writing)
Section 3 (30 mins) - Functional writing
Section 4 (30 mins) - Media Studies

As far as I can tell, there is nothing that you can prepare for there, only to be good at English in general. Am I right?

Does anybody have any tips?
Thank you!

Best of luck to everyone in the exams!

PurpleFistMixer · 03-02-2008 9:40pm

There's not much you can do to prepare, really. For functional writing make sure you know the layout of letters, how to write an article for a newspaper or a magazine, that sort of thing.

As with any exam, it's important to remember to answer only the question you're asked. (I'm doing my mocks for the leaving cert currently, one of the essay questions was to write about what success means to you, one girl misread it and wrote her whole essay on a story of her becoming successful. It's a mistake that's easily avoided if you just read carefully.)

jc2008 · 03-02-2008 10:24pm

Thank you!

I forgot about letters and that. But that should be OK. I also a few notes on how to write a review and diary extract which would be worthwhile to look at

But sometimes the Functional writing is very easy. Last year it was write a list of instructions for a Science Lab! Hardly would take 30 mins!

Thanks for the help! Good luck in your mocks!

highlydebased · 04-02-2008 9:13pm

Yea I remember bein in the exam and seein the functional writing....piece of pi** lol. Scuse the french!

For personal writing its important to be creative and personal about it- use your lifetime experiences. DO NOT go learning off essays. Grand, know some mind blowing vocab. Thats what the examiner wants to see.

I did the How best to spend a Saturday Q on my JC. Basically it was about a Saturday out with my friends, so it was personal. Got me an A also...

jc2008 · 05-02-2008 6:54pm

I did it, it wasn't bad, I'm sure I will get an A or a high B

Reading comprehension was easy enough, for the personal writing I did A Topic Out of my Control (I did about my chemistry teacher shrinking - that was one of the past papers so it was the first thing in my head). I wrote 3 A4 pages (I think that's what's expected anyway). Functional writing was a review, I did Shawshank Redemption. Media Studies was easy enough as per usual

Not looking forward to English Paper 2. Anyone have it yet? What themes came up for poetry and the novel?

Jay P · 05-02-2008 7:30pm

Just have some lovely rich vocab. And paper two has always been the same.

Novel: Conflict or something similar

Drama: Conflict, Love

Poetry: Heanys stuff can be worked into anything.

Simplicity, just wait til Leavin Cert English

echter · 07-02-2008 6:52pm

I done the two papers today, the drama in the 1st paper threw me off and i was ****ed for the rest of it. the second paper went well though.

jc2008 · 07-02-2008 10:07pm

There's no drama on the first paper!

I presume you mean the second paper!

Jay P · 08-02-2008 5:19pm

jc2008 wrote: »

There's no drama on the first paper!

I presume you mean the second paper!

Shoot! I do believe you are right. Sorry.

lolipops · 08-02-2008 11:51pm

i just did my mock junior cert exams last week and you know they are not worth worrying over at all, english went well.. paper 1 is easier than paper two in my opinion. well there is not much you can study for enlish paper 1 (honours) im not sure if it is a common test because i heard that some school gets private companies to write their tests but that could possibly be a myth. in the personal writing section i found it difficult to come up with an idea so the first thing that popped into my head i wrote down. the option i picked was something about 'not being able to tell anyone' so mabey go through a few rough ideas in your head and mabey have an idea of what you will write because you can change any story to fit what you had previously prepared. oh and if it does turn out that everyone has the same exam just ask and i will tell you what to study for each subject :rolleyes:
and manage your time wisely! i just about finished both my english papers as they were being handed up where as in french the exam is really short and i was sitting there for about 40 minutes doing nothing!

lolipops · 08-02-2008 11:56pm

oh and if you get the same paper as i did, the question in funtional writing is optional one is to write an artical about surviving junior cert and giving tips etc. and the other one was to write about global warming in poster form or something about the environment.. i kinda blanked out during the test lol but i went with the survival tips question.:)

melindaaa · 05-02-2014 8:17pm

i am in honours and i havent done articles or debates/speeches yet .. what do i do? i have paper 1 tomorrow...

dee_mc · 05-02-2014 8:58pm

melindaaa wrote: »

i am in honours and i havent done articles or debates/speeches yet .. what do i do? i have paper 1 tomorrow...

Here are some useful resources
http://www.revisewise.ie/english/jc/pdfs/functional-writing.pdf

http://leavingcertenglish.net/2011/05/reviews/

whynothey · 06-02-2014 10:09pm

Same as you'd study for other subjects - exam papers!!! Do them again and again

rebCIA007 · 13-02-2014 9:14pm

Hello!
Paper 1:
-Reading: Practice a lot, you can't really prepare for this part other than practicing untill you get the timing right which is oftenly the case of loosing marks.
-Personal: know your strengths, it's good to learn off few quotes eg if writing an essay on fashion it's good to have a quote to start off with. If you're good at descriptive writing then obviously find some rarer adjectives. For debates learn off the introduction. For short story most people advise to learn one off by heart but only if you can adapt it. For personal essays be reflective, memories are powerfull so use ones if you can.
-Functional: Know your structures, look over past papers to get an idea what might be asked (if they ask for a review its good to have one prepared in advance)
-Media: know your TERMS and use them. Even if it seems really obvious, that's what you get marks for.

It's different for everyone but my advice would also be to:

Know what you're gonna do in advance in order to spare time and not freak out (eg I always go in thinking what sections will I do first:
-media
-reading
-personal
-functional
It might seem weird for some people, but I find it easier this way, I like to start off with media because the questions are always pretty the same. Once you're sitting one of these exams you might be stressed so start off with something you know well.

In reading always read the questions first and underline the key words, so that once you're reading the text you know what to look out for.

I'd never leave personal writing till the end because it's worth the most points and you don't want to run out of time.

Another thing my teacher used to say is go for the boring structured answers because at least you can fully prepare for them and you know where and what for you'll get the points in your answer where as in ones like write a diry entry or write what do you think happens next or dilogue (well if you're good at it you're grand but if not then think again). But that depends on your opinion, another teacher told me that it's worth giving a shot because the person correcting the exams will be sick of seeing the same boring structured answers all the time and you might nicely suprise them if you do one of those RIGHT. You know your strengths and weaknesses so it is for you to decide.

I hope that helps, and good luck!

3yearstudent98 · 18-02-2014 10:30pm

Hi there'! I did my jc last year and got an A in English hl and honestly all I did to prepare for paper 1 was read the revise wise which I found very helpful! Also for paper 2 the best advice I can give you is QUOTES QUOTES QUOTES! Good luck!

How to study for English Paper 1?

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