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English A1 Paper 2

I've not seen anybody talk about this yet.
How did everyone find it? I was bricking it beforehand, but once I got there it was okay.

I was SL and did question 1: "in what ways and for what purposes do playwrights indicate time and place?". About 50% of my essay was focussed on one text (A Streetcar Named Desire), about 25% on Sophocles' Oedipus and Shaffer's Equus each - I hope being focussed on one text won't penalise me too much! I also focussed more on "for what purposes?" rather than "in what ways". In hindsight, I should have probably talked about the latter more so, as my identification of literary features was a bit forced. Other than that, I think I did well! The quotations magically flooded back to me from parts of the texts I hadn't read for months and months. Thankyou, exam adrenaline.
Reply 1
Im HL, and got the question something like:

"Often plays excite emotions or make us think, or both." In the light of this statement compare at least 2 works u have studied

the first time i read it thought i was screwed...but it turned out quite well...
I used Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams...have to say P2 was much better than P1...
Reply 2
hey,

i just gave my HL paper 2 and i attempted the wrong question which isnt in my curriculum........so will i get some marks or they will fail me by giving a zero.....HELP ME !!!!!!
Reply 3
Original post by ima121
hey,

i just gave my HL paper 2 and i attempted the wrong question which isnt in my curriculum........so will i get some marks or they will fail me by giving a zero.....HELP ME !!!!!!


Not that I want to step on your hopes and dreams but my teacher specified about 50 times before the exam for us NOT to choose the questions other than the ones specified by the schools choice. So for example we studied Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire and Miss Julie- all three of which are dramas. So on the exam we were ONLY allowed to choose questions from the drama section or the general literature section. The rest were essentially off limits. She did give us a fright, saying how students in the past who have chosen the wrong questions have gotten a 0 on that paper for not following the instructions ): Maybe you could ask your teacher to email the IB? I'm so sorry.
Reply 4
Original post by cherryk
Im HL, and got the question something like:

"Often plays excite emotions or make us think, or both." In the light of this statement compare at least 2 works u have studied

the first time i read it thought i was screwed...but it turned out quite well...
I used Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams...have to say P2 was much better than P1...


I also did this question! I did the plays Death of a Salesman, Miss Julie and Waiting for Godot. Decided after an hour it was very dumb of me to talk about three books as I didn't have enough time to really. But oh well. I didn't find it that great, I thought p1 was better!
Reply 5
I did question 10 on the HL paper, something about moral issues in works we have studied... I used Death of a Salesman, Master Harold and the Boys (which was perfect for the question) and Waiting for Godot... We also studied Oedipus in class but wasn't sure how to use it in the question so stuck with just the three plays! :smile:
Reply 6
I thought mine went quite okay too, a lot better than Paper 1 at any rate. I'm in TZ 2, and I did the general question: "Liberty and security are potentially contradictory aims." Discuss how and to what effect this idea has been presented by at least 2 writers that you have studied.'

I took Streetcar and Miss Julie, thought the whole relationship between freedom and danger worked out pretty well with those two in the context of class and gender. Overall, not a bad paper at all. Much better than I'd been expecting, especially as Paper 1 had always been my strength and Paper 2 my weakness. This time it was the other way round.
Reply 7
Original post by cherryk
Im HL, and got the question something like:

"Often plays excite emotions or make us think, or both." In the light of this statement compare at least 2 works u have studied

the first time i read it thought i was screwed...but it turned out quite well...
I used Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams...have to say P2 was much better than P1...


I did the same question and I used Waiting For Godot and Death of a Salesman. Completely agree that paper 2 was much better than paper 1!! :biggrin:
Did anyone else do poetry?

I'm quite glad I didn't have to do Drama/Prose - you guys must have had to memorise so much! I literally memorised all my poems about 15 minutes before the exam.

Glad it went well for people though! (Or am I...? Low grade boundaries...? :biggrin: )
Reply 9
Original post by beautiful-lion
Did anyone else do poetry?

I'm quite glad I didn't have to do Drama/Prose - you guys must have had to memorise so much! I literally memorised all my poems about 15 minutes before the exam.

Glad it went well for people though! (Or am I...? Low grade boundaries...? :biggrin: )


I also did poetry. I chose the question about diction and precision and stuff, and used poems from Yeats, Auden and Eliot. I started Eliot about 30 minutes before the end of the exam so it was a little bit rushed towards the end but other than that I think I did pretty well :smile:
Original post by SDK94


I also did poetry. I chose the question about diction and precision and stuff, and used poems from Yeats, Auden and Eliot. I started Eliot about 30 minutes before the end of the exam so it was a little bit rushed towards the end but other than that I think I did pretty well :smile:


I actually chose one from the general section - the one about setting to emphasise important ideas. Did Baudelaire, Frost and Hughes :smile:

How many poems did you look at?
I'm SL and chose the general literature question on obsession and addiction. We studied poetry (Chaucer, Rossetti and Dante) so this question fitted really nicely :biggrin:
I'm SL and I also did the one about addiction and obsession. Did it for The Wasps and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe.:smile:
Reply 13
Hey, how important are quotes for paper 2? Are they very important or can lower your grade a lot if you don't use them or use very few?
Original post by Ahotaru
Hey, how important are quotes for paper 2? Are they very important or can lower your grade a lot if you don't use them or use very few?


i think they are very important as the criteria C for paper 2 is appreciation of literary features, and u have to include quotes, talk about the literary feature used, and then the effects in very accurate detail to get a 5/5 on that criteria.
Reply 15
Original post by aeyurttaser13
i think they are very important as the criteria C for paper 2 is appreciation of literary features, and u have to include quotes, talk about the literary feature used, and then the effects in very accurate detail to get a 5/5 on that criteria.


Uuuh, I see... And can you still "do well enough" or pass the paper if you use none? Just curious xD
Original post by Ahotaru
Uuuh, I see... And can you still "do well enough" or pass the paper if you use none? Just curious xD


yea ofc, i didn't use them in my mocks and got a 5.. that's when i realized i need them if i want a 6 in paper 2 :tongue:
Reply 17
Original post by aeyurttaser13
yea ofc, i didn't use them in my mocks and got a 5.. that's when i realized i need them if i want a 6 in paper 2 :tongue:


Omg you just made my day! :smile: but you got a 5 in total or just paper 2? I think I did very well on paper 1 so I hope, hope! That at least I'll pass paper 2 without quotes!
Original post by Ahotaru
Omg you just made my day! :smile: but you got a 5 in total or just paper 2? I think I did very well on paper 1 so I hope, hope! That at least I'll pass paper 2 without quotes!


i got a 5 in paper 2 only, and a 5 overall, but i lost my 6 due to that :tongue:

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