Today I had my English Certificate paper 2 and realised afterwards that I f****d up and didn't read the full question.
It was question 3 and it asked to explain how women were presented in La Belle Dame sans Merci and Poem 39 but I only wrote in depth about poem at thirty-nine. I want to ask if I should tell anyone or what the maximum grade I could get? I mean the papers out of 40 and worth 40% of my grade, so the question itself is worth 20%.
I did some research and also saw on the examiner report these few things that might be relevant:
- There were a large number of responses which dealt with only one poem, though this did not seem to be because of time constraints, since the candidates could write at length about the one poem. Perhaps they genuinely misunderstood the requirements of the question, rather than choosing to omit one poem. It is a pity when this happens because at times they wrote quite well on their single poem, but if there is a rubric infringement, the mark has to be reduced accordingly. Candidates need to be made more aware and reminded of the need to cover two poems in their Section B answers.
- Too many at the lower levels did not understand the poem at all and one said so! One candidate thought the tiger was being tortured and wrote a long piece....heart breaking. Only very few did not write on two poems, though there were a few rubric infringements.
Also, is what I did a rubric infringement?