Intermediate 2 English 2010 Thread!

I'm an S4 doing Int 2 English, and I'm worried, very worried to be honest.

We've only got 2 texts we can do too, so I'm stuck with them unfortunately.

I have :

Drama - Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Prose - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Why are you not doing SG?

Anyway, I'm doing int2 English and it should be one of my easier exams because I'm doing highers as well.

Got an A in the prelim so should be straight forward enough.

Why are you not doing SG?

Anyway, I'm doing int2 English and it should be one of my easier exams because I'm doing highers as well.

Got an A in the prelim so should be straight forward enough.

I'm an S4 doing Int 2 English, and I'm worried, very worried to be honest.

We've only got 2 texts we can do too, so I'm stuck with them unfortunately.

I have :

Drama - Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Prose - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I'm an S4 doing Int 2 English, and I'm worried, very worried to be honest.

We've only got 2 texts we can do too, so I'm stuck with them unfortunately.

I have :

Drama - Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Prose - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

ONLY TWO TEXTS???????

Seriously, wtf is your school doing. If you can't answer either of those, thats your entire exam pretty much screwed? You need at an absolute minimum, 3 texts.

ONLY TWO TEXTS???????

Seriously, wtf is your school doing. If you can't answer either of those, thats your entire exam pretty much screwed? You need at an absolute minimum, 3 texts.

Nah you don't. I did two texts for Int 2 and found myself spoiled for choice questionwise. Planning on doing the same for Higher, and judging by past papers there's nothing to worry about.

Poetry is risky unless you have quite a few. But honestly, the SQA specifically write the prose and drama questions so that they cover everything. The only way you'll be screwed is if you don't know your text well enough. If you are thouroughly versed in your prose and drama you will be absoloutely fine.

Wow, thats horendously risky. It is never set in stone that all questions cover everything. EVER

In my past paper books there's only two questions in all six years of papers that I couldn't answer with my texts. I don't think there were any I couldn't answer in my Int 2 ones. You're being paranoid.

I'm just saying, have you seen an official SQA document stating that your own texts will always appear? I'm not trying to be nasty, I'm just trying to be supportive.

Sorry if I'm being a bit snappish

I haven't seen an SQA document, no, but my teacher said it would be a waste of time revising poetry seeing as 'there will definitely be Gatsby and Othello questions.' And considering there has never been a year with less than two questions that could work it seems a bit of a freak year for there to suddenly be none.

See there's just a group of questions that apply to everything, like turning point, theme, character, stuff that you get in every half decent text. And at least one (usually two or three) of these comes up every year, so if you know your text well you're fine.

I totally get what your saying. But " it seems a bit of a freak year for there to suddenly be none". That isn't totally true, even if you got one, there is no guarantee there would be a question on the other. I do realise it is unlikely, I was just saying to be ready for the worst if, god forbid, it did happen.

And no, your not being snappish I think its just the exam nerves starting to crawl in to everyone. I've been unfairly craby to a lot of folk recently Stupid exams...

In my past paper books there's only two questions in all six years of papers that I couldn't answer with my texts. I don't think there were any I couldn't answer in my Int 2 ones. You're being paranoid.

Hi,
What grade did you get in INT2?

Considering you did INT2, how did you structure your essay? Have you got an int2 essay of yours which you could show me so I could get the idea, please. That would be much appereciated. I feel that my structure is ok but what you advise on get the best grade possible in INT2.

Thanks

ProudScottish

Got an A band 1

Basically first I made up intros/summaries which could be adapted for any essay. I found these in my revision notebook, I memorised them and they're pretty much the exact ones I used in the exam:




And basically if you spend a bit of time getting good introductions you can be confident the examiner is starting with a good impression Also, if you need to, you can tack on an extra sentence directly adressing the question.

Afraid I don't have any whole essays ( I thought I did - but I can't find them - I'll keep looking ) but I have a load of notes on Macbeth/Lord of the Flies/Revelation/Hotel Room 12th Floor if you're doing any of them (unless you wanna see them anyway? I dunno )

Generally I did (still do, actually) intro, 4-5 pee chains, and conclusion. In my personal experience quality is better over quantity, and I really couldn't write more than five without sacraficing stuff. My teacher did say that you could do up to seven or eight - although I think that's daft - but she was a great teacher, so I guess if that floats your boat it can't be awful advice.

When I was revising I did a lot of essay plans ranging from almost full essays to just quotes under a heading. I found just writing about it a lot helps. Think of every question you could possibly write about and then write about it. A lot of this you won't use, admittedly, but it means that you'll have a really, really thourough knowledge of the text. Pick out some of the points and sentences you made that sound really good and try to learn them specifically. If you do this then you won't be stuck for words at all and will be struggling to fit everything you want to say into the time, cause points will be flooding out your brain

Personally I would advise against poetry unless you're really good at it. Both my teachers said novels and plays are just generally more respected and you need to get a lot more from a poem to get a good grade. I'm not saying do drama or prose if you don't like them, plenty of people I know got As with poetry, but if you're on the fence I would lean towards them

Ehh, try to make your conclusion dramatic and thought-provoking. I can't really talk about them because they aren't much of strength of mine, and they tend to be more question-orientated than your intro, which means they're a lot harder to memorise. Make some deep point or something. Comment on the novel, characters and/or theme as a whole, don't just talk about the question. Same for your arguments throughout your essay. Don't just address the question, although obviously that's the priority, but give some insights and ideas into the theme and meaning of the story, that'll impress the examiner

Ehh, I don't know what else to say. But if you have any more questions about the above stuff, or anything else, I'd be happy to give them a go. Remember I'm not a teacher though, so I don't know how much of what I did actually helped get my grade and how much was bs