English exams - If you don't really answer the question

Ok, so maybe I'm just paranoid. I thought my english lit A2 yesterday went pretty well. then i came out of the exam and started thinking about what id actually written and im wondering if i actually answered the question properly!

for example i did the hamlet prisoner essay. the question was something like:

'All the characters are prisoners.' In what ways and to what extent is this statement helpful in exploring the characters?

I wrote a lot about how the characters were prisoners but absolutely nothing about how and to what extent this was a helpful statement.

Did i even answer the question? Aaah. I'm having panic attacks because I need an A on this module to get into university and now I might get zero! I've heard horror stories about how you can only get a maximum of half marks on essays if you don't properly answer the question.

help!

Reply 1

RaggedProse

I did that question... I think it was like "how helpful is this in your reading of the play". I did the same thing as you, didn't really pay attention to the second part. I've always found that responding to the quotation is the most important thing, the second bit always appears to me to be a generic statement to prompt discussion.
I hope i'm right for both our sakes!

Reply 2

Lidka

I'm not sure anyone on here can really answer your question - if you DESPERATELY want to discuss your chances then I would find your teacher. But realistically, a lot of people panic when they come out of exams and often their fears are unfounded; it's a natural reaction to a stressful situation. Assuming you have other exams, concentrate on them, and try to do your best - there's not a lot you can do now. I hope for your sake you did well. I feel a bit the same about my exam yesterday, if that's any help!

Reply 3

romeosbitch

sometimes, the extent to how it helps comes out in your answer anyway and you only really need to draw attention to by writing a sentence like "and in this sense it is useful in understanding the text" and without that sentence its not the end of the world.

You will have got some marks for writing about the prisoners because you were at least on the right track of the question.

try not to worry!

Reply 4

Royality

I know how you feel OP. Did my English Lit poetry and prose paper yesterday on The Rover and made a similar error.

The question was something like 'The character Willmore is rude, aggressive and violent and the villain of the tale. How far and in what ways is this true?'. The first two pages were fine, I cited reasons why he could be construed as villainous etc, however instead of showing reasons why he wasn't a villain I instead wrote two pages on who I thought the real villain was. Granted the two pages (to me) were probably the best bits of writing I did in the entire exam but I'm just not sure that I did the right thing... I really hope the examiner sees how it relates to the question but this is the kind of thing that comes up in the examiners report; 'Candidates often strayed off the topic of Wilmore detracting from their essay as a whole'.

That was a convoluted way of saying I feel the same by the way. :biggrin:

Reply 5

penny_lane89

For english, i find that as long as you cover the assessment objectives like discuss language, drama stuff, blah blah blah then thats more important than answering the question. last year my teacher gave us some photocopied exam essays from people from the previous year, and some were absolute **** in my opinion-really basic and hardly answered the question, yet got good marks purely for fulfilling the objectives. :s-smilie:

and theres me, using such fancy words to impress examiners, probably to no avail lol.

Also it will ulitimately depend on the examiners you get marking the paper

Reply 6

kellywood_5

It sounds to me like you pretty much answered the question- 'how and to what extent' type words can often just be addressed by the conclusion and it's not the end of the world if you don't have that. English exams are so unpredictable anyway- last year, I got an A in the A2 exam where I thought I hadn't even understood the questions and had just waffled and a C in the one I thought went pretty well :s:

Reply 7

yellow96

Can't be bothered in reading the replies so sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I think the question was simply worded like that so that you wouldn't just sit there staring at the quote they gave you going "...and?". In your evaluation you're bound to have assessed how it relates to the characters because there's very little else you could talk about, seeing as "characters" were mentioned in the quote. The "in what ways and to what extent..." part relates to you analysing the text and then evaluating what you've said. So say you answered the question by focusing on a scene where Hamlet appears to be a prisoner, you'd have looked at the literary and maybe linguistic reasons for this and (hopefully) explained that it is important to consider these things when thinking of the characters as prisoners. What I'm getting at is that they word the question in that way to clarify that they want you to explain and evaluate the quote, because this is a key part of the A2 exams. Don't worry!

EDIT: Repeating myself?! Repeating what other people have said is more like it.