OCR English Language - Unit 1

So Unit I has been and gone now.... so how doyou think you did?

I thought there was plenty to say in the first question - slightly less about how he was before the army than afterwards - but still a lot there. I thought this was quite an easy summary question.

Question 2 was much more difficult IMO. It was quite a long passage (and the tiny font didn't help for annotations) and i struggled really. I found quite a few things but stupidly didn't put some of the best in, like the chiasmus. I found this question tricky as it changed direction so many times. It was all exaggerated and everything but what else did you put?

When i saw question 3 i was so annoyed because it was such a stupid question. I think I did alright on this question. But what did you put for the "describe this teacher" bit? I did a short physcial description and then a sort of summary of his life story, etc.

Does anyone know whether it is 90% UMS marks or 90% raw marks to get an A*?

What did you think?

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Reply 1

bohemian_like_you

Hey,

I didn't find the English too bad actually. It was easier than I thought. But for the Section A Question 2 teacher bit, I didn't really know what to put about the layout and presentation!! You can't really talk about the layout of it because it was a speech.

Overall not too bad though.

Cat

Reply 2

cognito_08

hughey

Does anyone know whether it is 90% UMS marks or 90% raw marks to get an A*?

This was the grading in June 2007, OCR English Language, Unit 1 (Non Fiction, Media & Information) Higher (2431/2)

Raw
75/90 A*
69/90 A
62/90 B
55/90 C
46/90 D
41/90 E

UMS
81 A*
72 A
63 B
54 C
45 D
41 E

I found the second question the hardest, the extract was quite long and I agree that the small font did not help at all.

Reply 3

B747captain

English Exam:
Q1: Summary: It was alright - not many points in the text regarding his life before/after the army - most of it was whaffle
Q2: Media: This was quite hard - it was just too many - and not many different techniques ... although there were lots of persuasion
Q3: Inform/Explain/Describe: The question was badly worded - DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN teacher - surely they overlap ...
Overall - OK - not brilliant - not horrible...

Reply 4

cognito_08

B747captain

Q3: Inform/Explain/Describe: The question was badly worded - DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN teacher - surely they overlap ...

Yeah it was tricky to see if they wanted you to describe what he/she taught you and then explain how OR describe him/her and then explain what they taught you. :confused:

Reply 5

B747captain

cognito_08

Yeah it was tricky to see if they wanted you to describe what he/she taught you and then explain how OR describe him/her and then explain what they taught you. :confused:

AGREE - it was too confusing!

Reply 6

Mr Nonsense

i did describe - physical appearance (like 2 sentences), career and life story and then explain - how and what he taught us

i just made a teacher up which made it easier i think

for the question 2 it was such a strange extract that was my problem. He is humble at the beginning then really authoritarian, etc.
Question 2 was tricky but i think i did fine on the others

Reply 7

mikoe

I liked question 2 the best =\ not sure if that's good cos if everyone here found it hard then I probably did crap lol.

I didn't really like question 1 .. I just put

-before he was naive and innocent to the world but now he's looked up to and is wise (he teaches and writes books)

-before he was unmotivated but afrer he was motivated to get good grades to achieve his dream job

-before he wasn't controlled well in class but after he was motivated to do wlel cos there were consequences

I did all that but more waffly (took up 2.5 sides lol)

Did anyone else get those points?

Reply 8

feelsobohemianlikeyou

it was pretty good. :smile:

for question 3 i made up some stuff about my grandma and was like this taught me this and stuff :smile:

Reply 9

Mr Nonsense

2.5 sides is not good - it is meant to be about 350 words. but it sounds like you got all the points down so you'll be fine. q2 i hated!

Reply 10

Mr Nonsense

i know it said this "teacher" didn't have to be from school but i did a teacher (made-up) anyway. I wouldn't get marked down for this would i?

Reply 11

feelsobohemianlikeyou

you know for the first one, the summary, i got it in about 1 side. is that too short?
i think i covered all there was to be said?

Reply 12

B747captain

Did anyone actually use the word: Naive or did they change it ???

i said when he was fifteen, he lacked common knowledge and common sense which is why he joined the army freely, without thinking what the effects would be ....

Reply 13

flash123

i included 'naive'!
i think that you can grab some words from the given passage (as few a possible), just as along you don't copy the whole thing

Reply 14

flash123

feelsobohemianlikeyou

you know for the first one, the summary, i got it in about 1 side. is that too short?
i think i covered all there was to be said?

thats not short at all. it was a summary after all :smile:

Reply 15

samsam123

B747captain

i used it once... because i repeated this point a few times and i was running out of other words for it!
i thought q. 1 was quite tricky
q. 2 i found the easiest. there was lots to write about and
q. 3 after reading what all u did i think i did it wrong :-) i wrote about my teacher but it wasnt very informative. Thinking back its like shes amazing but ridiculously exagerated.

i was expecting something harder though!

Reply 16

ManuelB

omg it was ok the andy McNab text and the speech was ok as well but the last question was abit vague.i started writing about my maths teacher then suddenly ma maths teacher(male) came in as an invigilater he walked down the ilse and saw that i was writting about him and now he things i fancy him(i am male) so it all got abit awkward. To be honest i cant tell how well i have done with this exam. it is really hard in english

Reply 17

flash123

ManuelB

haha same here, instead i was writing about a male teacher, and im female, even more awkward. i agree, its hard to know how you've done in english.

why is it that OCR english/eng lit grade boundaries seem really high? e.g. 80% for an A? (correct me if im wrong) or maybe im so used to low grade boundaries thanks to AQA science hehe.

Reply 18

feelsobohemianlikeyou

flash123

thats not short at all. it was a summary after all :smile:

YAY

Reply 19

mikoe

flash123

That's right. In my mock I got an A and A (lang and lit) yet most of my class (in a grammar school) get B's. It is hard to get good grades esp. with OCR