Higher English Exam 2011 Coming Up!!

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Many people in my school thought the close reading was easy. I don't know. I didn't find it very diffuclt, but not too easy as well. The amount of questions on language was quite scary, tbh. I hope I managed, but I get that feeling that I won't get more than 33 marks that I got in the prelim. I hope I will get that, at least.
And, the good thing is, I finished the whole paper this time, haha.

The critical essay questions were okay. I did question 3 in drama for Streetcar and I think this is my worse essay. I wrote nie pages, but I don't know, I just don't feel like it was any good. But who knows.
My second essay was poetry, question 16 and that was a perfect question for Education for Leisure. I'm so glad this question came up.

I'm still hoping for an A : ) hopefully, I managed that today.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 341

LHC

I thought the close reading was fair, not too easy but not too difficult. However, the essay paper was a different story. Not a single question properly fitted my play, novel or poem so i had to twist two questions! I was able to twist the first question relatively well and used temptation for romeo and juliet but my second essay on brighton rock was horrendous! I only wrote three and a half pages for it and had three sufficient points! So my hopes for an A are gone! I just hope i get a B because if i don't then my dream of becoming a doctor will cease to exist :/

Reply 342

escapingthefate

I didn't find the close reading too bad, I've done way worse ones than that. And obviously Boris Johnson's passage was the one to say was the favourite ;D The drama questions were absolutley awful. I picked question two and used manipulation in relation to how Judge Danforth and Judge Danforth use verbal trickery to manipulate the citizens of Salem. I think I've stretched the question a great deal, but at least I managed to write something and I managed to finish both my essays. For my next essay I did number 16 on a sinister tone and used Hotel Room, 12th Floor :smile:

Reply 343

JordanR

That was absolutely glorious.

As soon as I opened the paper and saw that the paper was about gaming, I smiled, and I think so did every other boy in Scotland. :biggrin:

All the guys I've spoken to said the close reading was great.

The questions were great for me. I did manipulation for Othello and a character with a flaw for The Kite Runner.

Reply 344

S7U4R7

Original post by LHC

What do you mean twist for Romeo and Juliet? I did the temptation one too and didnt think it really needed twisting?

Reply 345

LonelySoul193

Original post by JordanR

As soon as I opened the paper and saw that the paper was about gaming, I smiled, and I think so did every other boy in Scotland. :biggrin:

*cough* I found the paper pretty easy and am also a gamer. I'm female. You sound like Boris Johnson when he referred to gamers as 'male' the whole time *cough*

Reply 346

JordanR

Original post by LonelySoul193

*cough* I found the paper pretty easy and am also a gamer. I'm female. You sound like Boris Johnson when he referred to gamers as 'male' the whole time *cough*

A generalisation, yes, but one that's fairly accurate. The majority of gamers are male. At least the ones I know.

Good that you found the paper easy though, and I didn't mean any offence. :smile:

Reply 347

LonelySoul193

Original post by _Stephieee

The drama questions were absolutely awful, easily the worst essay I have ever written on The Crucible so I'm really disappointed.

Oh god same! I ended up going for the 1st question about insecure social status. I used Reverend Parris. Ugh, it was so bad :frown:

I really want an A as well!

Reply 348

LonelySoul193

Original post by JordanR

A generalisation, yes, but one that's fairly accurate. The majority of gamers are male. At least the ones I know.

Good that you found the paper easy though, and I didn't mean any offence. :smile:

Ah but the male:female split of gamers is now around 60:40 so it's not all that accurate at all. :wink:

Yeah I'm just being difficult, I get all defensive at gender-related issues :smile:

Reply 349

JordanR

Original post by LonelySoul193

Ah but the male:female split of gamers is now around 60:40 so it's not all that accurate at all. :wink:

Yeah I'm just being difficult, I get all defensive at gender-related issues :smile:

As high as that? Hmm... I have ~110 people on Steam, and only around 5-6 of them are female. Maybe girls just aren't attracted to the kinds of games I play. Do you mind linking me to your source for that? :smile:

I keep reading this over, and I can't get it to stop sounding quite abrasive - rest assured that I'm not trying to attack you or whatever, and I'm not at all sexist. :tongue:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 350

pssp

Riiight, so how did everyone find it?

For poetry I did 'During Wind and Rain' by Thomas Hardy - it was perfect for the one of time/nature.
For drama, I did the one about tension for 'The Glass Menagerie' - not sure if I did it right though :\

Reply 351

LHC

Original post by S7U4R7

What do you mean twist for Romeo and Juliet? I did the temptation one too and didnt think it really needed twisting?

Well i wouldn't say temptation was the best thing to say about act three scene one so i guess i kind of twisted it to make it suit but it's mainly my brighton rock one that i twisted. I'm glad you've done temptation too! Many of my classmates didn't use Romeo and Juliet at all! What did you write about in your temptation essay? I wrote about how Tybalt tempts Romeo for a fight and then tempts Romeo to kill him when he kills Mercutio and then went on to discuss how killing Tybalt affected the rest of the play... I really need to get a good mark in that essay to balance out the awfullness of my other essay :/

It worked!

Original post by JordanR

I keep reading this over, and I can't get it to stop sounding quite abrasive - rest assured that I'm not trying to attack you or whatever, and I'm not at all sexist. :tongue:

This link seems to contain the actual document released also - http://www.womeningamesjobs.com/?p=268

Though it should probably be noted that I'm pretty sure these are US statistics, though that isn't to say that the statistics in the UK would be dissimilar.

Yeah I think I have 2 females on my Xbox 360 Friends List out of about 15 so that isn't really representative of the statistics. But perhaps we're just missing the high clusters of girl gamers :dontknow:

Haha it's okay :smile:

Reply 354

JordanR

Original post by LonelySoul193

Haha it's okay :smile:

Thanks.

That's quite interesting, actually. I would never have guessed that the percentages are that close.

I wonder if girls will ever overtake guys... probably not. But yeah, thanks for this, though it should be noted that the article says " women aged 18 or older represent a bigger portion of the game-playing population at 33%", and I'm pretty sure that most people doing Higher English are <18. :tongue:

Oh well. Have fun gaming. (I didn't mean that to sound patronising, what the hell's wrong with me today?)

Reply 355

S7U4R7

Original post by LHC

Thats pretty much what i did, I started by showing how shakespeare built up romeo to seem to be only caring about love (quotes for rosaline and juliet) and how he is not interested in the feud. Then i showed how act 3 scene 1 changed what we thought of romeo since when he was faced with the decision whether to get revenge or not, he caved into temptation by killing tybalt, showing how he went down in our estimations, then i said how this effects the play etc etc.

I think it went not bad but i often feel i dont address the question enough since when doing a turning point type of question, you have to show the before first, which i often feels irrelavant

How did you answer it/ point made?

And i agree, there could have been a better question but it was either that one or the one about a dramatic opening. And not really that much to write about for dramatic opening.

Reply 356

LHC

Original post by S7U4R7

I started by explaining what happened in act three scene one and addressed the question. I then started to talk about how by caving in to the temptation, Romeo affects Juliet's situation which in turn affects his own. So i talk about Juliet's grief, conflict between Juliet and her parents and nurse, the extreme measures taken by Juliet to be with Romeo and then the death of the two lovers. I don't really know if this is a good road to have taken...

Your essay sounds quite good! I wish I had thought about that! But i find that it's so hard to thoroughly piece together your essay when under exam timed conditions :/

Yeah I completely agree! It was so hard to pick a question that would help you write lots about Romeo and Juliet.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 357

Harley

Anyone do question 13? I used My Last Duchess and said about how the characteristics which browning reveals show that he is critical of the Duke? Not sure if that's relevent enough though.

Reply 358

S7U4R7

Original post by LHC

That sounds fine too, and thanks, i learned paragraphs of an essay which were basically from a turning point question then just tied the question in around it. I see as well that you like talking about Juliet, well i dont so whatever came up i would have got act 3 scene 1 into it and spoke about Romeo.

But owell, its done now, im never going to do english again :smile:

Reply 359

S7U4R7

Original post by Harley

Anyone do question 13? I used My Last Duchess and said about how the characteristics which browning reveals show that he is critical of the Duke? Not sure if that's relevent enough though.