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becoming so disillusioned with Higher English, HELP! need an A!

(edited 11 years ago)

Look at the possible essays which come up for your texts(there's usually a pattern and for a lot of the questions you'd be writing very similar essays, e.g- turning point and important event which effects the course of the play/novel/etc) and have plans/practice essays written for each so if these questions come up in the final exam, you feel prepared. And always make sure you have a conclusion if you struggle to finish as you're more likely to be penalized for not finishing it than missing out one point you want to make. For referring to the question, make sure you answer each part of the question at some point in each of your paragraphs to show that your analysis is relevant and your essays will be more secure. For close reading, I think it's all about practice(and luck, because there's nothing worse than a boring and/or complicated passage coming up). And it's good that you have a strong folio too, as this gives you a starting point for achieving a good grade.

Good luck, though. I really hope you do well.

Reply 2

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Original post by nerd434

Well first of all, you are essentially verging on an A grade. The grade boundaries for an A in Higher English tends to fluctuate between 63%-65% so you haven't got far to go.

If your teacher is correct and you get two 19's in your folio, that gives you 15 extra marks to add to whatever you get in the exam. So essentially, you need to pick up between 48 - 50 marks in the exam for an A grade, however, your marks are not simply whatever you get out of 50 in each paper. You can see how they add together to form your overall grade here.

If you can get 35+ marks in the close reading paper and your folio estimates are correct, you could get a comfortable A with two 15's in the essay paper. Don't believe me? Type in 38 in the folio section (19+19), 35 in the Close Reading section and then 30 in the Critical Essay section and it comes out as 69, which is an A.

While I agree with this to an extent, I'd say that with this in mind, a student could get complacent and I'm speaking from experience. In class, my essays averaged 17 - 21 with the odd 23 here and there; my close reading ranged from 30 - 40; and, the SQA gave my folio 18/20 (two 23s or one 25 and 21). Yet, even so, I got a B for my Higher. The thing is, my exam technique was just never good - I got 34/50 for my essays and my close reading got 23/50 I think. Overall, I ended up getting 63/100, one mark off an A.

Therefore, even though my folio did well, my exam let me down considerably. I'd say that the reason was because I couldn't perfect my exam technique and near the end of Higher English, I kind of stopped trying and bothering in doing my best/improving in essays. Instead, they became really formulaic (the same link words, the same points and never any interesting interpretations/analysis) and I never went above and beyond with my analysis of the text, nor the question or even my vocabulary!

As for close reading, near the exam time, I simply didn't do enough practice.