english quotes

hi, i'm in 5th year and doing sqa higher english. i'm aiming for an A without a resit, and in my prelim i got 67% overall. i got my teacher to go over my answers for my RUAE paper with me, and a lot of my incorrect answers were because they "weren't in the marking scheme." i was confused by this because i remember walking out of my prelim confident, as i'd wrote a lot of correct analysis that apparently just wasn't there. is there anything i could do to improve on this before my exam?

Reply 1

AverageApple288

I might be wrong but I don't think you can lose marks just for having answers not in the mark scheme since the mark scheme answers are just possible ones. Saying that if you pick up on more subtle techniques which don't appear in the mark scheme it is then up to the marker to use their own judgement on whether the point is strong enough so you're usually safer to go for more obvious things if you can spot them (e.g. choose common techniques like lists and word choice over the more subtle ones like tone). That being said you shouldn't be taking too much of a risk analysing more subtle techniques as long as you're right.

What seems more likely in your case is that you wrote down the right quotes but the interpretation in the mark scheme was different to that which you made, which can be a bit annoying when you've made a borderline point that might have gotten the mark had it not been in the mark scheme. For combating this it is just a case of trying to figure out what exactly they are going to be looking for (e.g. a connotation of the word "tumbling" might be a gradual fall but depending on the question they might be looking for more about how it suggests a painful journey during the fall).

Reply 2

maple22

Original post

by fuukafriday

Schools won't give marks for answers outside of the marking scheme in English as they could be disputed if the result is used for an appeal. However the marking schemes for English do state to accept any other reasonable response, so while your teacher won't accept them (could be disputed), the markers will because they're actually fully following the marking scheme.
I got a C in my Higher English prelim and with what was definitely not as much revision as i should have done, I got an A in the exam.