NOV11 English HL P2

[quietpenguin6]

So...

which question did you choose and what was your angle of attack?

I did the one that said "Science is for those who learn, Poetry is for those who know"...

Upon reflection, i've realized that my essay lacked a thesis other than discussing the different ways that poets convey their knowledge.

The general Literature question on irony was tempting but irony is one of those things that you can either nail, or completely miss the mark so i took the safe bet.

What did you do?

[Matthew Sinclair]

I'm assuming it's been WELL over 24 hours for everyone now

I did drama question one and loved it! It was one of my most favorite exams so far! Such a surprise

It was about ghosts on stage either real or imagined, and how they are often 'memories' or 'burdens' and how they create a haunting and how it's portrayed. A bit weird but I ran with it.

I used 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and discussed Blanche's past in regard to the loss of Belle Reve and the suicide of her husband and I also used 'A Doll's House' and discussed the 'burden' of Nora having forged the signature for the loan.

I explained how it was portrayed in regard to the narrative structure - foreshadowed in the introduction, explained/introduced to the audience in the rising action phase, and then how it effects the conclusion and ultimately allows the authorial voice to be made evident. Those were the 6 main paragraphs, alternating between plays in regard to the phase of narrative structure.

I said that Blanche's memories allowed the authorial voice to depict how desire/guilt leads to physical/moral death and how Nora's behaviour illustrates the need for self-fulfillment and how Nora is a revolutionary etc.

Overall, I was really happy with it! It was a lot better than paper one! So hopefully it brings up my P1 mark!!

Edited November 11, 2010 by Matthew Sinclair

[laryxle]

I did the same question for poetry, I thought it was weird how the quote mentioned science because the question had absolutely nothing to do with science! I lamely said something about science at the end haha. I was also tossing up between this and the irony question but I think for poetry the general questions are usually not that good.

I thought it was a fairly good question because it was so broad you could talk about almost anything; my thesis was about love and how my poets revealed a depth of knowledge about how love impacts our lives; I used Gwen Harwood (3 poems) which showed 3 positive aspects of love (love dispelling doubt, love perpetuating life in the form of memory, and life enriching life) and Pablo Neruda (3 poems) which showed 3 negative aspects of love (chaos and confusion of rejection, loneliness/haunting memories of past love, and eventual emptiness and isolation) to argue how it gave a hollistic view of love, which I thought was quite good. I wrote heaps which i'm happy about, but I didn't plan it than well; my structure was basically intro, gwen harwood poem 1, poem 2, poem 3, neruda poem 1, poem 2, poem 3, conclusion, so it was very basic (hopefully I linked it well enough) and I kind of got lost during the Harwood section and failed to explicitly link my point back to my thesis. I think my analysis was way better for Neruda. Overall, I think I did enough but that my P1 was better. Luckily I have a very strong IOP/IOC mark.

Did anyone else notice how alot of the questions seemed to be like; -random statement-, discussing this statement or something else, analyse at least two texts? Like it seemed like they were so incredibly open that most of the question didn't really have to be answered? I thought it was odd...

[Matthew Sinclair]

Yeah in a lot of them I would've just ignored the statement. Well, not really, but I mean they were a bit hard to link in some cases. In mine, I rewrote the statement in my conclusion. Normally I wouldn't as it's a bit tacky/cheap, but it really linked everything in well and sounded appropriate so I went for it.

I was going to do the irony one as well, but I could only think of 1 example of irony from my 4 plays. It's situational irony when More's daughter speaks better Latin than the King in 'A Man For All Season's'....oh I suppose there's a bit of irony in 'Waiting for Godot' but that is the most horrible, non-IB-Friendly play every (imo).

Yes, that was pretty much a discussion with myself hahaha

We do the November 2009 papers for our mocks and the paper 1 in it was SO much better for poetry, prose not so much haha. The paper 2 was good in mocks, too. But I'm really happy with this paper 2, and I suppose content with paper 1.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Matthew Sinclair

[bluepopsiclestick]

As a whole, our cohort thought the Paper II questions were obscure. We studied plays and the drama questions did not lend themselves well to the plays we did, however we all managed. I suppose it was more a test of interpretation and ability to analyse thoroughly. However, we were all slightly pissed off that the questions weren't ones we absolutely loved.

Then again, we might all be stress heads.

(More likely than not)

[Nietzsche?]

The questions were alright but not great. We did drama too and all four of us picked different questions. The two from the drama and two from the general.

It seemed as though almost every question would be perfect for one text but not the second we were pairing it with.

Then again, it was a lot better than Paper 1 and some of the other subjects' papers so I can't complain.

[SogladtobedonewithIB]

Did anyone do the question on words that demand action from the drama section? I was quite confident with what I was able to tie in with the topic

[Matthew Sinclair]

Did anyone do the question on words that demand action from the drama section? I was quite confident with what I was able to tie in with the topic

I didn't really put any thought into doing that question. I'm sure it'd be amazing for some people, but not me. It just looked like a question that would take me far too long to think of examples and three supporting arguments for each play etc. I like questions where it just comes to me like in question 1. Cause q1 was just like, heck yeah! just use the main thing about both plays and talk about where they come in and effect etc

Which 4 plays were yours?/which did you use?

[SogladtobedonewithIB]

That's interesting...most of my friends thought that the 'ghost' question was too hard, most people picked Q2.

The three plays we studied were:

Sizwe Bansi is Dead

Accidental Death of an Anarchist

The Freedom of the City

[Matthew Sinclair]

I haven't heard of any of them!! Also, aren't you suppose to study 4 plays at HL??

The ghost question sounded bad cause of the 'ghost' haha. I think it was to 'scare' people hahaha. It's not like your play actually has to have a ghost (I hope!). I think I made the question work for mine. Afterwards, I was speaking to a girl in my class and she did the same question, same books sorry/edit - PLAYS and same main idea but we had different examples

Edited November 12, 2010 by Matthew Sinclair

[larry]

I used 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and discussed Blanche's past in regard to the loss of Belle Reve and the suicide of her husband and I also used 'A Doll's House' and discussed the 'burden' of Nora having forged the signature for the loan.

I explained how it was portrayed in regard to the narrative structure - foreshadowed in the introduction, explained/introduced to the audience in the rising action phase, and then how it effects the conclusion and ultimately allows the authorial voice to be made evident. Those were the 6 main paragraphs, alternating between plays in regard to the phase of narrative structure.

I said that Blanche's memories allowed the authorial voice to depict how desire/guilt leads to physical/moral death and how Nora's behaviour illustrates the need for self-fulfillment and how Nora is a revolutionary etc.

Lol did exactly the same question and plays, with a similarly creative interpretation of "ghosts" (I included the whole of Blanche's past - her reactions to these deaths as well, and for Nora I jbasically just said the whole debt, including hiding it from Torvald and paying it off ("manifested in the character of Krogstad"!). Urgh, I've never been good with those literary techniques, I ended up saying (read: bs-ing) that in both plays the ghosts are truly internal, and for this reason it is impossible to escape them (as Blanche tries to do), the only way to deal with them is to confront them (as Nora eventually does). It's due to this difference that Blance loses her grip on reality whereas Nora is able to step out of her doll house into the real world.

[SogladtobedonewithIB]

Well there were actually 4 on our booklist, but teachers recommend that we write on 2 or 3 at most, so its kinda pointless studying 4. The three plays together enough of the stuff that we can write on essays, and even if you write on 3 it would be too detailed so the teachers just did away with the 4th I guess. All 3 are good plays, I was seriously considering the ghost question- actually there is a quote in one of our plays that makes direct reference to a ghost, that wouldve been good haha But yeah overall pretty confident about what i wrote. Q2 also had a lot of scope, you could talk about plans, requests etc, i was only confident about how i went because I did a lot of practice essays. Pays to study (in some cases), I've realised

[Matthew Sinclair]

I'm glad I studied 4, just for safety/reassurance =) and it gives more freedom to answer questions with.

Although one of our plays 'Waiting for Godot' is horrible and 'A Man For All Seasons' is ok but not great. The other two were great and I studied them the most.

I was able to include one paragraph that was the same as in my essay in the mocks. I discussed how Kristine Linde is used by Ibsen to incite Nora to explain her 'ghost'/burden to the audience when she says 'Nora, Nora haven't you grown up yet?' and I said how she and Krogstad are used together (effectively working as catalysts). I tried to include like a billion literary devices and their effects so hopefully it's good.

Those two plays are great =D

[Natalie93]

Matthew Sinclair, I picked the exact same question as you, and I picked the exact same works as you: A Streetcar Named Desire and A Doll's House. I also included Hamlet by Shakespeare into the ghosts question. We studied Drama in Group 3, and I felt that the other questions were really strange, but #1 about ghosts was an interesting question.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Natalie93

[Matthew Sinclair]

Matthew Sinclair, I picked the exact same question as you, and I picked the exact same works as you: A Streetcar Named Desire and A Doll's House. I also included Hamlet by Shakespeare into the ghosts question. We studied Drama in Group 3, and I felt that the other questions were really strange, but #1 about ghosts was an interesting question.

What did you write about?? Did you follow a similar approach to mine (see above)

[Natalie93]

To be honest, I took more of an approach of how Nora is burdened by the condescending way her husband treats her, but I think your argument about Mrs. Linde is a really good one. For Blanche I put that she's haunted by her terrible memories about her reputation and how people think of her back in her hometown, as well as haunted by the death of her husband. I don't know if you've read Hamlet, but there's a literal ghost in Hamlet, so I was able to talk about literal as well as figurative ghosts. I really liked that question, I think you can relate it to a lot of works.

[Matthew Sinclair]

To be honest, I took more of an approach of how Nora is burdened by the condescending way her husband treats her, but I think your argument about Mrs. Linde is a really good one. For Blanche I put that she's haunted by her terrible memories about her reputation and how people think of her back in her hometown, as well as haunted by the death of her husband. I don't know if you've read Hamlet, but there's a literal ghost in Hamlet, so I was able to talk about literal as well as figurative ghosts. I really liked that question, I think you can relate it to a lot of works.

That sounds good I like what you did with Nora and Torvald - I didn't even think of that!

I haven't read Hamlet, but I've read Macbeth and I seem to remember a ghost was in that...maybe....or at least something like a hallucination or something