MAY11 English A1 HL P2

[ib_girl]

there wasn't a thread for this yet, so...any thoughts?

[AGBellamy]

I screwed up big time. I spent most of the exam analysing the characters' behaviour and speech, barely using any technical vocabulary

And I've just realised that I'm even more screwed because I didn't look at literary features!!! :'(

Edited May 12, 2011 by HGBellamy

[Joanna C]

Well, my whole class had only really revised two out of our four poets, and both of them were war poets. So when question 9 came up, "How, and to what effect is war presented by two writers" everyone in the hall just laughed. It was a pretty joyous moment.

[000]

i thought it was a really horrible paper, i spent like 10 minutes just choosing a question and spent around 20 minutes planning the essay, the whole time wondering whether i should do the other question instead. i then wrote the whole essay while thinking that i should have done the other question, then when i finished the paper i finally decided it was the right one to do. really terrible paper for a subject that isnt that hard normally

[Lumiere914]

Wait a minute...question 9 was about the war poetry? I thought that question 9 regarded the shock factor of authors in their novels/works.

[hel]

Our class did drama plays so most people chose question 1 (about the masks in drama?) but I chose the one about 'war'.

However I interpreted it as ~metaphorical war and wrote more about the concept of conflict within literature. I chose 2 plays Streetcar Named Desire (reality vs illusion, civilized vs animal like, battle of sexes etc) and Amadeus (god vs human, the war of faith in Salieri as a man, genius vs mediocrity etc). I included some reference to Virginia Woolf as I feel like I should have probably wrote about that play instead of Amadeus but I just really loved Amadeus!

Anyway I thought the questions were hard but I really enjoyed the paper Some people felt the questions were a bit irrelevant to the plays we've read but I felt like I could have done most of them to be honest.

[flamicecream]

I did the first question under Drama about dialogue. Pretty easy.

[Joanna C]

Wait a minute...question 9 was about the war poetry? I thought that question 9 regarded the shock factor of authors in their novels/works.

Well, I thought it was question 9. You're TZ2 right?

[Proletariat]

Yeah, not my best paper either >_>

I did Q9, which was about the methods by which authors shock their readers. It turned out that most of my class picked this one too, so I have a feeling that my lukewarm, satisfactory essay is going to be competing with a lot of other competition.

The biggest worry I have is a convoluted thesis. I equated shock with the breaking of societal norms, but because my two works were written in different time periods (The Handmaid's Tale and Dubliners), I talked about how the former was a rejection of modern values while the latter was a rejection of Romanticism. Then I talked about the stylistic feature the two used, namely narrative description in the former and Joyce's "epiphanies" in, of course, the latter.

I think, above any other essay I've handwritten, I struggled the most to say on topic with this one. Somehow having all of those different little points (since I ended up using three sotries fro Dubliners too!) just made things a little bit more rough than they needed to have been. In the middle of my body, I wrote a short little paragraph that, really, was just a sort-of summary of my thesis; it's only purpose was to remind myself of what I was writing on in the first place, and hopefully clarifying to the marker.

Grr, not an English paper I'm proud of, and it's usually a subject I can breeze through. This is what happens when your exam starts right around the same time that your morning coffee wears off...

[Lumiere914]

Wait a minute...question 9 was about the war poetry? I thought that question 9 regarded the shock factor of authors in their novels/works.

Well, I thought it was question 9. You're TZ2 right?

You're probably right then because I am TZ1! Or...we're both right!

[Lumiere914]

Yeah, not my best paper either >_>

I did Q9, which was about the methods by which authors shock their readers. It turned out that most of my class picked this one too, so I have a feeling that my lukewarm, satisfactory essay is going to be competing with a lot of other competition.

The biggest worry I have is a convoluted thesis. I equated shock with the breaking of societal norms, but because my two works were written in different time periods (The Handmaid's Tale and Dubliners), I talked about how the former was a rejection of modern values while the latter was a rejection of Romanticism. Then I talked about the stylistic feature the two used, namely narrative description in the former and Joyce's "epiphanies" in, of course, the latter.

I think, above any other essay I've handwritten, I struggled the most to say on topic with this one. Somehow having all of those different little points (since I ended up using three sotries fro Dubliners too!) just made things a little bit more rough than they needed to have been. In the middle of my body, I wrote a short little paragraph that, really, was just a sort-of summary of my thesis; it's only purpose was to remind myself of what I was writing on in the first place, and hopefully clarifying to the marker.

Grr, not an English paper I'm proud of, and it's usually a subject I can breeze through. This is what happens when your exam starts right around the same time that your morning coffee wears off...

I also did Question 9 from TZ1 about the shock factor. I also used the idea of how authors achieve this by breaking societal norms, so I think we're both right on! I however used dramas (Death of a Salesman and True West) to illustrate the methods of shock.

[kasandude]

I did the first drama question (masks). It was the lesser of several evils, though... none of the drama or general literature questions were any good. Luckily, I got in 3 plays, as well as a macbeth reference, so I'm expecting decent marks.

[Drake Glau]

I did question 6 (prose, the novel and short story) which was something about author's persuading the reader of a certain view of the world for the during of the reading experience, to what extent do you agree with this statement.

I think it went alright, kind of a weird prompt but it worked out ok. I kind of explained with evidence how the author has to persuade the reader of a point of view in order to actually get any ideas and themes across the way they thought of them. Kind of like giving context to something so they can direct the interpretation towards their goal. It was weird and only like 2 pages...not my best but certainly not my worst of all the p2 practice I did

[L_ramirez92]

Hi guys, I did TZ2, one of the General questions.."Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest. How far and to what extent" and it was a bit weird because none of the questions on the paper actually seemed to fit into our texts (Streetcar, A View from the Bridge, Oleanna, Oedipus). I'm a bit worried because I did not manage to talk about any literary features and was just trying to answer the question which felt quite thematic to me...I talked about Blanche's desire for younger men and sexual relations in Streetcar, as well possibly Stella's desire for Stanley departing from the class of men suited to her status. In

'View from the bridge', I talked about Eddie's incestuous desire for Catherine, as well as her respective desire for Rodolfo (because she was basically forbidden from seeing men cause of Eddie's protectiveness)...and lastly, as a third text, I talked about Oedipus and the contrast with the forbidden nature of his relationship with his mother and how it wasn't sweet at all. I was just basically trying to answer the question, so things like dramatic action and literary features REALLY did not fit in for me regarding it so...and almost everyone else in my class did "Jealousy and Envy"... but everyone stretched it a bit with that as well. I just hope it goes well!I don't know, what do you guys think of my question?

[IB1011]

I did question 6 (prose, the novel and short story) which was something about author's persuading the reader of a certain view of the world for the during of the reading experience, to what extent do you agree with this statement.

I think it went alright, kind of a weird prompt but it worked out ok. I kind of explained with evidence how the author has to persuade the reader of a point of view in order to actually get any ideas and themes across the way they thought of them. Kind of like giving context to something so they can direct the interpretation towards their goal. It was weird and only like 2 pages...not my best but certainly not my worst of all the p2 practice I did

Yea I did that too and struggled so much with it!! Almost everyone did that one in my class. I talked about how the author gains the trust of the reader by painting the settings really vividly, emotionally attaching the readers to the protagonist and their choice of narration technique (on wuthering heights and the stone angel). I really don't think this was my strongest paper by far, but I think I should get a 4 maybe I just want to pass English!

[Guest Chance]

I did Q1 about masks in drama, using Nora from A Doll's House, Blanche from Streetcar and Kate from She Stoops to Conquer. My ending turned into a little bit of a rant about how women are forced to hid their true selves or be someone else to fit within societal norms, so I'm really hoping I get a woman marker...

[patatat]

I had the TZ2 questions and I responded to #10 in General Questions, the one about how "readers' reactions to a literary work can be influenced by their knowledge of its historical background". I used two of my Part 3 works in the essay, which were novels: Their Eyes Were Watching God and Wide Sargasso Sea. The essay went very well in hindsight -- in fact, I came out of the examination room thinking, "Wow, that was one of the best essays I ever wrote." I managed to use some really supportive (and direct) quotes I had memorized, present a cohesive argument, evaluate my points, and provide a good amount of personal insight all in the 6-paragraph essay I put together. Not something I normally manage to do in timed essay situations, but I nailed it here in surefire fashion.

A nice way to finish off English A1 for sure. It'll definitely offset my Paper 1, which I didn't feel quite as good about.

[theycallmebrookie]

Yeah, not my best paper either >_>

I did Q9, which was about the methods by which authors shock their readers. It turned out that most of my class picked this one too, so I have a feeling that my lukewarm, satisfactory essay is going to be competing with a lot of other competition.

The biggest worry I have is a convoluted thesis. I equated shock with the breaking of societal norms, but because my two works were written in different time periods (The Handmaid's Tale and Dubliners), I talked about how the former was a rejection of modern values while the latter was a rejection of Romanticism. Then I talked about the stylistic feature the two used, namely narrative description in the former and Joyce's "epiphanies" in, of course, the latter.

I think, above any other essay I've handwritten, I struggled the most to say on topic with this one. Somehow having all of those different little points (since I ended up using three sotries fro Dubliners too!) just made things a little bit more rough than they needed to have been. In the middle of my body, I wrote a short little paragraph that, really, was just a sort-of summary of my thesis; it's only purpose was to remind myself of what I was writing on in the first place, and hopefully clarifying to the marker.

Grr, not an English paper I'm proud of, and it's usually a subject I can breeze through. This is what happens when your exam starts right around the same time that your morning coffee wears off...

I wrote on that question too, but my class studied drama as our option. I wrote about Playboy of the Western World and A Doll's House, saying something about how the former shocked audiences due uncommon word choice and plot, while the latter shocked audiences by Nora 's actions contradicting the rules of Victorian society. I bunch of people from my class wrote on this topic too.

[Jackie]

Like a lot of you, I also did #9/shock factor. I used 1984 and The Stranger. Talked about characters, plot, motifs, etc. I thought the question was really awesome. Now English is done! Woo!

[Konni93]

I did the first drama question (masks). It was the lesser of several evils, though... none of the drama or general literature questions were any good. Luckily, I got in 3 plays, as well as a macbeth reference, so I'm expecting decent marks.

I thought the general questions were absolutely beautiful... completely opposite to the usual convoluted IB crap, two utterly straightforward ones on language and historical background...