NOV15 English A Literature HL/SL Paper 2

[UncleChopChop]

Making one thread for this because we had the same set of questions, just with different marking criteria and examination timing.

 

Obviously this is a paper that differed greatly between the categories of works studied - but what did you all think for your respective sections?

 

I did poetry, and personally thought the paper couldn't have gone better because of the question I got (#6, the one on tonal shifts). However, I thought it did a pretty poor job of making sure everyone had a question they could tackle at an optimal level. Lots of poetry is pretty consistent in tone, and having four poems studied that exhibit this at a level suitable for a Paper 2 is probably pretty uncommon. I can't imagine addressing specific entities (#4 I think?) was common either, although it was remarkably common in our works. The imagery one was broad enough to cover a wide range of the candidates, but there are enough poets out there that abstain from heavy use of imagery that I can see it becoming quite problematic for some candidates.

 

Thankfully, I think it was well suited to my study and I did the best I could have - but I think the question range may have been a bit too specific considering the wide range of poets allowed for Part Three. What do you all think? How were the other sections?

[beatriz]

Making one thread for this because we had the same set of questions, just with different marking criteria and examination timing.

 

Obviously this is a paper that differed greatly between the categories of works studied - but what did you all think for your respective sections?

 

I did poetry, and personally thought the paper couldn't have gone better because of the question I got (#6, the one on tonal shifts). However, I thought it did a pretty poor job of making sure everyone had a question they could tackle at an optimal level. Lots of poetry is pretty consistent in tone, and having four poems studied that exhibit this at a level suitable for a Paper 2 is probably pretty uncommon. I can't imagine addressing specific entities (#4 I think?) was common either, although it was remarkably common in our works. The imagery one was broad enough to cover a wide range of the candidates, but there are enough poets out there that abstain from heavy use of imagery that I can see it becoming quite problematic for some candidates.

 

Thankfully, I think it was well suited to my study and I did the best I could have - but I think the question range may have been a bit too specific considering the wide range of poets allowed for Part Three. What do you all think? How were the other sections?

 

I did the same! Poetry, question 6.

 

I thought it was too broad, did not have time to write about everything so I ended up generalizing too much. I wanted to talk about 4 poems but only had time to talk about 3 in the end. I talked a lot about how the poet created the shift (i.e. shift from bright imagery to dark imagery, from perfect rhyme scheme to ****ty one..), but I didn't talk that much about the effect of it. Just explained the general purpose of the poets -  the poets wanted to represent the complexity of the topic/main theme by presenting two different aspects, or wanted to emphasize/celebrate one aspect by contrasting it with another one. 

 

My structure was really bad. Ended up with paragraphs that were one page long auch.

[UncleChopChop]

 

My structure was really bad. Ended up with paragraphs that were one page long auch.

 

 

That's not necessarily a problem if they're ordered thematically or in terms of the poems. I can't see you losing any more than a point for it.

 

What poems did you study/use? I ended up using Ulysses and Break, break, break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney, and One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. I was sorely disappointed that I didn't get to use Follower (a Heaney poem) as it was my best analysis - but I think the result will still be pretty reasonable.

[beatriz]

 

My structure was really bad. Ended up with paragraphs that were one page long auch.

 

 

That's not necessarily a problem if they're ordered thematically or in terms of the poems. I can't see you losing any more than a point for it.

 

What poems did you study/use? I ended up using Ulysses and Break, break, break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney, and One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. I was sorely disappointed that I didn't get to use Follower (a Heaney poem) as it was my best analysis - but I think the result will still be pretty reasonable.

 

 

Yeah, but the structure within the paragraph was a complete mess.

 

I used 'God's grandeur' by Hopkins & 'The lamb' and 'the Tyger' by William Blake. Not my best analysis neither (Judith Wright was my favourite!) but ehh I guess it will be okay. I ended up talking about religion, not the most neutral/safe topic      And I did feel a bit weird when I finished, after analysing and studying all the poems, then only getting to talk about a couple of aspects of a couple of poems! such is life.