Key to getting a 7 in English A1?

[JourneyTo]

From what I hear, overdoing it might be sabotaging your chances at a 7. I dont spend any more time on English than I do any other subject and I seem to be doing alright. I think the key is knowing your texts, which you can do via re-reading and taking good notes. I tend to go over a work twice in terms of notes, so as to get them as complete as I can, then I re-read the book once before an exam and go over my notes until I feel confident concerning them.

On the essay questions, think analytically and critically, but try to present it in a very tight format concept wise. I do this by reading the question and making notes before I start writing.This gives me the basis for a good introduction and gives me a general plan. Then I can jst write without getting antsy.

And whatever you do, during an essay, do not, I repeat DO NOT, summarise huge parts of the novel.I started with a summary once and even thought I managed to clean up within 10 minutes and get it out of the way, it is the wrong way to approach such an essay.

[Jay D]

Sorry. Why are people suggesting writing Shakespearean? That is, archaic, out of date and frivolous? I don't know if being a pedantic sycophant will help you with those moderators but getting a 7 is next to impossible with sheer hard work. You can't do it unless you love English and have been loving it for a few years to accumulate the necessary talent.

[hanz]

I really want to get a 7 or at least 6 or maybe 5 is acceptable. I do good in my assessments and i love writing commentaries alot. but the problem is that i hate the books we are dealing with ! 100 years of solitude and Metamophosis ! and my WL essay is in progress ! i am really scared and stressed out ! my teacher really likes my commentaries i do but when i come and compare then with other students i find them weak even though they get a mark lower than mine ! i think to get a 7 in English A1 is the ability to bear with commentaries and Interests !

GOOD LUCK =D

[Sandwich]

I don't know if the author of this thread perhaps doesn't have english as a first language, but I have to say that english A1 is my easiest IB subject by several miles (and I take it at HL). I've never had less than a seven!

I've always found english very easy, so maybe that's part of it, but really once you've got the method down, there is no easier essay to write. HL is so much easier than SL, too! A few more texts, but then you get an entire two hours of solid writing, whereas the standards only get to have an hour and a half, so you basically get to say nearly everything you want to.

My favourite part is the extended commentary exam, but really the other parts aren't too much worse. Apart from a bit of quote memorising for the other exam paper on the texts you've studied, it's all quite fine.

Just literally go over everything chronologically and think about how everything you read makes you feel. Then you just write a huge dialogue about how you're feeling as a result of reading it! Even individual words must make you feel something. The word 'steal' has a hissing sound in it, so it sounds harsh and evil, and you can probably start talking about how snakes hiss and snakes are symbollic of evil.. etc etc etc. That's at least a couple of sentences-- and there's masses and masses to write! Seriously. And you don't even have to waste time doing an essay plan (highly boring endeavour in any case) if you go through your poem/passage/plays chronologically.

Honestly, provided you know a couple of the more basic literary identifiers (alliteration, metaphors, similes etc etc) and can name a few parts of speech like participles, particular tenses, the passive voice and so on, you don't have to do any revision apart from re-reading the texts in the weeks leading up to the exam (especially the oral) so you can remember the plot/characters a little better without staring blankly when a name comes up!

I don't know if it'd help anybody, but we're sometimes told to do a system called SCASI (if you have a tendency to forget what you should talk about and don't trust yourself to remember it whilst writing)-- Setting, Characters, Action, Style, Ideas.

Even with a reasonably basic vocabulary, it's literally just about sitting there and talking about how things make you feel after reading them until you run out of time P:

At the end of the day, it's not even really analysis. The best thing I can think of for helping yourself out with this is to find a poem or a novel you genuinely love and then think why you love <i>THAT</i> and how that makes you feel, why it makes you feel it (in terms of language, images etc) and then you'll have a much better understanding of how to go about doing it with things where perhaps the feelings don't jump out at you straight away. My favourites are Snake by DH Lawrence, On My First Sonne by Ben Jonson and for novels maybe try the English Patient by Michael Oondatje, or East of Eden by Steinbeck. Both of them write beautifully and you're bound to at least appreciate why other people might appreciate them! (:

[faith]

I don't think it is really that hard to get a 7 if you try hard enough. I guess having good english teachers helps as well. Perhaps to some degree it comes down to whether you enjoy a subject or not. Reading a lot of books obviously helps.

Last year, four girls in my school got 45s. I know one of them quite well and really, she's not one those students who does nothing apart from studying.

Edited March 15, 2009 by faith

[greaterthaninfinity]

I think the difference between a 6 and a 7, most of the time, is originality and your writing style.

The key to getting a 7 is really just reading though, imo. The people that I know who score 7 are "naturally gifted" at English because they are building on a skyscraper of knowledge that they've gathered from reading... in contrast to some other kids who can count the books they've read in their life with their fingers.

[Ongfufu]

OMG you guys are geniuses! My teachers and graduated students just told us straight up to expect for a 5 in any language course. There were few 6's in our school. But we've NEVER seen a 7 in HL/SL English A1.

[1-2-3]

I think that to get a good mark in HL English, you really need to love the books you are studying.

Unless you don't have a real passion for the works, you probably wouldn't re-read it/ analyse it in depth or vice versa.

Also, if you, in general, like to read books, you'll find it easier to get a good mark in this course as compared to someone who forces himself to read books in order to get a good mark in the course.

Plus, practice goes a long way.

Especially for the IOP and the oral commentary.

So, overall, a passion for the subject + hardwork is what you need.

[hermine0817]

I cannot stress this enough. READ YOUR SYLLABUS! It tells you everything they want you to do for all of your assessments. Treat it like your best friend because, hey, being the IB, it's probably the only one you will have left at the end.

And the wide reading tips are GOOD. Try old books or high vocab. I don't mean go out and grab Once and Future King (although that is pretty darn fine). Find a genre you like and choose erudite novels. Here are some friends-

Romance: Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer

Action/Fantasy: LOTR, Tim Powers. James P. Blaylock

Mystery: Sherlock Holmes.... others....

If you already have a pile of reading, try watching good Shakespeare's like R&J Baz Luhrman style and Much Ado About Nothing with Emma Thompson and Denzel Washington (and a whole heap of other people)

Go on to freerice.com when you are bored and learn a new word a day.

But mostly... read your syllabus.

I heard that reading is very, very important for many times, but it's just that during school time, you hardly get the time to read any books except your school books. Especially in A1 and A2 languages combined, they are harsh...

Just got some little time to read over the Easter break.

Oh, yah, something to add.

The thing our English teacher points at most is that we should stop simply "listing" stuff. When we for instance see that the author used a lot of metaphor, don't just list the metaphors the author used. One should analyze it as well as listing it. And the one thing I learned from IB is that the essay writing skills from middle year programme is simply not enough. I personally didn't get it in the beginning at all. Our teacher gave us in one of beginning classes a random extract from a book and asked us to analyze it in one and a half hours (which was quite little time than I was used to). I had no idea how to do it because there were so many aspects to mention such as similes, metaphors, repetition of words, symbolism, point of view of the narrator etc. However, I couldn't think of a better way to put them together than in dedicating a paragraph each for these traits. And it turned out that it was a bad idea. (I knew that this was bad at that time too, but I simply didn't know how to make that better.) Think I got a 4 on that essay we handed in.

Then she showed us an sample essay of the person (a real smart guy in our class) who did it exactly as we should have done it. Forget about listing all the stuff, just think about one central theme (such as the relationship of the characters, love, fear etc...) and link every aspect that you have found above (metaphors, similes, symbols etc.) with the central theme you have chosen. You basically link everything with your central theme and say for instance "The metaphor the author used clearly has a negative connotation and thus contributes to the fearful atmosphere described in the extract."

By keeping to this rule, I'm getting 7s so far in English exams (but I of course would have to see as the grades tend to be lower than predicted, I heard).

So don't forget to analyze, have a central theme, and link everything with the central theme.

With this, I was fine so far.

Edited April 16, 2009 by Aboo

[JAYT]

In my school only two or three people have scored a 7 in the last 5 years or so. And my English teacher told us that when they first started their commentaries, they were already getting 16 and above. So yeah it does come mostly to natural talent, but i have never ever seen a person gifted in English who doesn't read a lot. The one thing that improves your English the most is reading, probably about at least 20 to 30 books a year. The girl who's a potential seven in m year level has been reading books when she was in primary school that most middle school kids cant read yet.

[Krazim]

I guess the reason why I believe it's easy to get a 7 is because our English teacher drills it on us and makes us do practices and guides us through it. Also, I'm one of those students who does get As on her English papers... o.O;;

[Tilia]

Even individual words must make you feel something. The word 'steal' has a hissing sound in it, so it sounds harsh and evil, and you can probably start talking about how snakes hiss and snakes are symbollic of evil.. etc etc etc.

I know that it's important to analyse, but don't you think this is overdoing it a bit? Maybe you just took this as a slightly weird example, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to write it in an exam (maybe unless it was a huge allitteration with S). I'm not taking English, but I think that it's important not to overdo the analysis, regardless of language.

[Sandwich]

I figure that if you have the time to write all of this stuff, whyever not If it contributes to how you interpret the text when you read it, and it's not going to be self-penalising (as in, you're not taking time away from better points by making more outlandish ones), it's still a good point. It's the extra analysis which pads out your essay, stops you from running out of points and also ticks every box in the 'in depth' section. After all, you're meant to be analysing the technique of the author in terms of them saying something to get across their feelings, emotions, thoughts etc etc, so if you find that a particular word has connotations with evil things, and they're writing about something unpleasant... it's relevant P:

Obviously it's not a major point, but it's still analysis of the language. It does score marks O:

[Tilia]

I figure that if you have the time to write all of this stuff, whyever not If it contributes to how you interpret the text when you read it, and it's not going to be self-penalising (as in, you're not taking time away from better points by making more outlandish ones), it's still a good point. It's the extra analysis which pads out your essay, stops you from running out of points and also ticks every box in the 'in depth' section. After all, you're meant to be analysing the technique of the author in terms of them saying something to get across their feelings, emotions, thoughts etc etc, so if you find that a particular word has connotations with evil things, and they're writing about something unpleasant... it's relevant P:

Obviously it's not a major point, but it's still analysis of the language. It does score marks O:

Yeah, I can see what you mean, but it can also be purely accidental (I mean, if you need to use the word "steal" you can't influence what letters it contain). Our teacher tells us to be really cautious when it comes to stuff like assonance and allitteration, since it doesn't have to be consciously done by the author. I have also scored low on essays since my teacher said it was too far-fetched, and I think that was much more pertinent than this example, if you don't mind me saying so.

[eankeel]

To revise English A1, I write a commentary every week always on one of the past paper poems or prose. It is also good to look at other commentary on the webs, I have a commentary that scored full marks in the real IB test. it gave me a lot of guidance and the sort of way the commentary should be structured and written. It is also a good idea to make sure you answer the leading questions when you do the commentary, it is always a good starting point.

[Panserborne]

A question regarding paper 2: am I right in stating that the examiners have not necessarily read the works we're writing about? Because they're sent randomly or something...? And would would this be an advantage or disadvantage? (seems to me to be an advantage, as for the criteria on knowledge of work you can get top marks, even if you forget names, screw up descriptions of events etc. I would imagine doing a well known work would be more demanding, and harder to have original (or at least original sounding) insights.)

[Vvi]

I have also scored low on essays since my teacher said it was too far-fetched, and I think that was much more pertinent than this example, if you don't mind me saying so.

I agree, there's one girl in my class that doesn't contribute a lot in English class but when she does, she says the most far-fetched stuff. Never make up details or facts that aren't in the text, she was on inventing some history for characters in a play and analyzing their hairstyles. Obviously you have to dig deep to some level, but try not to dig a hole to China when you're doing your analysis. I once had my creative writing analysed in class aloud, and the students and teacher came up with crazy stuff. Some of the stuff was true, I had been thinking aboiut it when writing but exactly those assonance things: keep it realistic.

[Eternalx]

I don't know, I just changed into HL english because Math is just horrifying. I'm getting Bs in SL, DO you guys think I'll last HL?

[sweetnsimple786]

From reading the last three pages on how to score a 7 (or just score well in general) on this exam, I'm freaking out.

We've written two essays all year round, and my teacher hasn't mentioned the actual English exam. We've done our IOPs (I think) in December, but that's it.

What are the papers like?

[hermine0817]

From reading the last three pages on how to score a 7 (or just score well in general) on this exam, I'm freaking out.

We've written two essays all year round, and my teacher hasn't mentioned the actual English exam. We've done our IOPs (I think) in December, but that's it.

What are the papers like?

To be honest, I don't know that really either. We wrote exams so far, but in every exam we wrote, she gave us an extract of the books we have read and we should have analyzed ite extracts then.

Sometimes the extracts are given in single forms, sometimes, she gave us two or more and we had to compare these then.

I think though that the final exam is similar, isn't it?

Correct me if I am wrong please.