A1 Paper 2 Advice and Tips

[TNT]

I am studying

Death and the maiden

Streetcar named desire

the crucible

Can someone tell me how I ought to start preparing?

[Sandwich]

Go through all of your plays and do the following:

1. Pick out all of the main themes & symbols. Remind yourself what they are, what they mean, what they stand for, where they pop up.

2. Quickly revise the plot so you remember what goes on. You don't have to have it down amazingly, but you should know the storyline and vague order of events, even if you can't be all "and in Act 3 Scene 7..." <--- that's completely unnecessary.

3. Quickly revise the characters, who they are, their part in the play

4. Pick out roughly 5 important quotes from each and memorise them. You'll want to refer to them in your essay, so make sure they demonstrate something very key about the play -- an excellent example of style, the quote that defines the main theme (there's usually one xP), a quote which totally sums up one of the characters, a quote showing the use of a symbol, or a quote showing how the stage directions are done in the play. That kind of thing. Whatever you remember you can work into your essay and analyse, really. I suggest 5 because that seems a reasonable number to remember and cover most of your bases if you pick your quotes pretty well, but more is fine too! P: Don't fret about them too much 'cause remember you're writing the essay, so it's up to you to include them and the examiners won't have the foggiest whether you knew 120 or 5.

This actually shouldn't take too long assuming you went through the plays in lessons so it's just memory jogging. Apart from to find quotes, I suggest you just look at a Sparknotes/Yorknotes and so on. Especially Yorknotes because they give you some discussion which'll inspire you for your essay in Paper 2 xP Whatever helps you go through them anyway.

NOW what you want to do is to look at some past questions. See the sorts of things they ask -- they tend to ask about characters, themes, setting and so on. So, look at all your plays and think about what you can compare with what. Do two have similar themes? What about setting? If it helps you, sit and think about it, flick through the plays, and make lists comparing them. What you're doing is building up a bank of previous comparisons so when you get into the exam you'll see the question and already have ideas as to which plays you want to compare and what points within them you can relate to points in the other. You don't have to write the essays, just start accumulating ideas and ways of making comparisons between the plays and having thought about all this beforehand, it'll all pop right back into your head in the examination.

And finally remember -- if you're doing Paper 2 on Drama, always always always refer to the pieces of literature as "literature", "plays" and so on. Under no circumstances accidentally call them novels or talk about "the reader". Make sure you keep putting it in the context of drama all the way through -- occasionally mentioning the audience and how it would look to the audience is a fab idea because it shows subtle awareness that you know what it was originally written for ;O

That's how we got told to revise at school anyway, and our English teachers were really very good. At least I felt very prepared. All 6s and 7s in our class in the end

[hannah.mb]

Wow, every time I want to reply to a new topic, Sandwich has said it all!!

I just wanted to add that I memorise (ahem....make that "am trying to memorise") quite a bit more quotes than 5 for every text but I think, as Sandwich said, if you pick your quotes carefully, then 5 could be ok. I would tend towards "the more the better", though, because if you can use it in the exam then it's great to have remembered it. But make sure you dont spend all your time memorising the quotes without actually revising the plays themselves.

[greaterthaninfinity]

All the works that my school did which are eligible for paper two are poems and I can't find many exemplars for essays on poems. I'm not really baffled with the technique though; a conventional compare and contrast essay style would suffice, yes?

However, what I'm worried about is the fact that my teacher wanted us to analyze TWO poems by each of the two required poets for paper two. It's really hard for me to do the poems in great detail if I'm analyzing all four... so I'm wondering if you guys think that it's okay for me to just talk about two poems by two different poets in paper two?

[sweetnsimple786]

I think two poems total would be perfectly fine. My works are three novels and one set of short stories. It's okay if I do a novel and one short story rather than a novel and multiple short stories to cover the set of short stories, so I think two poems would suffice and would allow you to go into the depth that you need to in order to score higher marks.

[benjaminlee92]

Sparknotes actually covers all of that quite nicely

[pomoni]

In the exam it normally says to discuss "at least two plays..." Do you think it's a trap or can you really use only 2 plays and score high? I feel like focusing on 2 plays makes it more specific.

What do you think?

And thanks for the tips, they're very helpful

[benjaminlee92]

In the exam it normally says to discuss "at least two plays..." Do you think it's a trap or can you really use only 2 plays and score high? I feel like focusing on 2 plays makes it more specific.

What do you think?

And thanks for the tips, they're very helpful

My teacher said focus on 2 pieces of literature. He's a very good teacher indeed.

I think finding out how to do the questions is important. Like in Paper 1, after I found out the how (kinda like exam technique). (for example, tone is important and you HAVE to have a personal interpretation of the poem)

Here, I'm under the impression that the key is to compare.

I think there is more to it. What ya think. Kinda wished the teachers would tell us in our face (like bad teachers) what to write rather than "show" us like good teachers ares supposed to.

[benjaminlee92]

TNT started the topic of how to prepare for it. Now that you have prepared, here are some things that I think is vital that you do during the exam. It may become tedious but it's better to know what to do rather than improvise. Please please please feel free to add to my list!!!

1. Plan for 20 minutes to 1/2 an hour (a bit longer for HL). Which is probably true for most of the languages and essay writing. Analyze the question, write down a thesis statement (which will be mentioned in the intro), write what you're gonna write in each paragraph. Remember the conclusion must include an answer to the thesis statement.

2. While planning keep in mind that the essay is a comparative essay.

3. The question says TWO OR THREE pieces of work you have studied. However, my teacher said focusing on two is the best. What you can also do is include other pieces of work you have studied anywhere else (such as for your IOC)but do this sparingly.

4. Also, always refer back to the question. You should be able to read the whole essay without looking back at the question. Something silly but apparently could help is if you mention your thesis statement every paragraph or two.

Edited May 9, 2010 by benjaminlee92

[hanniexx]

On here I'm seeing everyone say that paper 2 is a comparison.

However, my teacher told us that it's not a comparison. We need to answer the question using 2 or 3 plays to help us. As in the plays are an example for us to use. But it's not a comparison unless it states 'compare', the comparison was in WL.

Which one is it, a comparison or not?

I've been preparing for it not to be a direct comparison...will this lose me marks?

Thank you!

[pomoni]

Yeah of course, paper 2 is a comparative essay!!! So you also think we should focus on 2 works? I think it depends on the question and then after understanding the question one should choose 2 works that work best for the question?

Well my teacher always says that paper 2 is a comparative essay! So I think we should compare...maybe that would make the essay stronger even if it's not really in the question... I'm not sure though.

I have an issue with the preparation...I feel like if I prepare for all this time I'll barely have time to actually write out the essay. What do you think the minimum time needed to prepare is?

Edited May 10, 2010 by sweetnsimple786
Please use the edit button to add more to a post =)

[Bishup]

I do French A1 and my teacher said it is not necessarily a comparison. In fact it is exactly the way you said it hanniemx you pick out examples from your different works and answer the question as a whole.

[Sandwich]

It isn't strictly a comparison, but if you don't compare within the essay, the essay's not very good, if that makes any sense!

The only way to make it cohesive is to have a comparative element. Otherwise you're answering two separate questions on the same pieces of paper. 'Book 1 does A. Book 2 does B.' is not a decent structure. You need 'Book 1 does A whereas book 2 does B', or 'Books 1 and 2 both do C' so the paragraphs actually link up together.

Obviously it's not an active comparison in the sense that the WL was -- after all, you're answering their question and that question usually has nothing about comparison in it -- but if you don't somehow relate however many texts you do to each other, it's not going to flow. It's also true that you can make more points through comparison and enhance the points you would've made anyway. Basically it's all about using comparison to build a structure. So no, it's not a direct comparison, but you also can't chuck comparison out the window

[Sandwich]

IMO you should aim to discuss as much as you know. In the exam when I did it, I ended up discussing all 4 texts because I had 3 or 4 main points from each with which to answer the question, but no way could I have filled the time writing just about 2. Most people do 2-3, and that's fine. After all, you don't want to sacrifice depth for breadth, you want the best balance you can get of both.

As Pomoni said, it really depends on the question and how you can apply you knowledge to the question. Your question might allow you to deeply discuss 2 texts, or briefly discuss 4. The important thing is preparing all 4 of them as much as you can because you aren't going to know what your approach will be until you're sitting with the paper in front of your nose. It may be that your question only actually suits 2 of the texts anyway! They try to pick general themes, but there will always be plays/novels/poems etc. you've studied which don't really have that theme. For instance I did plays and we had a question about the contribution of the minor characters in plays... only one of my plays had any minor characters! Honestly you have no idea beforehand, so just know as much as you can and then adapt on the day.

[larojiblanca]

So in this essay, we can use both comparison and contrast, right? Just as long as the two texts are linked somehow by general ideas?

Does anyone know what the recommended page count is?

[benjaminlee92]

ALSO if there is a quote (which there is a lot) define the vague terms. I always forget this and this scores a lot of marks

[ABC123456]

Tomorrow is my Paper 2 for English HL and I am a bit nervous. Does anyone have any advice? Is it a good idea just to study intensely 2 of the works (I'm doing Drama: A Doll's House, Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, and Master Harold...and the Boys)and then study one for a back-up or an added work if I can fit it? Right now I am trying to look for past IB exams to look at the questions but I've only found English A2 exams. I'm just afraid that both the questions in the Drama section will be really weird, since IB does tend to give weird questions, and then I can't answer them and end up sitting there frozen with fear. Haha.

I feel like I should feel like I am well prepared though, because for each play our teacher made us do these Drama Data Sheets that have a lot of information that is useful. And we also know the usual general format of writing a good essay. I'm just worried for a twisty prompt I guess.

[pomoni]

ALSO if there is a quote (which there is a lot) define the vague terms. I always forget this and this scores a lot of marks

o.O What do you mean with defining terms? We say what the words mean?

[hanniexx]

Ahh I get you all. Thank you

[ABC123456]

Another question I had was about the General Questions section. My teacher says he does not recommend we do those and that they should be an emergency fall back if there is no way we can answer the Drama questions. I was wondering if it is indeed harder to score higher on Paper 2 if I did one of those questions. If I do answer those questions, any advice in doing well on it?