30 replies to this topic

[loved-up-loon]

right... so lemme see, say about 40 outta 50 for close reading and atleast 15 for each essay... hmmm... not looking forward to august xxx

40+15+15 = 70 (if my maths is right which it should be considering my higher exams on friday) and it is about 70% for an A! Id probably faint with shock with I got an A for english, I almost, always seem to lose marks on stupid questions and because some of my sentences make no sense because ive spelt a word like a different word and it makes no sense if anybody but me reads it through!! oh well, i think my whole paper made sense, i read my essays through about 5 times!

[Allana]

I think it could go 75~ for an A, since usually its 70% for one

I doubt that very much, it is normally between 65-67% for an A, and even if the paper is easier they normally only raise the pass mark by about 2-3%. And lets put it this way, the paper wasn't ridiculously easy, so i doubt there will be a significant alteration in the pass mark.

Edit : Last year's paper for example, which in my memory a lot of people i know who sat it found it easy and the pass mark for an A was 65%.

[herbeey]

Okay... I'm glad the final question that I buggered up, mostly due to lack of time, wasn't about ideas.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but:
Passge 1 said how obesity was the most fearful thing ever to threaten humanity... it suggested many solutions and gave much evidence to back up what it was saying. And then at the end, it completely went against everything it had worked so hard to say. It said that the solutions MIGHT work. Many repetitions of 'might'. And it rejected using any solution to the problem, since it infringed on his liberties... and if fat people wanna be fat, let them.

Passage 2: the opposite. It completely downplayed the problem of obesity, and in the end, called for action.

WTF were they thinking when these people wrote these things?

[Allana]

Hmm, I think you are partly right. Passage 2 didn't downplay obesity as such, it was basically saying that we live in a society that is image-obsessed and so the media and organisations which promote weight loss seem to class average looking people as obese.

It was more the idea of examining people's ridiculous classifications of what is obese, and that is what Passage 2 said was the problem, whereas Passage 1 said obesity actually IS a problem.

I thought both passages were really interesting, and there were lots of Understanding questions which I think most people were pleased about

right... so lemme see, say about 40 outta 50 for close reading and atleast 15 for each essay... hmmm... not looking forward to august xxx

40+15+15 = 70 (if my maths is right which it should be considering my higher exams on friday) and it is about 70% for an A! Id probably faint with shock with I got an A for english, I almost, always seem to lose marks on stupid questions and because some of my sentences make no sense because ive spelt a word like a different word and it makes no sense if anybody but me reads it through!! oh well, i think my whole paper made sense, i read my essays through about 5 times!

Oooh stop panicking! You probably will get an A, and don't be shocked if you do!

I would say I've got about 40ish for the close reading, between 15-18 for my first essay, and my 2nd essay was basically the one i did in my prelim which i got 22 for...so i'm being safe and saying about 19-20 for that.

Hopefully we all get As!

[ross_rosco]

I think it's a disgrace that they've made the papers easier. I'm sitting mine this year and I know that I find the older past papers with word choice et cetera far easier. Looking at the 2006 paper there must have been only one word choice question. The questions now expect superficial answers and that's what I struggle with. They've also made the text size larger which I think is a complete joke - it's patronising beyond belief.

[ross_rosco]

I think it's a disgrace that they've made the papers easier. I'm sitting mine this year and I know that I find the older past papers with word choice et cetera far easier. Looking at the 2006 paper there must have been only one word choice question. The questions now expect superficial answers and that's what I struggle with. They've also made the text size larger which I think is a complete joke - it's patronising beyond belief.

[floss]

In a way, I agree with you. The questions which they prefer at the moment are dependant on the candidate's sensitivity to language, which is something we've been develpoing from the moment we started to read. I don't think it's entirely fair to out number questions which rely on classroom-learned skills such as word choice and imagery questions with ones which, to be honest, you can't really be taught to do.
I guess they're trying to make English accessible to a wider range of people. I don't know whether I approve or not, but they've done the same with music. 10 years ago you had to be pretty talented to take higher music. Now, you only have to be abrsm grade 4. And I think it's probably a similar story right across the curriculum.

[x_Jo_x]

hmm, i amn't complaining about the close reading papers being too easy. i think they're just right. I think some people sometimes forget that word choice can come under structure, language and style questions. My teacher has been drilling that into us from the start lol. this may seem strange, but i am somehow looking forward to getting this exam done!

[floss]

hmm, i amn't complaining about the close reading papers being too easy. i think they're just right. I think some people sometimes forget that word choice can come under structure, language and style questions. My teacher has been drilling that into us from the start lol. this may seem strange, but i am somehow looking forward to getting this exam done!

No. You should never complain about english being too easy!
Other than chemistry, I think English is possibly one of the subjects I have to remember the most for...
I'm dreading it tbh!

[maximus]

hmm, i amn't complaining about the close reading papers being too easy. i think they're just right. I think some people sometimes forget that word choice can come under structure, language and style questions. My teacher has been drilling that into us from the start lol. this may seem strange, but i am somehow looking forward to getting this exam done!

No. You should never complain about english being too easy!
Other than chemistry, I think English is possibly one of the subjects I have to remember the most for...
I'm dreading it tbh!

same it's the exam i'm most dreading, especially the close reading

[ross_rosco]

I'm not saying they are too easy, i'm saying they've been made more difficult by adding - and the guy a few posts up put it very well - questions which test one's 'sensitivity to language' rather than teachable skills. I for one, however, have been reading since the day i was born, and still struggle with these questions as there seems to be no skill involved in your answer, merely a close analysis of what daft wee bits in the text mean.