8 replies to this topic

[Beth Robertson]

Hi
I am really struggling with my english and need it to get to uni and was wondering if there was any special tips that you have which you feel will help me to get my A or B in English. Tips for close reading and essays would greatly be received.

Thanks Beth

[will_789]

Hi
I am really struggling with my english and need it to get to uni and was wondering if there was any special tips that you have which you feel will help me to get my A or B in English. Tips for close reading and essays would greatly be received.

Thanks Beth

Theres a couple of great books out just now that could be an idea to buy! Take a pop into your local waterstones!

[Pete]

I highly recommend "Higher English Grade Booster". It's absolutely fantastic, and it covers a lot of stuff that you probably won't be able to squeeze into class time You might also want to try "Higher English Essay Skills" as well as picking up a book of past papers.

[Red]

As with all exams they always askyou the exact same question , well near enough, just practise some close readings and try to work out the best way to answer each type of question. Obviousely each reading is variable but if you can get a good way in answering should make this far easier. If you arent too good close reading is most likely where u will pick up most of your points but to get the grades you need decent essay riting to so also burn a few useful quotes from prose, poetry and play into your head and if all else fails on the day just right what you think it said they wont search through a 300 page novel to prove you wrong although doesnt work wih poetry or shakespeare english teachers have an anooying capacity to remember near enuff all shakespeares lines must be so they can all get together and bombard each other with choice lines in a over dramatic way during the sqa conferences. well gd luck nooone finds it easy so ur nt alone

[star1]

I highly recommend "Higher English Grade Booster". It's absolutely fantastic, and it covers a lot of stuff that you probably won't be able to squeeze into class time You might also want to try "Higher English Essay Skills" as well as picking up a book of past papers.

Yeh definitely recommend "Higher English Grade Booster" aswel...its really handy...it refers to grammar and critical essays!
i found it helped alot.
also write as many essays as u can ( im sure ur english teacher wont mind marking them...as hopefully u will see an improvement)
i did this and went from 39% to a grade D ( which is just under the pass mark) to a grade C !!!!!!!!!

xxx

[x_Jo_x]

What we've done in class is looked through lots of questions that seem to always come up in the close reading paper. We wrote down what questions meant what ie structure questions were asking for how long/short the sentence is, are commas used, parenthesis etc so we could link the question to what we were supposed to do

Another thing thats been drilled into us from the start is to 'quote and support' ie write down a quote and explain what it means or what signifigance it has towards the question. We were told always to quote even if you dont think you have to, just incase you could get a mark for recognising the point etc

[ice_illusion]

"How to Pass Higher English" was really good. I went from D to highC/low B level and ended up with a good B in the final exam becuase I was fantasticly lucky with the essays we got (they were almost the same as the last two essays I'd written in class). So do lots of practise essays too.

[x_Jo_x]

yeah, doing lots of essays has helped me immensly. Just by re-doing them and finding new questions that i need to twist has really improved my grade so far. I started out as getting C/B's or just C's but now i'm managing to get A's in my essays that i hand into my teacher. I've definitely seen an improvement in my work - even from the prelim!

[lipu]

Try doing timed essays yourself from the past papers and see how you get on. If you haven't yet then read the answer scheme at th eback of the past paper books - it's not comprehensive, but it gives you an idea of what the examiners are looking for each band of marks (this will then be something you can aim to reach in your essays).

What texts are you revising for your essays?

Here is a post from another topic on this forum that I used last year. It helped me improve my close reading grade.