I seem to be the only person not overjoyed by English Paper 2. Despite both Theme & Issue AND Cultural Context coming up for the Comparative, despite the Macbeth essay being incredibly vague and open-ended and despite three of the four poets on the leaked paper coming up, I still managed to mess it up.
Five minutes before the exam the papers were handed out. Everyone had their faces screwed up and pressed against the back of the paper to see if they could make out any of the poets’ names and various sighs of relief were heard throughout the exam hall as people saw that Walcott, Bishop, Keats and Montague had all come up.
When we were finally allowed to look at the paper I was overjoyed that both Theme and Issue and Cultural Context had both come up and started with Cultural Context. The question threw me a bit, there was a quote about the main characters in a text coming into conflict with the culture, but it then asked you to discuss how characters interacted with their culture in light of that statement. I was a little confused as to whether it meant for us to write about conflict, or conflict and other aspects of interacting with the culture. I hedged my bets and mainly talked about conflict, I hope to God I interpreted the question right.
By the end of the Comparative essay I was already half an hour behind and jumped straight into poetry. When I saw the questions I panicked a bit, they were all really specific. Usually there’s at least one or two which ask you to “Write an Introduction to the Poetry of…” or “Write your personal response to the poetry of…”. But no, the questions on the only two poets I could answer on asked us to write about Derek Walcott’s exploration of tension and conflict and Elizabeth Bishop’s interesting questions. In retrospect I really should have done Bishop. If I’d thought about the question a little more I probably could have answered it much better than Walcott. My Walcott essay was a shambles. Maybe it’s just the potry I’ve studied, but I’ver seen little conflict or tension in his poetry. In fact, Walcott is so laid back he seems to avoid conflict altogether. I had half a mind to say “actually I disagree with this statement…but Walcott does do a lovely treatment of the passage of time…” and just write the essay I prepared. I thought it might seem a little cheeky though, so I rambled on for four pages about how the conflicts he discusses are philosophical ones, such as the human conflict with time.
Not a good essay.
Macbeth was the second last question I did (though I can hardly count unseen poetry…) . I did the question about the horrible consequences of Macbeth’s murder of Duncan and I don’t think it went too badly, though I could only write three pages. I didn’t have much time to plan my essay though, so there wasn’t great cohesion between pragraphs. I also might have banjaxed a few quotes here and there.
Finally, with ten minutes to go until the end of the exam, I got on to unseen poetry, which was a complete and utter shambles. Got less than half a page written for the first part of the question (question 2) and literally only about three and a half sentences for the second part. I didn’t even get to finish my sentence as the superintendent was making sure nobody wrote any more.
I’m pretty disappointed. I know you can’t judge something as vague as English, but I really don’t think that the essays were the quality they needed to be for the grade I need to get. I’ll just have to start looking forward to Human Health and Disease now!
You probably did a lot better than you think! And there’s paper one…
Paper one wasn’t great either. I think I did ok overall, but not particularly well.
Just put it behind you and concentrate on what you have to do to get Med! There’s absolutely no way you can reasonably say you won’t get it because one exam didn’t go as well as planned.
Don’t give up!
Heh thanks for the encouragement you guys 🙂
Yeah hopefully Irish will give me a leg up!
I can never remember which poems are Longleys and which are Montague so i just didnt study either. And if an culu eacnamaiochta does come up i think i’ll walk out!
You’re going to do great,don’t worry. As far as I am concerned,you interpreted your CC question correctly, that was a nasty question on Walcott so anything vaguely representing “conflict” that you whacked down will serve you well, you’ll have gotten most of the marks for the unseen poem and 3 pages for Macbeth sounds grand unless it’s literally the biggest writing ever. Honestly,I’d say you’ve done really,really well. You’ll be treating my migraines in no time 😉
keep the head up girly!
i thought my poetry was ok-i done bishop, my comparative wasn too bad but i think i strayed off the point a bit- i done theme/issue! but anyway!
my macbeth was a joke! really was! it was the very last question i done cuz i hated the question that much, i dunno if my essay even fitted into the question! i kept referring back to the question every couple of sentences but i dunno if it was relevant!
id say u done absoluty perfect! u prob think u did alot worse! but as grace said-there was paper 1 aswel!
My guidance councilor is like one of the best in the country and he was saying that this year you should get into medicine with like 480 or something if you do good in the other test thingy you have to do. Im not interested in medicine, i just recall him saying that. He might of been talking about the courses in Munster only though. Well Good Luck to you anyway.
You’d want to get a supernaturally good HPAT to get in with 480 points, I think.
I don’t see what the big attraction to Bishops poetry is. I prefered Montagues question. I think marks are gained for just having the essay in the structure of a radio talk. I was completely thrown by Walcotts question. I would have like to answer that one but I was thrown when he said he explores tension cos I dont remember doin any of that with him!
Someone in our room clapped and shouted “Thank Fuck” when we looked through the paper at 9:30. The supervisor wasn’t impressed!
I’m sure you did well Elizabeth. As long as you answered on what the question asked yoy’ll pick up considerable marks 🙂
Sorry to hear you weren’t pleased dear. Here’s for hoping that you actually preformed better than you think. Important thing is not to let it have an influence on how you do in the rest of you exams.
I’m hearing that the Walcott question was a bit of a trick Q. Like, there’s no conflict in his poetry at all, apparently. Never studied Walcott myself, just read over him recreationally once or twice. Is it true?
yea stephen i wanted to do walcott too but was also put off by the question!
Theres conflict with his like religious beliefs and stuff, in ” a letter from Brooklyn”, No?
yea but thats only one poem pj
Yeah I heard on radio that there’s no conflict and we could’ve disagreed but I saw conflict with transience, love and death, religious, cultural and sexual identity? I don’t know.. I mean there’s no graphic war images but he’s a conflicted person (3 wives much?)
CC went awful for me. No time
Ya, thats a bullshit question, they must of gotten him mixed up with another poet, cus he is a chilled out poet. The guy/gal who wrote the question probably never even read his poetry, its the guys first time on the course so maybe.
If it’s any consolation.. Poetry didn’t go exactly to plan for me either. I think I may have used a Longely quote in my Montague answer. That surely can’t be looked on with much eh..”interest”.
You’ll get med! Remember the whole HPAT system ‘thingy’… it’s good :P.
AGUS… Gaeilge anois. Bhuel!
Don’t worry! No matter how bad you did I did ten million times worse. I left out the unseen poetry question altogether, bye bye 20 marks….I also did the Walcott/conflict question…inner conflict concerning religion…..pentecost, letter from brooklyn and saint lucia’s first communion,utter trivil which took me,wait for it, 1 hour and 45 minutes….yup you heard me correctly,fu-hucked
Elizabeth: “Yeah hopefully Irish will give me a leg up!”
I don’t know why but that was perhaps the best analogy of Irish ever!
There was a time when I enjoyed Irish poetry… I’m doing a scéal in the exam for the first time ever! That way I’m avoiding this whole recession thing. Cathal O’ Searchaigh might be a bone of contention for some…
http://vinegarhill.com/fairytale/
Don’t know if any of you heard but there was apparently major hatred of the JC Irish composition paper. Apparently they were tied down to “a storm”. Maybe they’ll be uber specific in this years LC paper.
Walcots poems have loads of tension in them. I learned Omeros,
i studied to five this mournin for english basically learning keats of by heart in case bishop didnt comme up i wnt trough 3 glasses of brocca boot and i sat in my violently shaking ever 5 mins or so i was not feeling well when ever i tryed to go asleep by mind or body just wouldnt let we so when i lie down it felt like i was sinkin trough my bed real freckin shit proble from lack of sleep!!!
ne way paper was class i must say as in the exam paper ended up doing keats the crucible question two cultural context !!! i realised i have such a weird way of writting when it comes to essays i never noticed got it all done with 5 minutes to spare to look over it !!!
i hope i get a c1 over all that would be sooooo great !!!
peace out!!
xxxxxxx
thats meant to say borocca boost not boot
Walcots poetry has lots of confict and tension. In The Sailor Sings Back To The Casuarinas {‘masters…pain of history…inferior love’} the west indies colonial past is explored, same in Omeros {‘white slaves for a black king’}. In Summer Elegies the transience of love is dealt with {‘I peeled the papery tissue of my dead flesh away’} which could be turned into a conflict/tension with time. In Pentecost there is a tension between modern city living {‘rootless concrete’} and being at one with nature {‘jungle of the head’}. The Walcot question was doable, Bishops seemed fine, Montagues was the best. I just wrote the essay that I’d planned and added this theme is very clear.
{Sorry about the accidental submit above}
Also I think I read that two of his wives left him for beating them so all in all Walcots a pretty fucked up conflicted man
If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t mention conflict at all really, for Cultural Context. Not even a vague reference.
Meh.
You should of done the montague essay i gave you ^^
I ignored the CC quote and answered the question, quotes are generally there to through you off unless they are specifically mentioned in the question like in paper one a question last year went
“He gave me a darting glase” Write a SS where the character is a rebellious teenager.
Your clearly to write about a rebellious teenager not a character with a darting glase.
Actually looking at the question there, there’s the quote and then it says “…how the main characters interact with the CC…”.
I just did how they generally interact. Bit of an awkward one though! 🙁
Ok so did anyone actually do Montague except for Stephen?
How can you ignore Montague…. HE IS AMAZING… 🙂 was soooo happy when i saw him up..
I did the CC question just in general…oooh noo? & as 4 Macbeth phhft messed that up big time..had 2 pages wrote on the 1st question & realised i had a better answer for the second but I couldn’t start again..no time!
Unseen poem…I took from it that she wasn’t prepared to say goodbye to her father! Did i take that up wrong…prob!!
I sooo happy with that paper .. sooo much better than original… or is that just me? 🙂
I saw the cultural context question and instantly forgot what cultural context was. This took me to writing an essay on theme and issue which despite being infatically tedious and somewhat boring.. I kind of enjoyed. That’s not to say it was a good answer. But comparative in fairness, I’ll agree with those that have said it already is one of those qs.. which you hear of first and think.. “WHY?”. Anyway. It’s over.
HUZZAH!
keats question was nice 🙂
@Katie
I didn’t do Montague i just sent Liz a Montague essay out of the kindness of my own something or other ^^
I did Keats and the question pretty much was exactly what my essay covered. JK poetry is challenging, hard to work hard to understand purpose meaning etc yet found this rewarding.
Again with CC my essay constantly had interaction with character and CC so i only had to change one or two sentences eg Cannon and Gar
Macbeth was handy based it on Shakespeare presenting a well written tragedy and his ability for the audience to keep sympathy for macbeth at all times during the play. Had to kind of think about it for a minute or two to see if it would work which at the time was difficuly considering this freak beside me was crying tears of joys and punching the air in a dead quiet exam hall really wanted to tell her to SHUT THE F*CK UP!
Unseen thought it was alright not much in terms of images except the ending stanza and i interpretated it that the father’s mind had been damaged so much that the world outside moved to fast for him to comprehend as representing by the child in the train looking out the window being shocked by the fast moving images. Also sitting backwards indicating mental fratlilty collapse etc etc
I agree though im so glad i got this paper instead of the other one.
Why can’t i edit i dislike their being two Stephens in this comment section >_>
Yup, I did horribly in this paper.
^ I like how you think 🙂
Montague ‘s Q was fucking classiness!!! I was freakn for that paper but it was quite alright!x
Sorry Stephen had to laugh there:).. ‘the poet liked a chair’..just seems funny to write a poem about liking a chair:).. No but im sure you did class… Hell im sure we all did…A’s all round ….right!!!
I knew what was on the paper by 4.30 on Wed & thought i could get away with it.. haha.. anyone in this same suituation?
Anyone do Geo yesterday? thoughts?
hey hey…. don’t worry about it my friend….i feel the EXACT way you do right now!! You described my feelings with precision, everything i studied for came up, yet i just made a balls of the paper, partly from being overly excited that ”there is a Lord”….partly because half way through my brain fell asleep from all the pre exam cramming!
I have completely given up on counting English, just crossing every phalange available in the hopes that the rest of my papers go tremendously well and bring my overall points up!!…everyone has bad days right? i say we excuse ourselves….
oh ya AND if todays failure wasn’t enough, i scraped the side of my car due to my lack of concentration and frustration….i cried!!:(:(:(
onwards and upwards girlfriend!!
Rochelle x
@Katie
Thought geog was pretty handy actually was worried it would be horrible but it turned out alright
For conflict in the Walcott question I spoke on From Omeros, there’s political and racial conflict there, not _in_ the poem, but the entire poem plays hommage to it.
Saint Lucia, A Letter From Brooklyn- religious conflict.
To Norline – internal conflict. He wants to get over her but he still loves her etc etc
@Stevo
Really?
Ahhhh i dunno what to think about it! When i was doing it I was happy but came out & cried ha..
My friends & I had to teach ourselves the course in the last two weeks because of our stupid Geo teacher who was OBSESSED with photocoping Leeson St. notes…Arrgh I hate this LC! 🙂
@Katie
Haha shhh i go to Institute so i probably used those notes, as long as they were Jim Carbery and not James Campbell ones, as they were awesome. Campbell used to write jokes on them and i mean really really bad jokes like
What do geologists and fish have in common?
They both have scales……
I feel part of me die when i hear that joke.
I didnt think it was that bad like the electives went well, colonialism was something i forgot to study but i have a decent grasp of history so easily got 18 srp’s. Everything else just seemed handy BAR that question of the Wicklow map which wanted a feature of deposition couldn’t see any beeches or sand spits so said there was a head formed.
I agree Katie, Montague was brilliant! Especially the question! All we had to really do was say how easy his poetry is to understand.
Yeah I made a shambles of the unseen. I just saying things like “I liked this poem because of the use of repetition.” “I enjoyed this poem because there is a clear sense of nostalgia” I never actually said what the poem was about. But I did it last and I was scared to waste time by reading it over and over again. So all I gathered from it was that the poet liked a chair and she was on a train with her childlike father! 🙁
Oh sorry Stevo! I can change my name if you like! 😀
I completely agree about Walcott! He is no more conflict or tension related at all!
I think his and montagues quotes got mixed up or something. It was unreal, there is very little evidence of conflict evident in any of Walcott’s work! His whole idea was not to argue but to look at the argument itself! What the hell!
Btw Stephen “the poet liked the chair”….nice!
I got the urge to go home and put on one of my da’s jumpers. Each to their own
There’s no point giving up on the medicine hopes just yet! This is ONE paper, and it doesn’t sounds like it was actually that much of a disaster!
Chin up and float on, you’ve probably done a lot better than you think 🙂
@Aoife
I drew India poor examiner will think it’s a penis with a missing ball sack however
@Aoife
My biology teacher was doing Rhizopus with us and said
“Rhizopus, its bread mould. You’d all know that from seeing your resource area at the end of the year”
Yeah, usually I do better on stuff I think I’ve done crap on, and worse on stuff I think I’ve done well on.
Meh. Answer: assume I did crap on everything.
Emerald are you enjoying your wide fame from the independent constantly quoting you from your blog XD
Fuck that shit, i would of started charging the bastards by now. What do you think, lets say 5 euro a word?
The Independent? What? I thought it was just the Irish Times.
I was annoyed enough by the fact that the IT never tells me when they do it, but then again I gave them permission to do so and I was talking to the chick doing it and she seems to have a similar humour.
But the Independent? I’m going to assume you meant the Times, because if the Irish Independent has been quoting me this whole time without even telling me I’m gonna beat their shit down.
But yeah.
It’s hella cool.
Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.
It’s really you guys — the readers — who I have to thank. You guys really put this website on the map. And other cringy stuff like that.
Maybe I’ll take up a pet charity cause…
Yeah, somebody else left a comment about it.
I’m always the last to know
My Biology teacher used to always say:
Why did the mushroom go to the party?
Because he was a fun-guy!
*groan*
Geography was grand-ish.
Didn’t like that map either, couldn’t find deposition, think I ended up putting silting down, which isn’t really a feature, I don’t think. Meh. Also, didn’t like the plate tectonics in that question 🙁
Regional was grand, drew the funniest looking Ireland I’ve ever seen though 😛
Don’t worry, my experience was largely similar to yours… The Macbeth was too “nice”, like really too open ended for enthusiasm… Got three poorly scripted pages banged out, felt very down about it… Walcott was grand, like there was conflict if you looked… Even Summer Elegies has the darkness pervading the whole last half, internal conflict between love and it’s end. Just not a nice question, can see why this was the contingency and not the real.
Ha. Walked into a pharmacy today after yesterdays exam for some borocca boost. The woman at the till was like “everyones taking this shit, does it get you high or something”. Borocca Boost for life!
*woops scrap “today” from that.
@Stevo
At least it has a shape! 😛 My west of Ireland region is marked out as a circle around where Galway is…ish. The mountains are a rather large square in the middle, as I couldn’t decide where they were. My Dublin is amazing – totally makes up for it 😛
@ryaners
Our lockers were in our common room. I shudder at the thoughts of what they probably found in some of the unused ones. Blergh.
@Emerald
You know you, Grace & Marie were quoted again today?
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0606/1224248169192.html
🙂
@ Stevo
Nooo they were James Campbell ones…..But without the jokes… Gosh my school is lame!
Haa i said that about Wicklow too…
Ahhh nooo I messed up Bad… arrgh! & I keep thinking back on it which is sooo annoying! But hey other things were good woo 🙂
Haa so on Fri morning any examiners make ‘jokes’ about opening the right papers……….ha..ha..ha…..!
Is everyone reallllllllly tired …. or is that just me?
Exam jokes are cringe worthy though i felt i just want to get on with the exam
Yes wrecked but must stay up late as ill be confined to bed every night before 10 during week due to the amount exams take out of you =P
Ahhh this day next week it will all be over & im sleeping for 2 weeks & then holidays haaa
Arrgh French:(
lucky you i dont finish til the 18th stupid music exams!!
Ahhh not tooo bad you can go out the 20th :)))))
Hey guys! Just made a poll for everyone to vote on what biology chapters they think are gonna come up. Have your say in the Biology elections!
http://leaving-cert.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=89
well im headin out to gran canaria on the 20th so im really excited SO glad we decided to book it for right after d LC finishes!!!!!!!!!!!1
Ahhhhhh nooooo way… i have 2 wait till the 27th… suuucks haha..AYIA NAPA BABY 🙂
still only 3 weeks til the 27th youll be there b4 u know it
Hopefully.. We have to get over these lame exams first…..
Oooh how stoked i am…. Nawwt!
i just want to get irish and history over with they’re gonna b shit after that its not 2 bad
🙁
Most of mine is over….I only have Bio left… & obviously irish(meh), maths & french!
This is act a cool site too moan haha
yeah i have bio as well but i havnt had a chance to worry about it yet….but wednesday night ill be cramming like mad 4 it….dont think thats going to help much though
Aw yay thanks for the encouragement everyone! I’m feeling a bit better about English today (sleep always perks up my mood!) Looking back on Macbeth I wrote about 900 words, even if it was just 3 pages because my writing’s sorta small. It seems like a lot of people wrote about inner conflict and abstract tension for Walcott so that’s calmed me down somewhat! The only thing left to be kicking myself about is the Unseen poetry, but it’s only 20 marks and I shoulda got a few of them 🙂
Elizabeth you’ll be fine! Don’t worry!
Btw right now there are 1..2..3……12 empty lucozade bottles in my room. Ahh the tell tale signs of a leaving cert student!