English: boring, predictable and oppressive

And that’s what I think of British people. Now, onto the Leaving Cert Higher English exam…

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the school subject. Actually, scratch that. I’ve always had a neutral relationship with english. And not the “I don’t really care one way or the other” kind of neutral. I mean an abusive relationship of ecstatic ups and terrible downs. English will spit into your face and bitch-slap you into submission if you don’t do what she wants. But as long as you follow her rules, she’ll be really sweet and nice and might even let you feel her up. English, in other words, unlike most subjects, has a titanic, towering ego. Unfortunately for me, so do I. We get into a lot of fights, and I end up with a lot of high-Cs and low-Bs.

English is a liar, you see. She tricks you. She says “in English, there is no right or wrong answer. But if you don’t write it right you’ll be wrong”
(Believe me, I’m as confused as you are, ladies and gentlemen.) The truth, is that there IS a right answer. English is just as cut-and-dry as mathematics. It’s just that english is very tricky and round-a-bout about it.

“What is your personal opinion of Bishop’s poetry?” — This question is not asking for your personal opinion. Oh how it looks that way, but it’s not. It wants you to regurgitate a bunch of crap about imagery and metaphor and similes and how she uses a lot of nice VERBS and ADJECTIVES which make it good. They want a simple, dull answer. Which sucks for those of us who are complex and vibrant. As my English teacher once put it: “your essays make for great reading, but they don’t engage with the task.” See, I think that’s the exam’s fault. They’re putting on airs of intellectualism, asking for ‘personal opinions’ — as if a stressed-out 18-year-old student has opinions on the pointless self-indulgence of feminist poets. And then they’re all WTF!? when they are met with an intellectual response. What they really ought to do is drop the bullshit and just say “Regurgitate some of that crap you learned about Bishop and then GTFO.” No ambiguity there.

However, the very thing that makes me hate it also makes me love it. It is by far the easiest exam to BS, because they’re not looking for facts, figures or even some semblance of understanding. They just want some bullshit. 75% of the test (to be specific: The composition section of paper 1 (25%) and all of paper 2 (50%) can be done before you even go into the exam. It’s then just a matter of remembering the key points of what you’ve already written down. Even the parts that are harder to prepare for — the comprehension section of p1 and unseen poetry of p2 — are very formulaic. Writer has a colloquial style with colourful language; Poet uses rich imagery and colourful metaphors; Photographs are striking and… colourful. It rarely even matters what it’s about.

I feel I should break this down even more, as a study aid:
Paper 1

Section 1 Question A is all about drawing from the text. Usually there’s one “state the obvious” question, one “features/style of writing” question and one “support a point” question, all with reference to the text.

Section 1 Question B is probably the hardest to prepare. It tends to be something gay like a radio interview/speech/letter/magazine article on some subject matter that’s retarded and meaningless (because, like, our generation can totally like, relate to retarded meaningless stuff and shit. Profound, intelligent subject matter is totally uncool)

Section 2: Compositionis fairly tricky, too, but usually there’s a pattern. At least, there is for me, because I’m planning on doing a short story, and usually they have a “write a short based on this picture” question, which means it’ll only take a few quick alterations. The trick is to prepare a story that has a vague theme which could be related to anything (and, obviously, to make it good). Usually my exam-stories suffer from either being ill-thought-through or having a rushed ending. Hopefully by keeping one in mind I’ll be able to make it flow evenly (and be able to add in intricate little details). It might seem easy to me, though, because my mind is kind of built for story-telling (so I’ll have no problem retelling a story verbatim two months after I wrote it). For the curious among you, it’s a story about an idealistic thief dude who robs a rich dude’s gaff and then (SPOILERLOL) realises that by selling off the phat lewt he’d be no better than the corrupt politician he nicked it from, so he breaks it all.

 

Paper 2

Single Text for me is Macbeth. Looks like it’s the same for the majority of folk. S’all about remembering those quotes, and slapping them in as much as possible (preferably in a way that makes some kind of sense). Themes of evil, deception, kingship, characters of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, all that doesn’t really matter. The stuff between the quotes is easily bullshittable, and a lot of the quotes apply to several themes. All you need is a fistful of quotes (and their context in the story I suppose) and you could handle anything. Blah blah evil blah blah *quote* blah blah evil blah blah sex blah *quote*

Comparative is probably the easiest to prepare. There’s really only three questions: Theme/Issue, General Vision and Viewpoint and Cultural Contexts. Terms overused so much by my teacher I shuddered when I see them. Every answer is exactly the same. Just a matter of remembering the key scenes and a few key points on each topic for each text.

Unseen Poetry is like the comprehension. Like I said before, just spout crap about imagery and stuff. They’re looking for key words on “the features of good poetry” or whatever, straight from the textbook.

Prescribed Poetryis predictable. Larkin, Rich and Mahon came up last year, which means they’re probably out. Montague the year before, though that’s less significant. Keats, Walcott and Bishop are probably your best bet. Personally, I’m only going to study Bishop. As much as I hate her, there’s a 95% chance of her showing up (there’s never been a year without a female poet, and Rich came up last year). Plus I can entertain myself by writing the essay with sarcastic undertones. The essay itself is usually quite straight-forward. A thinly veiled “regurgitate here” marker.

 

AND THEN YOU’RE DONE.

(Woo, about 1100 words. Is that a new record?)