How to study for an English prelim/exam?

i've got my english prelim on monday and i'm absolutely * bricks, i cannot study for this subject to save myself!

what study technique would you recommend?

 

Which level is it? Standard Grade, Higher?

 

I just sat with the quotes and read them over and over. Then wrote them out and analysed them and kept reading it.

 

Higher

 

make plans for essays just using quotes ... i failed higher

 

Learn quotes , from the poems stroies uve been doin in class , practice close readings .

Dont worry about it its a prelim just keep studyin to yir final and ull be fine ,

 

any other suggestions lads?

 

i had to convince the head of English to let me do higher, as i only got a C in my int 2, so there's a good chance i'll be getting dropped to int 2 again if i fail it!

 

I dropped out of higher english after 3 weeks lol. Good luck mate.

 

Here's the best bit of advice you'll ever get when it comes to revising for close reading.

Go on the SQA website and you'll be able to find past papers for several years, WITH THE MARKING SCHEME at the back. All the questions are always in a standard format with a certain way of answering them, if you look through the papers and the marking schemes you should be able to learn this. Best to try a couple of past papers as well.

For the essay questions, just make sure you learn the quotes.

 

The best way to practice Close Reading is to do lots of past papers, then mark it yourself and see where you went wrong, and see how the correct answer in the marking key is right.
For the two essays, its a bit more difficult as you have to learn quotes. Make sure you know the key themes etc of the texts as it depends on the question and you have to make your text fit the question. You could maybe try sites like sparknotes or bitesize to help you with your texts.
If you have any problems then maybe ask your teacher for some extra help.
Don't worry I got 33% in my prelim and got a C in the final exam to get into uni. Good luck.

 

Pretty sure they canny chuck u out mate , its ur choice , they might recommend it but theres no entry qualification for higher

 

i just did mine mate the other week mate learn quotes from plays and stories for your 2 essay questions, and then go on the sqa website and do past papers that's what i done and relax don't worry about it a found it easier than i thought it was going to be

 

It is useful to sit and learn quotes to an extent, but what is more useful is just to try and have two good essays. Have one for your book, and have one for you poem or drama or whatever you chose. Make two good essays up, and then learn them inside out and practice fitting these essays to old past paper questions. When studying just do a particular years exam and do two questions under exam conditions. The four questions that come up for your prose question or other type there will always be one that you can adapt to fit that question. It is NOT absolutely neccessary to be prepared for 3 essays, i only prepared for my exam with 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding for my prose section and 'Othello' by Shakespeare for the drama section. I did my higher english two year ago which was before the folio was introduced and managed and A with this method - hopefully it can help you.
Also, for the two essays i only learned about 5/6 quotes to use for each - don't waste time learning 30 odd quotes for each essay it is totally counter-productive regardless what a teacher says.
Best advice is just keep doing exams at home and don't let yourself take it easy by passively reading over notes, but yourself under pressure and you can do well. Higher English is the perfect example of not having to be good at the subject, but being good at learn just what is required to pass the exam if you get me.

Hopefully this helps.

- Edit i just realised the exam is slighly different now, but this method should help anyone studying for an exam involving essay writing under a time constraint.

-Edit again - I completely forgot about close reading. For this i learned the past paper answers practically off by heart. Some questions come up again and again. Do as many exams of this as you can.

 

Books: Write down 20 or 30 key quotes...5-10 times. Know the jist of the story, obviously.
You won't forget them that way and even if you do you'll remember enough of a particular quote that little mistakes will be acceptable (which they generally are anyway). Remembering and quoting several may seem pointless but it informs the examiner you actually read and made a good effort to understand the book which can only be looked on favourably (e.g. could be the difference between a 69 and a 70 as all borderline grades are scrutinised and they might say give them 70 since they learned more of the stuff). Taking notes of writing techniques the author uses repeatedly is also a good idea.

Poetry: Just remember the *-* poem and learn as above. Usually only 30 or so lines. Techniques used are extremely important as well.

Write a couple of essays, or bits of essays about each topic.
Usually the questions (about books) revolve around a protagonist, the discussion of themes and how effective the author was in portraying it and your practice essays can simply be adjusted accordingly. Knowing a bit about the time the book was set can be useful (e.g. war), and comparing it to other books (or pieces of writing) will definitely get you kudos from the examiner.

Poetry is usually technical stuff like word choice, stanza construction and how the author did well to set the scene etc. (since this is key in poetry where there's only a few lines to do so).

Sat Higher English in 2004...been a while but get the past papers and you'll 100% notice the same questions come up every year but worded a bit different, or with a slightly different focus so it's easy to adjust practiced essays. Google the answer schemes as well so you know what the examiner is looking for...the quality of writing (punctuation, spelling) is obviously going to vary and is an almost natural skill but there are certain things they give marks for just for commenting on them regardless of quality.

Also, your prelim grade also doesn't determine your mark in the final so if you scrape a C it's not impossible to end up with an A in the final so if it's crap don't let it get you down (speaking from experience lol).

 

is it possible to do an essay for my english exam that i studied last year instead of one i studied this year? i feel a lot more comfortable with the poem i learned last year than the one i learned this year!

 

No idea, but I've heard of people writing about their "personal study" piece in the exam. My guess is "no" though as I've heard each piece of writing done for anything has to be a different text (a few people wanted to do a film done in Media Studies for English and I think were told no). In theory I think you could write about anything otherwise though, but the books chosen are normally good anyway as they've got plenty that can be written about plus the teacher's input and the examiners will get half the texts every year so also know the book well. Just about everyone's likely done at least one of Lord of the Flies, Macbeth, 1984 and Catcher in the Rye at some point during their English at school. I'd just go with the class book.

 

think so but maybe not if you did int 2 last year

 

what book/play/poems have you done??

 

For my Higher Exam, I just made sure I had 5 or 6 really strong basic quotes for each of my texts, quotes I could use for any question. If you plan essays with the general themes that come up, ie integrity, then I think you'll be fine. If you can write two really sound essays the close reading won't matter as much. I got a B last year and for my close reading I got 15/50! Just shows what a good essay or two can do to your mark.