Re: Called up Board of Studies regarding 2 related texts
Well, having read most, if not all of this thread... I'm about to repeat some things that have been previously mentioned. Firstly, I find it interesting that so many people were able to have such a discussion about this before Paper 2. For those of you who could because you were well-prepared enough, well done. Oh, and I'm about to start making generalisations, so if it doesn't apply to you, then ignore it. It would seem that the bulk of people who wrote two did so because they decided that they would have a better quality essay, or because they didn't read the question, or because they had only a memorised answer. I'm not saying everyone falls into one of these categories, but I think that's generally what happened. It should be simple to understand the students' reactions from both points of view. Clearly, the people who did one supplementary text would feel cheated because they had fulfilled the requirements of the question unlike those who wrote about two (or more), whatever the reason. The people who wrote two for some reason or another would like to be marked on all of the texts that they wrote, unless they feel confident about omitting all but one. Since English is not marked in a way that allows marks to be deducted for what you write, unless it contradicts or ignores the concept, we can be assured that no-one will be directly penalised for writing on two supplementary texts. However, as they are going to mark on the basis of quality, it is likely that there will be comparisons made based on depth, breadth and the quality and frequency of textual evidence. It is clear that if this is the case, the candidates who wrote about only one would have had the opportunity to write in more detail. This may not be the case for everyone. If there were two related texts, then you would do as well as someone who wrote outstandingly well about one if your essay was of a similar quality. So that's my opinion on the marking/whatever. A couple of other things I'd like to comment on: I'm sure that when people say that if you wrote about two texts you "couldn't" read, but rather "didn't" . The number of posts I've made has nothing to do with the validity of my opinion; whether or not I've read the thread does. It would be, in some cases, completely impossible to ignore supplementary texts beyond the first, especially when a response is well-integrated. The number of pages you write is not a standard against which you can analyse the marks. Some people write eight words a line, others write three, others write ten. Because this wasn't a short response, it adds up. I find that in exams I tend to write more per line, and more succinctly. So you can't compare in that manner. Finally, if someone's about to make the point that it's all over now, and that we should move on and stop stressing about it, I completely agree - this is my break from revising maths, maths extension, French, and English Extension, all of which I have next week. And I'm capped at the moment so the formatting has removed my line breaks. Yay!
