English (Exam 1/5)
I have to say that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. The problem with English assessments, besides doing well, is trying to keep oneself not overly bored. I find that I write very quickly, worried that I’ll run out of time, only to finish with so much time to spare that I end up filling up a blank page with little stick figure men.
The exam was 15 minutes reading time and then three hours of writing. I chose to study the texts Oedipus and Night for the exam, and was very happy with the questions available for each. I’d been doing some past papers over the last weeks, and some of the questions in former years were killers. Those questions that deal with a part of the story you’d though insignificant.
So you do two questions each on a text. That takes two hours.
The next part is the part of the English subject which I hate and dread most: issues. This is where you’re provided with an article dealing with an issue you couldn’t care less about and are expected to write about. Blah Blah, half an hour analysing the persuasive language, blah blah, half an hour writing your own persuasive article on the same issue. Lucky me the issue was mobile phones in schools. Could have been worse I suppose.
Truth is I did finish early, but not by too much – maybe around 15 minutes. But I spent that time looking over my essays, making sure they were A) readable, B) at least half was coherent, and C) that I used mostly correct spelling.
And finally, it felt good to finish. I love the feeling that you get when you finish an exam and you think to yourself, “I’ve got all this useless information in my head”, (in this case quotes from the texts). Sounds weird, but it’s a good feeling knowing that you’ve got a lot of stuff that doesn’t matter if you forget about it.
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to forget on will. The exam was this morning (from when I’m writing this on the 29th), and I’m still finding myself thinking things like “Jocasta to Oedipus: Many a man has dreamed as much”. Oh well. I should be well on my way to forgetting Freud’s favourite character in a couple of days.
It feels good.
Next: Math Methods Paper 1
