Language Arts Revision Guide Strand 1
Paper 1
1 – Writing Free Essay Situtional 30 30 60 40%1h 45 mins
Writing (formal letter)
Basically for me, I find writing the most challenging part of a LA examination. Therefore, I have vowed to devote more of my time and spirit on this section in the study of Language Arts. Of course, the most traditional advice on studying is to manage our time well and I'm here to say that the statement is most definitely right. We can't study every single tips on writing and improve just after one day can we? I don't think I can. Therefore, the key to this is to start early, I would not do last minute studying and instead, devote a few hours of my time everyday on writing. After I have gotten hold of daily studying time, the next step would be to look through all notes on writing and feedbacks from Mr. S. Revising once more at home is one of the best ways to study. Not to mention looking through the pieces of writing that I have done so far and making note of comments from Mr. S.
Obviously, school materials take priority over external materials so, only when I'm done revising for all the school materials, would I start to read over model essays done by teachers from assessment books. Through the years, I have found reading over model essays to be extremely helpful in writing as not only would it provide you with many creative possibilities to a situation, it would also enhance our knowledge of volcabulary.
Just recently, I had gotten unfavourable results from the latest narrative writing assignment and who knows, maybe the mistakes corrected by Mr. S would proved to be useful in the EOY examinations. A blessing in disguise indeed, only that I would need to make that blessing.
Paper 2
2 - Comprehension Comprehension Vocabulary 15 5 20 40 30% 1h 45mins
Summary
The main problem that I found in myself on comprehension in the past few months is that, my answers were too long and contained many unnecessary information. That was one of the reaons for the downfall in my comprehension marks last term. I did not have too much problem in summary although one of my problems was also, wasting the word limit and writing past many important points and not noticing them. To sum up, the main "theme" for the studying of comprehension and summary is - Tight Answers.
Althought time management and vocabulary knowledge for studying this section is important, but the most critical skill is understanding the very meaning of the passage itself. To achieve this goal, I will have to, of course look through every single comments, former work and notes in the comprehension area done in school. However, this time, I will have to practice understanding difficult meanings in the passage, that is, surfing the net for famous pieces of prose and try to understand their core meanings. I am not sure how effective this method will be but, I am sure this would help me to understand passages more efficiently and effectively within a time limit as proposed.
Practicing to write more tight micro-fictions could help with summary as both of these exercises' aims are to write tight. As writing micr-fictions are more enjoyable yet rewarding, it will definitely relieve stress and also improve my "passage-tightening" skills. With all these plans going smoothly, I am sure my grades would improve dramatically in the EOY examinations than in Term 3.
Paper 3
3 - Literature strand 1 Unseen prose or Unseen Poem 25 25 50 30% 1h 45mins
Novel - Animal Farm
So far, literature has been one of my best scoring components in LA and I guess its my passion and love for reading which brought me into that stage. Therefore, I would be most delightful to study for this section of the LA EOY exams. Obviously, the first thing we should do is to re-read Animal Farm several times. I know it sounds tediou but not for me as I just love to read. time seems to be whizzing past even if I were to read a piece of badly done plotline. The re-reading of "Animal Farm" should commence as soon as possible as I would need to re-read it let's say, about three more times to fully hold its contents in my brain and be able to handle the closed book exam. If I were to do last-minute reading, I would definitely not enjoy it and more importantly, I would only have read only halfway through, which is not beneficial. I have a study guide to Animal Farm at home and it has some really good content. Reading that guide several times will also be included in my to-do list.
As we already know that we will be having the choice of answering the "Unseen Prose" questions, I will definitely study for it instead of poetry. The first thing I will do is to sort of memorise the differet types of diction, sentence structure, figurative language tools which will be useful in analysing a piece of prose. Without them, all our analsis would be pointless and without meaning. The memorising would commence bit by bit everyday, and not memorising a whole chunk in just one day which would cause short-term memory. Reading more prose passages would also be important as it will help us familiarize with the structure of a prose and of course, I would also try to retrieve some past year questions on 'Unseen prose" and Literature, or maybe even paper 1 and paqper 2 from the library and attempt them with knowledge from the memorising so that we would be practising the skills often.
To end off, I would like to say that the most important thing for me is to sleep early and avoid sleep deprivation. I wouldn't want myself to fall asleep during lessons or studying would I? :)
