Year 10 English Exam

[caffinatedloz]

For our Year 10 English exam this year, we had two hours (and ten minutes reading time) to write a language analysis piece and a comparative essay.

The language analysis was about an article responding to Greta Thunberg's UN speech. Although there weren't clear arguments, there was a lot to talk about. I wrote: an introduction, a large paragraph about the opening strategy, a smallish paragraph about the start of the arguments, a larger paragraph about the other evidence and a conclusion. Though it took me about 10 minutes at the start to annotate the article (plus plan my comparative), I finished ahead of schedule with an hour and ten minutes left to write my comparative essay.

The essay was about TKAMB (To Kill A Mockingbird) and Mississippi Burning (MB). The two possible topics on the exam were very broad. The first one was just "These two texts explore what is fair and unfair in the world." I chose the second topic which included a quote from each text and was something along the lines of "Both texts show how there comes a time when we are challenged to stand up for our views and values."

My arguments were:
1. Silence leads to injustice. (This is seen especially in MB.)
2. Principled individuals taking a stand takes courage but is ultimately what leads to change.
3. The stand that one person takes can create ripples in an entire community and encourage others to rise to the challenge.

I ended up finishing both pieces with 20 minutes to spare, which was great because then I had time to go back over them and edit both really thoroughly.

Has anyone else done their Year 10 English exam? How did you find it? How many essays did you have to write?