English (Paper 2): Discussion, Questions & Potential Solutions

[Joseph41]

Post all exam discussion and sample solutions for Paper 2 here!

[FutureLawStudent]

MOD A and C were generous questions. Mod B was tough.

I just did badly, it was hot as hell and everything seemed to fall out of my head. Fuck.

Oh well, my internal should still be 94ish.

[Blissisignorance]

Mod A- I wrote one of the most crappiest essays on intertextual relatonships between gender
Mod B suited Yeats perfectly
Mod C was good.
But, mod A was the one I'm probs gonna get like 12.

[holky]

Mod A was weird
wtf is a cultural conversation?? I just wrote about conversations and threw the word cultural in there like it belonged oopsy
Mod B was alright
I did Irish Airman and Second Coming and I think it went well - it may have gotten a bit rambly but I think it's alright
Mod C
I thought I was free from discovery
Again got a bit ramble, but I think it went alright

I think Mod B was my strongest, followed by Mod A, then Mod C

[emilyygeorgexx]

Honestly, thought it was such a good paper!

Was thrown by the screenshot from LFR for my Mod A, but I left it till last and finally figured it out when i got to it

Overall, pretty happy with my attempt

[Caitlynk_22]

Mod C - Pretty good.

Mod B - Also pretty good, they didn't specify. I was so surprised by how the exam was set up, once again.

Mod A - Disaster. Stupid Richard and Looking for Richard. When I was practicing I thought this one was gonna be okay but who knows. That question... ugghh

I'm happy with B and C, who knows for A.

[Razeen25]

I was actually really surprised how they didn't specify a specific question for each Module B text, and instead had just one broad question. But tbh that gave so much relief, and surprisingly I think I did best in Mod B.

What confused me was for Module A they gave an excerpt of The Great Gatsby and said "Use the following excerpt as a starting point of your exploration of this statement". I was like "should it be my FIRST sentence? or how do I make it the starting point".

Eventually I just slotted it in as my first piece of evidence for Gatsby, and I hope that's what we were meant to do smh.

[owidjaja]

I have no clue how to feel about Paper 2- I'm so exhausted lmao

Mod A: I was panicking because I had no clue what to do so I just kinda went with the idea that the similar issues discussed in Lang and Orwell's texts generates and maintains an ongoing cultural conversation. So when I was talking about corrupted power, I said something along the lines of Lang's warning on the impacts of corrupted power generates a cultural conversation on the nature of leadership- an idea that is maintained through Orwell. Something like that. I hope I interpreted that question right lmao.

Mod B: I was so confused. During reading time, I had to ask the supervisor to make sure that one question covered all prescribed texts because in the past, they had individual questions for each prescribed text. I chose Easter 1916 and The Second Coming because I kinda thought Yeats was uncomfortable with the idea of violence etc. I actually managed to recall my quotes because in Trials, I struggled trying to remember my quotes but here I recalled my quotes (or captured the essence of my quotes) and even included critics. Throughout the essay, I talked about how we as the audience need to empathise with Yeats' difficulty in understanding dialectical dilemmas because it allows us to acknowledge the uncomfortable nature of truth- again, paraphrasing.

Mod C: I found it a bit weird. At first, I kinda was just going with it but halfway in my essay, I finally found a voice for myself. I kinda talked about how the composers' representation of their personal perspective on how landscapes can be a form of (say) escapism encourages the reader to consider this as a possibility when experiencing new places. Considering how I didn't focus much on memorising Mod C, I was surprised I remembered my ORT quotes. I'm just hoping my analysis was of actual quality rather than me bs-ing throughout the whole essay.

I'm praying they can read my handwriting because my writing deteriorated towards the end of the essay. Since these questions were broad, I had more room to talk about stuff, but that also mean I wanted to include as much as I could because at that point, I was like "Pls notice my efforts marker" and threw in everything I remembered. I managed to write between 8-10 pages, but hopefully they was actual quality analysis rather than crap.

[jasn9776]

Mod A- The prince and ceasar: the prompt was okay, extract was though but i had read the book thoroughly so could easily integrate some quotes, 'cultural conversations' is a broad term. I dealt with morality, shaped by contextual concerns and the conversation is created by their disagreements in values and attitudes,
Mod B- fitted in the skin of a lion perfectly: similar to my trial question, about how his postmodern form subverts the dominant narrative to reveal uncomfortable truths about the treatment of migrants and evoke sympathy from the audience to appreciate their heterogeneous experiences as the book is ultimately a integrated whole formed from a pastiche various perspectives.
Mod C-People and politics:Was about representations of individuals and collective perspectives to manipulate audiences into revealing political truths. I wrote about the Crucible being representing the theocratic system to represent corrupt oppressive governments. He manipulates audiences into seeing Jon Proctor's morality as he fights for justice and reveals the truth of the effect on individuals who must sacrifice everything to challenge this abusive governance. Similarly for the film Selma.
Overall, I was expecting much worse and I'm very happy about the questions as they suited what I had prepared. Somehow I felt like time went more quickly in the HSC than in trials. Strange. and i didn't finish my mod c conclusion.

[Anthony0912831268762]

After sitting Paper 2 I felt confident with the 21 pages I had written.

Though, whilst exiting the exam and talking to the other guys, I realised that instead of "cultural conversations" I misread the question and wrote about "cultural conversions".

Since I have not answered what the question was asking, what is the maximum marks I could still attain?

[askaerdf]

Band 6 cutoff for advanced predictions, idk if its easier than previous papers?

[phunky]

I liked the Mod B and C questions, didn't really like Mod A - like what even is a cultural conversation??!?!? Wrote around 8 pages each, hopefully it's good!!

[Seanclair]

I was certainly expecting the worst for today following paper 1. Despite some differences such as the stimulus for mod A or the common question for mod B I thought it was a pretty generous paper.

Mod A: Anyone else do King Richard? I actually really liked this question and found the "cultural conversations" part quite interesting and nice to write about. I just talked about through a text's distinctive portrayal of values we see how context influences on a text, and therefore interxtetual connections creates a conversation about the cultures within a context. does that make sense? So like I talked about how in Richard there is a placed emphasis on determinism with Shakespeare condemning Richard for his self-determinism, whereas LFR encourages self-determinism (and then I linked this to the picture), thus stimulating a conversation about the cultures within each text. How did everyone use the stimulus?

mod b: wasn't the strongest cloud street essay I've ever written but It wasn't bad. the question wasn't terrible. I thought empathy and universal truths at least had a lot of relevance to textual integrity.

mod c:I did art of travel.  I was so happy with this question simply because it was broad. if I had gotten a narrow question I would've been screwed. can't even remember what on earth I wrote about because this was my last essay and my god I feel sorry for the marker having ti read my handwriting. I didn't really know how to dress the "collective" part of the question so I kinda just made it work somehow.

overall that paper was so much better than paper 1. at least we can finish English with some confidence we won't do terribly.
if anyone did the same texts Id love to hear what you wrote about.

[Gaz Bez]

After sitting Paper 2 I felt confident with the 21 pages I had written.

Though, whilst exiting the exam and talking to the other guys, I realised that instead of "cultural conversations" I misread the question and wrote about "cultural conversions".

Since I have not answered what the question was asking, what is the maximum marks I could still attain?

Mate I think you will do fine <3
- Gaz B

[Lilabear123]

I actually feel a lot worse about paper 2 than paper 1. I found the questions really weird? Like the wording and style. I was expecting them to be thematic i guess. Mod B was better than i expected though, since no Yeats poem specification and was very broad. Mod C was the worst for me. I think the broadness of it as well as the vague wording made it more confusing to me. Tbh, i'm not really sure how i went, as since i found the questions  kinda weird, idk how well i responded to them