English exam : "Deceptively simple"

[Kotza]

IMO the last three year's language analysis articles are all really weird, and so different from the standard articles we analyze in class.

2008 - Very limited scope of issue. I usually use "impassioned and widespread debate" in my first sentence, and I had to use something else for this article because "widespread debate" is not quite accurate. Also the bold subheadings that were placed throughout the piece. No publication date. Very rich image though.

2009 - SOOOOO LONG =.= Took me 3 minutes to read the whole thing when it usually takes 1-2 minutes at most. When I did it, I had to skip so much of the stuff in the 2nd half of the article. And the bare photograph devoid of content doesn't help either. Genderless author too =/ Stupid podcast extract that makes no sense at all. Heaps of stuff to analyze though.

2010 - It's a speaker instead of a writer. Specifically targeted at the people in the conference who are leaders in biodiversity rather than a general audience. Two slides that you need to analyze rather than one image. The first quarter of his speech doesn't even have a that much persuasive impact =.= Normally I'm really in depth for the first few paragraphs, whereas there was almost nothing to analyze in the start for this one.

2008 would have been the best to analyse... its a mere article from a coach with the most blatantly obvious contention.

[appianway]

Seriously, how can an English exam be easy? The questions are always going to ask for an exploration of themes or characters, and hence the responses can be as sophisticated as you like. It's not a maths exam where questions can be easy because there's only one possible response; English tests your ability to construct an argument, to craft prose and to explore ideas. The only way in which an exam can be seen to be easy is if there are topics which are broad and typical enough to be known to the very bottom end students, and can hence create very simplistic essays. I don't really think you can have a hard or easy language analysis: if it's straightforward, you've got to somehow pick up nuances, and if it's complicated, you've got to achieve some sort of clarity in your writing.

[taiga]

Seriously, how can an English exam be easy? The questions are always going to ask for an exploration of themes or characters, and hence the responses can be as sophisticated as you like. It's not a maths exam where questions can be easy because there's only one possible response; English tests your ability to construct an argument, to craft prose and to explore ideas. The only way in which an exam can be seen to be easy is if there are topics which are broad and typical enough to be known to the very bottom end students, and can hence create very simplistic essays. I don't really think you can have a hard or easy language analysis: if it's straightforward, you've got to somehow pick up nuances, and if it's complicated, you've got to achieve some sort of clarity in your writing.

I agree with you completely.

I think to try and categorize an english exam into "easy" or hard is to misunderstand the task at hand

[stonecold]

Seriously, how can an English exam be easy? The questions are always going to ask for an exploration of themes or characters, and hence the responses can be as sophisticated as you like. It's not a maths exam where questions can be easy because there's only one possible response; English tests your ability to construct an argument, to craft prose and to explore ideas. The only way in which an exam can be seen to be easy is if there are topics which are broad and typical enough to be known to the very bottom end students, and can hence create very simplistic essays. I don't really think you can have a hard or easy language analysis: if it's straightforward, you've got to somehow pick up nuances, and if it's complicated, you've got to achieve some sort of clarity in your writing.

Whilst that article was dumb, certain topics were a lot easier than others.

I got very lucky.  First year texts had easy prompts, and I reckon the identity and belonging prompt was also the easiest of them all.

The 'conflict and bystander' one seemed awful...

[MBBS]

The first time I've disagreed completely with a newspaper article.

Seriously?

[m@tty]

The 'conflict and bystander' one seemed awful...

I had heaps of ideas for this, wasn't too bad at all, I thought ... problem was I only had 30 minutes to transpose them onto paper.

[lexitu]

The article was a "nothing" article. I agree with Shinny - completely pointless. It functions to fill up the newspaper.

This pissed me off though: "The Tintern students were taught examiners would be marking their expression, their ability to sum up their argument in the first sentence and their use of interesting, in-depth quotes from the English texts they studied."

Not all good essays need to "sum up [the] argument in the first sentence." Assessors do not mark students on their ability to use TEEL.

[jaccerz]

you know, historically, the context of "imaginative landscape" has always returned higher marks.

[lucaspawpaw]

The article was a "nothing" article. I agree with Shinny - completely pointless. It functions to fill up the newspaper.

This pissed me off though: "The Tintern students were taught examiners would be marking their expression, their ability to sum up their argument in the first sentence and their use of interesting, in-depth quotes from the English texts they studied."

Not all good essays need to "sum up [the] argument in the first sentence." Assessors do not mark students on their ability to use TEEL.

Agreed.

[awesomeman]

nah not deceptive, just way too easy, oh well i owned it anyway so it doesn't matter