Personal Edition Numero...Incredibly Disorganized
Provincial English Exam...Help!
I got this topic for a a personal edition by creeping on Sam Deckert's blog, because I knew he just recently added a lot. Here's the link to his personal addition about the Grade 12 provincial English exam- http://goo.gl/dK5Ih. If you didn't read it, he basically talked about how worried he was about it, how little time we have to write it, how it is worth SO MUCH...30% of our final grade...and that this exam could really make or break your chances of getting a scholarship at university. All I can think of in response to same is, ditto. It just...well, to be truthful, it just sucks that this is probably one of the most, if not THE most, important exam I will ever take in high school...AND THERE'S NO WAY TO STUDY FOR IT! We have honestly gotten no exam preparation and I...obviously, feel so unprepared. I didn't think a lot of people stressed so much over this exam...or thought about a lot of these results of it so much, so it was nice to see Sam's post! I've already got accepted into the U of W for advanced early admission...so my Grade 12 marks don't matter as much...but I didn't know what faculty I wanted to go into at the U or M so I haven't applied there yet...and their mark qualifications are so much harder! I am honestly terrified for this exam...not so much the essay or writing piece, more so the question booklet because 3 hours is NOT much time at all, and the questions are so...well, hard and they are pretty much made so people can bull shit their way through it. Everything is always exaggerated and no one is truthful. They just want to get an answer down. I always stumble over questions like these when there's a time limit. Plus, I know we're going to get stuck with an awful topic like Lines or something similar...I mean, I'm going into the exam with 100...and yes I know, I don't have to worry about a bad mark...if I got a 50 on the exam, my mark goes to an 85 which isn't tooooo bad...but becuase my mark is so high every point I get off on the exam lowers it by 0.3%!!!!!! Which makes it so stressful and way more of a difference than if I had started with a lower mark. I really hope I do well and don't start to panic while writing this...It's the question booklet that's going to kill me, I know it...
Some advice for you ( I gave Sam the same advice on his post):
ReplyDelete(1) Have a good night's sleep on the night prior to the exam, and eat breakfast the morning of.
(2) Spelling and grammar don't count on the Responding to Text booklet. So don't freak out if you misspell a word or two.
(3) Write as much as you can on the Responding to Text questions, but don't forget that there are usually at least 20 marks tied up in the reflecting, connecting, and writing variable questions which can be answered on days 1-4. Students usually bail out on those questions at leave easy marks on the table.
(4) Get creative on the writing task. Think about writing Twitter Fiction, or a series of Six Word memoirs. Students who take risks on the writing task usually get rewarded for it by the marker.