Do Better: Reach for the (A) stars in English - Part Two

By Herman Park

You might want to read part one before you read this.

3. Write your heart out

As much as you have to understand about how people write to express their ideas, you too will be tested on how well you can present information, convey your emotions and your thoughts on a subject.

In English Language, you will be given a letter or an article to write on a given topic. In the literature paper, you’ll have to assess how the writer or author was outstanding in telling you a story or delivering information.

Practice makes perfect! Just jot down notes for two minutes or so about something you watched on TV, especially the news. And if you have the guts to give it a try, develop your ideas into an essay and get it marked by your teacher.

Not only will this count as additional work which should complement your progress in the subject, it is also a proof of how you are maturing, of a personal value that cannot be ignored. (You might even want to contribute an article to something like… oh, say… Buster Studies :D - Ed.)

If you frequently write, such as keeping a daily journal, you’ll naturally get a sense of how to structure your work. Paragraphing, punctuation, grammar will all fall in place once you get the hang of it.

This is much better a way to write essays than trying to go through revision guides that give you a dull, almost maths-like, formula with boxes ‘introduction’ ‘main body’ and ‘conclusion.’ It will be a stupid idea to memorise that, you will naturally and more easily be able to express yourself if you get in the habit of engaging your readers and organising what you wrote in months’ time ahead of your exam.

Start today and see how you feel. When you are told to write, does your hand kick off like an athlete in a 100-metre sprint? Or does your pen get knocked out of your hand and your brain messed up because you didn’t take the advice?

4. Get ready for lift-off

In spite of English exams being structured so that you cannot pre-write essays and get a good mark, there are few things you can do to rev up for the big day.

One definite thing you should do is make notes in advance.

By that I do not mean writing essays on topics you presume will come up, but by underlining, and noting down page numbers for important quotes. So that when you get your paper in the exam hall, the words written there will act as reminders for what you already have in your brain.

Example

You are studying a poem and highlighted the following part of a sentence, “surely you must comply with what the nation’s highest ranking officer recommended,” and annotated your given pre-release booklet as the writer expressing a biased view with a discontent tone and fierce criticism, when you see the actual sentence in the actual exam where a fresh new copy of pre-release booklet will meet you, it should prompt in your head the following which is what you studied and annotated before: the writer expressing a biased view with a discontent tone and fierce criticism.

For literature paper, you do not have the luxury of time to flick through pages and find quotes. They should be in your head: it’s best if you can memorise them all but most are hard to do. Therefore, you should make careful observation of what chapter or page your wanted quote appears, so that you can support your view in your essay with them, quickly and efficiently.

So there you have it. FOUR simple stages that’ll turn you into an English genius.

It doesn’t take an intrinsic super-mechanical brain to figure out the rest. As Einstein once said, a genius is made 99% of effort and 1% of intelligence. It’s all worth it.