Language comes with practice, usually English Language is the subject on the first day of the ICSE Boards Examination. Although some students are under the impression of a Language paper being easy, yet sometimes due to anxiety, nervousness and stress, students land up making silly mistakes and wrong choices even while attempting the simplest questions.
To guide the students and put them on the right track here are a few tips that the examinee needs to follow while attempting English Paper I on the very first day.
1) English Language paper is also called English Paper I. The questions are divided into four segments under the headings like Composition, Letter Writing, Comprehension and Grammar. It is upon the students to spread out their time in a meaningful way so that each segment gets equal weight age as required.
2) Read the question paper very carefully during the Reading Time and make your choices in Composition and Letter Writing. It will be a clever move, when the examinee concentrates more on the descriptive type of essays rather than opting for other genres where too much time will be required to think and plan out. To be on the safe side it is always important to choose the topic that will give a lot of freedom to the examinee to express his views.
3) Avoid counting the words of your composition to check whether you have maintained the work limit or exceeded as it will take a lot of your writing time. You must have this rough idea of the number of pages that you need to include for a certain word limit before appearing for the exam. Remember examiners are not there to count each and every word but they are there to mark you on your meaningful content.
4) If you don’t have a good command over the language and are not confident enough to write out short and formal business letter, avoid taking up a formal letter. As it is time will run out if the examinee has to think and rethink the ideas that he wants to include in the body of the letter. So the examinee must attempt an informal letter to complete answering the second segment on time.
5) Before attempting the third segment which is Comprehension and Precis Writing, the examinee needs to read the unseen passage at least two times. The first reading should be done during the Reading Time when the student needs to have a brief idea of the theme of the passage. During the Reading Time the student also needs to go through the questions set on the passage.
The second reading should be just before the examinee attempts to write out the answers for the unseen passage. While reading for the second time, the student can scan and skim through the passage to find out answers suitable for the questions. Always use a light pencil to bracket and number the paragraphs highlighting the answers. This will help the students to find out the points easily without getting confused and wasting much of the time.
6) While attempting Precis Writing only include the points that are relevant and important. Avoid wasting time in adding unnecessary details. Do not forget to write the number of words used to compose the précis.
7) It is always sensible if the fourth segment on Grammar is attempted first. Grammar fetches a lot of marks and examinees can attempt this segment first, when they are relaxed and the mind is fresh. Keeping it for the end might give the students enough scope to make silly mistakes, as by that time the mind will be under a lot of stress in order to complete the paper on time.
8) Try to use simple language as far as possible while writing out essays or letters. Remember the examiner will not allot marks for flowery language that makes little sense and do not match with the content. Marks are usually based on Content and Expression for Essays and for Format, Content and Expression for Letter Writing. So in order to get good marks make sure that your content matches with the question and your expression must be with correct vocabulary, accurate grammar and simple and precise language.
9) Try making the correct choice and sticking to the same topic when writing an essay. Sometimes it happens that a student makes a wrong choice and begins writing. Half the way he gets stuck and struggles for ideas to continue. When he cannot, he scratches out the entire composition and starts writing again on a new topic. This leads to wastage of time and energy and as a result frustration starts boiling up within the examinee. So it is very important to make the correct choice while writing out a composition.
10) In the third segment of Comprehension, usually the students get stuck with Meanings. In order to find out the meanings of the given words, read the sentence again and again and try to understand the context in which the word has been used. Do not waste much time on this.
If possible complete the paper and if time remains, get back to this question and complete.
English Language might sound as a very simple and easy paper. But when it comes to writing out this paper, an examiner might face a lot of odds as planning and executing has to be decided on the spot.
Hence it is always good to be confident and most importantly be smart enough to make sensible choices from each of the segments.
No comments:
Post a Comment