I Exams

Why I love Exams Show what you know Celebrate your brilliance! The answers are there on the page! 50 % attitude 50 % skills and preparation

50 % Attitude Positivity – pair and share –What good things does success bring To you? To your future? To other people? Power Song Success Roadmap: a plan

50 % Skills and Preparation - The Reading Paper Skills: –What kinds of questions are there? –How do you answer each different kind? –What are the questions asking? Preparation: –How big is your vocabulary? –How at home are you with reading? –Can you only read one genre?

What Kind of Questions are there? Quote A Phrase Own Words Questions Imagery Questions Word Choice Questions Context Question Link Questions Sentence Structure Questions Comprehension Questions

Quote a phrase Questions These ask you to identify a word or phrase in the article Will often say write an example or copy three pieces of evidence Once youve found it, you copy it onto the question paper

Own words Questions Almost the opposite of Quote a phrase questions This time you have to show you understand the authors ideas, by putting it into your own words. Will often say Explain in your own words You dont have to translate every word – just the key ones

Imagery questions Imagery relates to how the writer makes you get an image in your head It relates to the five senses –Sight = visual imagery –Hearing = auditory imagery –Touch = tactile imagery –Smell = olfactory imagery –Taste = taste imagery! Also includes analysis of similes / metaphors / alliteration / onomatopoeia / oxymoron / juxtaposition / personification etc If you see a figure of speech (similes, etc) and you get the chance to put it in your answer, do it!

Word Choice Questions These ask why a specific word (s) is used You need to think about the connotations of that word Connotations are ideas that we associate with a word, for example skinny has both good and bad connotations.

Context Question These ask how the sentences around a word help you work out its meaning You need to show –What the meaning is –How you reached that meaning

Link Questions A Link Question asks you to explain how words act to join together ideas in a passage. They normally ask how the rest of a paragraph carries on an idea introduced in the first sentence Can be either a link WORD or a link PHRASE

Sentence Structure Questions Ahhh, the joys of grammar. No, not grandma, grammar. Sentence structure questions are about –Sentence structure Commands, lists, exclamations, questions –Punctuation Semi-colons / colons / quotation marks etc –Think about whether they are used from an unusual perspective, and why

Comprehension Questions These are easy Most questions are comprehension questions They ask for information from a wee bit of the passage, or from the passage as a whole… –… About the writers attitudes or ideas –… About ideas and feelings

Writers attitudes and ideas A lot of this comes down to tone –Tone is the voice writers use when they write –Imagine the writer speaking to you –We cant see the writers face, so we have to work it out from the page What tone is the passage? –Conversational / sarcastic / persuasive / comic / emotional?

Dont Panic! Try your best, prepare, but dont get in a fankle Revision – read some newspapers Other places –BBC Bitesize - ze/standard/english/ ze/standard/english/ –Revision guides –SQA – – downloadable paperswww.sqa.ork.uk –The podcast from my blog