Now a days all most everyone takes a quantitative approach towards education. I personally believe in quality and today I am here to guide you in my own little way regarding how to produce a good quality answer in the examination paper. This blog is specially for students majoring in English Literature. Before I would like to focus on what mistakes you should avoid while writing an answer.
First I would like to mention a very important mistake that many students commit specially in case of poems but not so much in case of plays or novels. In examination most of the times a question on specific topic is asked to discuss. For example the question is Discuss the supernaturalism of the poem ‘Christabel’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In this case you should stick to the supernaturalism portion only. But maximum times students prepare a general critical appreciation of the poem and they tend to write the same answer for every question. These kinds of general answers might fetch you marks but it will fetch you only average marks. You should know a critical appreciation contains all kinds of information about the poem, but you are not asked to write everything you know, you are asked about the supernaturalism and you should strictly stick to it. Only then you can expect high marks.
Next I would like to point out why maximum students do not get marks. Demonstrating it in a very simple way. For example if it is asked what did you have for dinner? Maximum students will describe what is the meaning of dinner? What Indians generally have for dinner? How can the food consumed at breakfast, lunch and dinner be distinguished and then they finally describe what they had for dinner. It is a very wrong notion that English literature answers should not be to the point, and due to this wrong notion students unnecessarily amplify their answers. You can make your answers big but not by including irrelevant topics.
Next, you might have often heard that quoting critics enrich your answers. In order to follow this rule students have the tendency to start their answers with quotes end it with a quote and incorporate innumerable quotes in the answer. Now I would like you to note this that including quote does enrich your answer but only writing the quote will not add up to the marks. You need to quote a critic if the quotation is relevant to the topic you are discussing and further you should also explain the meaning of the quote and just below the quote you should write the reference from where it is taken. Suppose you quote :-
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
In the next line you should also mention that it is a quotation by Shakespeare from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (Act 2 scene 2)
Now finally I would like to explain the features of a good answer. First you should research a bit on the topic and then make it unique, and different from rest of the answers. Second focus on the content and not on the length. Third compare it with similar kinds of texts you read. For example if you are asked to explain ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte as a feminist novel you could compare it with other texts which has essence of feminism such as ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen.
Last but not the least I would recommend you that, you do not necessarily have to mug up the answers, but do prepare some points from before hand which you have thought of incorporating in the answer. Please do not try to make it up instantly on spot. You should remember that examination calls for time management, it is not the place to think and prepare answers but to produce the answers which you have already prepared.
No comments:
Post a Comment