CSEC ENGLISH
Hello there! We know that your routine has been disrupted because of schools closing, but we want to encourage you all to keep focused. Even if those exams are postponed, they will surely happen sometime, so it’s wise for you to make good use of all the extra time you have to prepare.
Re-read your literature texts, noting examples of the themes, character traits and conflicts that your teacher has highlighted. Practice writing essays and persuasive arguments, keeping to the time allowed in the exam. Work through old exam papers. Learn some good quotations that you could use.
Have fun, too. And get daily exercise. But keep your eye on the ball: you need to use your time wisely to prepare for the exams.
Read on now, and see what you can learn from today’s page.
ENGLISH B—Writing about literary devices
You are sure to be asked to ‘comment on the effectiveness’ of a literary device in the course of your English B exam. Let’s look at how you can get full marks.
Last week we saw that you need to do FOUR things:
i. identify the device ii. show where it occurs in the poem/play iii. say what it makes you THINK iv. and say how it makes you FEEL
CSEC English
We have looked at the use of ALLUSION. Now we will turn to METAPHOR—a comparison of two things that does not use the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. We will use the metaphor ‘the men make marriages with their guns’ from Olive Senior’s poem Birdshooting Season.
If you think about that word ‘marriages’, you will agree that the men are not LITERALLY married to their guns, but they are more in love with those guns than with their wives!
Here’s our sample paragraph commenting on the effectiveness of Senior’s use of metaphor.
Olive Senior makes effective use of metaphor in the poem Birdshooting Season when her speaker says, ‘the men make marriages with their guns’. We are startled by the word ‘marriages’—especially when it is linked to the word ‘guns’. Marriage is about love, and eventually it is about children and family. Here, though, the men are abandoning their wives and heading out to a session of destruction instead of procreation. The more the reader dwells on that shocking metaphor, the more horrifying and monstrous the actions of the hunters appear to be. Cleverly, Senior has won us over to condemn the practice of birdshooting.
Check back and make sure that we have done the FOUR things we listed! Now write a similar paragraph on the metaphor ‘the rosette of my skin’ in Stewart Brown’s poem Test Match Sabina Park, following the instructions.
USING THE PAST PERFECT TENSE
To form the past perfect tense of the verb, use the past tense of the verb have plus the past participle: e.g. I had taken, you had spent, he had walked.
Usage: Imagine you are talking about TWO things that happened in the past, but one of them occurred BEFORE the other. When one event in the past PRECEDES another event, we need to use the past perfect for the earlier event and the simple perfect for the later event:
e.g. Dev Kavita.
had had
two girfriends before he
met
● As soon as she had stepped
shower, the telephone rang.
● No sooner had they arrived at the beach than they heard the hurricane warning over the radio.
Follow these examples and use the past perfect and
1. When the tourists (arrive) the staff already (set out) the deck
chairs.
2. Peter already (receive) the result of his driving test when we (call)
him last night.
3. The children (ply) their grandfather with questions about the war
he (fight in).
4. My uncle regretted that he (not invest) his savings in real estate
when the stock market (plummet).
5. Zenab (not see) her family for three years when they all (meet) at
the airport yesterday.
6. The sick man already (recover) when the ambulance (arrive).
7. He (lose) his phone, and so (not able) to call home.
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
into the
Here are two lists of words. Pair off the antonyms.
List A fatuous, skeptical, effeminate, casual, gawky, devious, heartfelt, cramped, annihilate, selfish,
List B graceful, formal, gullible, create, serious, altruistic, insincere, honest, manly, spacious,
Any new words here? Check them in a dictionary and then learn them!
SPELLING
Here are 15 words that are frequently misspelt. Ask someone to test you and see if you can spell all of them correctly. Check any new words in your dictionary. Write out any words that you couldn’t spell, and make sure they will never catch you again!
Opportunity, strenuous, strictly, tragedy, vehemently, vengeance, vicinity, villain, weird, wholly, width, willful, withhold, yield, zealous.
FIND THE NOUNS
Here are some adjectives. Can you find the corresponding nouns? (For example: weak: weakness, bored; boredom; certain, certainty)
Ambitious, courteous, brief, disastrous, efficient, fragile, grateful, horrible, innocent, lenient, melodious, normal, ominous, probable.
CAUGHT IN THE SLIPS
See if you can spot the mistake in these sentences:
● One of the teacher is my aunt.
● One of the student can report the matter to the headmaster.
Check the bottom of the page to see if your answer is correct.