CSEC ENGLISH

Today we continue to look at how you can get really good marks in your English B exam, and we have some exercises to improve your language skills. Read on now, and enjoy your CXC English page!

ENGLISH B - Getting good marks

You will only get good marks in the English B exam if you do these three things:

● Focus on what the question asks you to do

● Answer each section of the question fully

● Provide sufficient supporting evidence from the text.

Let’s look at a question that came on a recent English B paper.

Here it is:

“The stories ‘The Man of the House’ and ‘Mom Luby and the Social

Worker’ are both stories about economic challenges.”

Write an essay in which you focus on this theme in these TWO stories. For EACH story, describe the economic challenge faced. You must also discuss how the economic challenge strengthens OR shapes the children’s relationships with their parent or guardian. Finally, for EACH story, you must examine ONE technique used to portray the theme of economic challenges.

Notice, again, that there are THREE parts to the question. Here they are: a) What is the economic challenge? (4 marks for each story) b) How does that challenge strengthen/shape the child’s relationship

with parent/guardian? (4 marks for each story) c) Examine ONE technique used to portray the theme of economic

challenges. (4 marks for each story)

You must write on AB and C for EACH of the stories.

Here are rough notes for how you could approach this essay. (Remember, we are only giving you the BODY of the essay here; you will need to provide the INTRODUCTION and the CONCLUSION.)

Man of the House a) Single parent household with mother sick**; speaker says mother is ‘economical’ **with the fire-wood and the tea, which we realize means she is anxious about not having enough money; hesitates to call the doctor and sends the speaker to the pharmacy**; Minnie Ryan recommends whiskey, but the mother is worried about the expense**. The mother can only afford to give the boy a penny.**

The boy doesn’t quite understand that he mustn’t use so much firewood or tea because it makes the mother more worried about the expense**; boy feels proud to go for the whiskey and the cough mixture to help his mother**; the boy feels terribly ashamed that he drank his mother’s medicine**; he is relieved and comforted to know that his mother is better and has forgiven him**.

One technique is irony**. The speaker actually boasts to the little girl that he has a penny**, but we know that a penny has hardly any value**.This emphasises the poverty of the boy**.

(NB. In each section, we offered four points. 4x3=12)

b) c)

Mom Luby and the Social Worker a) Arlethia and Elijah are orphans living with Mom Luby.** Mom Luby tries to get ‘Welfare’ to help financially, but meets with obstacles.** Mom Luby illegally brews homemade c) b) corn liquor to help finances.* She needs to buy clothing for the children ready for school. ** She works hard running a diner.** Their food is plain and simple, and does not impress the Social Worker.**

The children are happy and comfortable with Mom Luby.**

They are amused by her playful disciplinary slaps.** They understand that she is doing her By Dr Joyce Jonas best for them, and love her dearly.** Her home is a fun place, with all the customers being friendly.** They are amused that she lies to the Welfare lady.** They know that Mom Luby generously helps lots of people in the community, and find her much more likeable than the Welfare lady.

One technique is contrast. Mom Luby is playful, resourceful, generous, spontaneous, loving and caring in contrast to the Social Worker, who is petty, unfriendly, critical, fussy about rules and regulations, unhelpful and lacking any sense of humour.

(NB. Again, in each section, we offered four points. 4x3=12)

Our total now stands at 24/25. We will get the last point if we use a transition word, like ‘Similarly,’ as we move from Story 1 to Story 2.

Check carefully how we ensured that we made enough points to collect the marks that are on offer!

WRITING A SUMMARY

Read the following passage carefully. Write a summary, in about 50 of your own words, of the evidence which proves that the lot of mankind has not really improved since the days of our ‘savage’ ancestors. (We have italicized material that you may need for your summary. Please do not copy it verbatim. You must put the information in your own words.)

Man, born in the midst of plenty, groans everywhere in dire want. The work of his arms, through the operation of the machines which his brain has invented, can with ease, convenience and even elegance, draw from the Earth all that he requires for his sustenance, comfort and pleasure, yet man groans in want. Millions of unhappy beings let their souls lie fallow and their animal spirits grow sour and sulky because their bodies know the pangs of hunger and cold, the elementary enemies from which their savage ancestors were abler to guard themselves in the forest than they in their glittering towns. Their dereliction makes them weak; their hunger makes them cowardly; otherwise, their indignation might have destroyed the flimsy fabric of our so-called civilization which so callously and so harshly weighs on their sufferings. Once the complicated machinery of Governments, industrial enterprises, shipping lines, banks, trade-unions, markets, shops, is put aside and we allow our thought to contemplate in all its nakedness the hideous contrast between, on the one hand, and Earth warmed by the lavish Sun, and bathed by the plentiful Sea which waters it with fecundating rain, an Earth whose depths abound with untold wealth at man’s disposal, and, on the other, the misery, poverty, unemployment, confusion, mistrust, disorder of man’s economic life, we stand appalled at the magnitude of our failure. Save for a few thousands, perhaps a few hundreds, of privileged demi-gods, where on this plentiful Earth is the man who can say his home is secure from unemployment, war or revolution? So that in this twentieth century, which has fathomed the Universe and found its limits, and which is now conquering the better guarded secrets of the atom, men are humiliated to find that the way to live and thrive in honest