*Bugga's Disclaimer*
As mentioned before, I am not a professionally trained teacher. Merely a former SPM candidate passionate in literature and a willingness to share. Whatever strategies I am sharing below are from my experiences and may or may not serve you as well as it did for me. Feel free to employ my strategies but bear in mind that they are not a magical solution.
Type-A Questions
Not much can be said about Type-A questions considering it's simplicity. But there are some things that should be considered.
Speed is of utmost importance when answering this question. Often, there are so many points that can be extracted from the text that you spend necessary time contemplating on which point to write down. So just forget about counting the number of words in each point and just choose the sentence that looks the shortest.
Also, paraphrasing is key to increasing speed. This should be something you are able to do effortlessly because if you can't, you honestly shouldn't be taking literature at all. Some teachers are averse to paraphrasing because of the risks that you might get it wrong but honestly, it is a risk worth taking in my book. (Note: do not attempt this in the BM paper lol)
Remember, five minutes max.
Type-B Questions
This is a typical SPM-style question whereby all you need to do is regurgitate everything you remember. Personally, Type-B's are the deal breaker questions for me between similar sections since there isn't any way to get around not remembering particular pieces of evidence bar a miraculous epiphany.
What I did was list down as many as a dozen points and then make sure that each point answers the question directly. You wouldn't want your answers to have any potential to be irrelevant, would you?
Then, I'd pick the points that are the most relevant to each other so to spend less time introducing completely unrelated points. (for example: if you're writing about a particular trait in characters, it would obviously be easier to give evidence of that trait being found in one character rather than three)
Between picking questions that force you to gamble between picking up a fixed amount of marks or getting full marks(basically if you have a question where you are certain to score at least six marks with strong points but no more; and another question where you are certain to score at least four marks but potentially up to eight with weak-ish points), I would suggest you go for the question with the fixed amount of marks you can score but only if you have at least six rock-solid answers to. You can afford to lose two and a half marks in every section of the paper, after all.
However, it is not a completely stupid decision to bombard the examiner with weaker points and pray. I would like to think that since this is literature, the marking scheme would be slightly more flexible than the other subjects. Having said that, time is of utmost importance so try picking quality over quantity whenever possible.
Type-C Questions
Organization of ideas is of utmost importance here. Unlike Type-Bs, you cannot just simply slap down everything for this essay. You will need to package and arrange everything nicely to ensure that the ideas flow smoothly(again like in Type-Bs, group the related ideas together so to prevent the essay from appearing scattershot) and link back to the central idea of the question.
The central idea of the question is usually the theme, moral value or message of the text. Most of the time, it can be very obvious but occasionally it can be a little tricky.
An example of an obvious central idea for the prompt phrase "Compassion is a virtue" would be compassion.
Sometimes, you need to distill the central idea. For example, "Respecting your elders is important" would require you to infer and determine that the central idea is filial piety.
Rarely, you get a prompt phrase that is a metaphor. For example, "We should not chase shadows when we have light". In these cases, it would be great idea to define the metaphor and then distill a central idea based on those definitions. If we defined shadows as unattainable desires and light as happiness, we can then construct a central idea: We should be appreciate what we have and not be greedy.
For the analysis part of the essay(where you put in your opinions), I would suggest to state your analysis in the conclusion of the essay instead of the introduction. Ideally, you should provide all the evidence and then analyze the evidence instead of providing analysis and then giving evidence to back up the analysis.
My justification for this technique is that if you attempted the latter, your analysis may be skewed to limit the amount of evidence you can provide. Remember, this question grants eight marks for evidence so it is imperative that you can provide as much evidence as possible. Hence, it is wise to provide all relevant evidence and then writing an analysis that can tie all these ideas together instead of trying to shoe-horn the evidence to fit into your analysis.
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Bugga's Note:
Hope this helps. Good luck, ya'll =)
Organization of ideas is of utmost importance here. Unlike Type-Bs, you cannot just simply slap down everything for this essay. You will need to package and arrange everything nicely to ensure that the ideas flow smoothly(again like in Type-Bs, group the related ideas together so to prevent the essay from appearing scattershot) and link back to the central idea of the question.
The central idea of the question is usually the theme, moral value or message of the text. Most of the time, it can be very obvious but occasionally it can be a little tricky.
An example of an obvious central idea for the prompt phrase "Compassion is a virtue" would be compassion.
Sometimes, you need to distill the central idea. For example, "Respecting your elders is important" would require you to infer and determine that the central idea is filial piety.
Rarely, you get a prompt phrase that is a metaphor. For example, "We should not chase shadows when we have light". In these cases, it would be great idea to define the metaphor and then distill a central idea based on those definitions. If we defined shadows as unattainable desires and light as happiness, we can then construct a central idea: We should be appreciate what we have and not be greedy.
For the analysis part of the essay(where you put in your opinions), I would suggest to state your analysis in the conclusion of the essay instead of the introduction. Ideally, you should provide all the evidence and then analyze the evidence instead of providing analysis and then giving evidence to back up the analysis.
My justification for this technique is that if you attempted the latter, your analysis may be skewed to limit the amount of evidence you can provide. Remember, this question grants eight marks for evidence so it is imperative that you can provide as much evidence as possible. Hence, it is wise to provide all relevant evidence and then writing an analysis that can tie all these ideas together instead of trying to shoe-horn the evidence to fit into your analysis.
___________________________________________________________
Bugga's Note:
Hope this helps. Good luck, ya'll =)
Thank you!
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