Study Hub guest Clodagh Havel from Dublin’s Institute of Education joined Study Hub 2025 to look at English Paper 2 – here are some expert exam tips and advice.
Taken from Study Hub 2025 – Hosted by Maura Fay
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What do you sleep and wake? Well, then legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Academy Award-winning actor Riz Akmmed there performing King Lear and City Hub has Claud Havl from the Institute of Education to guide us through English paper 2. Cla, let’s start with the format, the number of sections, the marks, and the duration of the exam. Sure, Mora. Okay. Well, the paper is quite long, 3 hours 20. So you need to have your stamina ready. Chronologically it starts with a single text. Now most students in the country will be doing the Shakespearean option which is kinglier. But if anyone’s listening that’s not doing kinglier as a single text. Don’t worry there are seven others that a teacher might choose. And if that’s the case then you start with that. But every single honors leaving search student must do Shakespeare somewhere and they might put it into the comparative. So there’ll be two questions on the sha uh Shakespeare tragedy. Uh one often kind of like a character-based question, another then is a theme languagebased question. Moving on from that, you have the comparative uh question and this year still left over a hangover if you will from COVID. We have all three modes coming up on the paper which is very exciting because it actually means you can go in with one mode and be guaranteed a question. So that’s really pleasant. And the other hangover comes into poetry. The prescribed poetry. There are eight poets on the course. Five will come up on the paper as opposed to four. And then of course we finish with the unseen poem which is the very last uh 20 marker which must be done in order to get your H1. A lot of people are exhausted by the time they come to the unseen but get over the line. Okay. So let’s start off with the single text. What can students expect to be asked here and how should they go about approaching it? Okay. Well, the there’ll be two questions on your single test and text and they’ll be they’ll have a different emphasis. Now, this is very loose. Okay? Because the one thing I’ll say about the single text, the clue is in the title. It is single. They expect you to know it inside out. So therefore, the questions will be broader. Okay. But if I was to narrow it down with experience, I suppose one will be a characterbased question. Now that can come under a good and evil idea like good characters, bad characters, not necessarily write all you know about King Leer or whatever. And then the second question will usually be some sort of language question. Uh could be imagery, it could be um you know kind of how imagery interacts with other like siloquays or whatever. But my advice to you here is don’t look at them exclusively. Go in ready to do both because one will blend into the other. One will enhance the other. So when I hear students going, “Oh, I’m just focusing on language.” It makes me nervous because you could actually use your language information to write a very good character question. Okay. So then can you explain to me the different modes? Like what are modes and how do they relate to section two? Okay. So that comes into the comparative. It’s like anything. What a mode is is a way of comparing something. So there are 48 texts in the comparative question and your teacher will take one novel, one play, one film and the idea behind the question is really a great interesting question actually. You compare the texts using these modes. So the first one is a cultural context. So it’s the unique world of the text. So for instance, say I’m doing never let me go. That is a dystopian futuristic novel. Compare that to Scythe, say John B. Keen, which is 1950s North Kerry. And then you’d compare that to Ladybird, Greta Gerwig, 2002 Sacramento America. And you look at the culture of that and you just see how the culture that these characters live in, how they affect their decisions and and uh and how they go about their lives. It’s a really interesting question. Running parallel with that then is something called general vision and viewpoint. And that’s about perspective. It’s about how the creator of the piece wants you to feel. So optimistic, pessimistic, laughter, scared, whatever. And how they trace that through their texts. And I, you know, sometimes it’s like who does it better? Did Gerwig do it better than Fel for instance or John Been or Izzy Guru or anything like that? So general vision and viewpoint is about perspective. And then finally theme and and issue is infinite. So any theme at all. So I mean you can talk power, patriarchy, love, violence, peace and you trace the connection between all three texts. And ultimately the best way to engage in a comparative question is to personally engage. That’s where the marks are to actually see how each writer affects you. That’s the H1. Okay. You because you mentioned there like infinite there is an infinite way amount of ways that you could compare two texts. So what is it the examiner is looking for you to demonstrate because it just feels a little bit overwhelming. Of course. Of course. And hope it’s about depth of understanding and I mean it’s it’s literally you know I I tell my students it doesn’t matter what theme you have. You can have freedom, you can have power, you can have love. It doesn’t matter. It’s to show your understanding of how the writer, director or playwright deals with that. And invariably one of them will appeal to you more. So it’s not to be overwhelmed by it. Trace it slowly and then ask yourself how do I feel about that theme and more importantly where are the key moments where that theme is best developed. So in the comparative question if you had about nine key moments in total on that theme you’re over the line. When it comes to selecting questions and reading through the paper what approach the students take here? I am a firm believer in a gut reaction. I really am. and and I and I and I’ll stick to it because most students will be able to answer most questions. All right? So, it actually comes down to something. Oh, I like that. Or if there’s a word that you’re not a thousand% sure of, see if there is an alternative. You need to absolutely commit. My best piece of advice is that commit to the question because halfway through you will feel a little tired. You might look at an alternative question and go, “Oh gosh, I could do that.” Well, that’s just your exhausted mind looking at the freshness of a new question. So, um it is a gut reaction. If you respond going, “Oh, there’s Yates.” If that feels good and you have Yates, you know, known real commit to that. It’s very very difficult for me to say what the the real clue is, but I do feel that inside if you have prepared for this exam, your gut will kick in. Okay. So, you’ve picked a question, you’re vibing with it. Yes. How do I structure my answer? Okay. So, you know, it’s a real case of say what you’re going to say, say it, and say what you said. English is about structure. The H1 student will structure beautifully. It will take the examiner through very, very easily from the introduction to the conclusion. I’m a firm believer in topic sentences. Every paragraph has to have one single developed point. Nothing else. Don’t f there’s no fillers, right? and you lead with a topic sentence which tells me what that paragraph is going to be about and then you do that and never ever start an English question without a mind map or some sort of guidance running beside you that you you think there’s my thesis you look at the question you go what is my argument what am I going to say here am I going to agree with this am I going to disagree with it or am I going to sit on the fence and when you commit to your thesis you trace that through in about 800 to,200 words. For most of us that’ll be about 4 A4 pages. And then you just commit with the topic sentence with about five, six paragraphs and you’ve got a structure. Everybody’s bane of, you know, existence is learning quotes. Okay. Is there a magic number of quotes I should learn? Oh, you know, it really is a case there. There’s two ways of learning quotes. You can learn them all off and make sure they go into that question, you know, and shoehorn. Oh, I’m putting those in no matter what. or you know you know that’s a H3 a H1 you will you will you will strategize your quotes if I was to say three quotes per paragraph I’d say there’s a lot of teachers around the country now saying no no no you need more but if you had three well-developed quotes per paragraph what is a quote quote is evidence you know what I mean that’s what it is and it backs up your thesis so you don’t want to you don’t want the quotes to become your answer all right the the quotes are to support your answer So, if you had about three in each paragraph, and if you have five paragraphs, I’m going to plump for 15 quotes per answer. Now, I know that sounds a lot to some and maybe others might have 30. Just be careful with the quoting and I know it’s like your porridge. Not too many, not too few, just enough. Okay. Okay. You’ve a handy unneic for here for people. What is PCM? Well, it’s not my pneumonic. actually the the the departments every English is so subjective right it’s that I can read a short story think it’s the best thing I’ve ever read you might read it and go not so much so therefore you have to standardize it in English and the PCLM is the standardized marking system P is for purpose literally are you answering the question asked closely followed by that you have clarity have you done that in every single paragraph lang Language is then how you express yourself. It’s often the difference really between a H1 and a H2. A H2 student’s going to know their stuff and they’re going to have the P and the C. Very good. The language, it’s the salt and pepper. It’s the little spice. It’s the way you say it. And then mechanics is your spelling, your grammar and so on. So it works 30% 30% 30% 10%. So every single uh question whether it’s a 100 marker or whether it’s a 10 marker actually has a PCLM marking system. My advice really today know it. Know how it works so that you can apply it to every question. Okay, let’s move on to poetry. The big money question, what poets are going to come up? Oh no. Well, this year actually um it’s very simple because there are five poets coming up and would you believe there are four women and four men. Happy days. So, gun to my head again. You could actually go in just knowing the women or you could actually go in just knowing the men, okay? And you are guaranteed a question. But it’s easier now to say what I don’t think is going to come up because of the five out of eight. Uh I think Tracy K. Smith is a banker by the way. I think she’s a banker and I think I think Hopkins and Boland are bankers who I’m less expecting. Wait, you’ll see the three of them will come up. uh who I’m who I’m not really seeing Platt. I’m not really seeing Elliot and I’m not really seeing Mahan. And uh if they do show up, I apologize uh in anticipation. I never like Platt. She was far too depressing. So, okay, the unseen poetry question. Talk to me about that cuz that’s you’re seeing this poem for the first time and you’re not fully sure what it’s about. How do I approach it? Okay, so my tip there is very very simple. You have studied 48 other poems that in the last two years you have studied on average six poems per poet. So with that you bring that knowledge to the onseen. It is merely a comprehension the unseen poem which you’ve done in paper one anyway. So what you’re doing is you bring your poetic knowledge to that new poem that you’ve never seen. So stop thinking oh my god I’ve never seen it before and look for about five techniques. Spot the personification. Spot the metaphor. Spot the ambiguous title. Spot the run online. Spot whatever it is that you’ve done in all the other poems. And through that you will eventually get in the region of 200 words out of that. So it’s called synesthesia. It’s the imagery. All right. The imagery of the eyes, the ears, whatever. You can always find out. No one’s expecting you to get in to the shoes of that poet and know exactly what that was about. But what you can do is personally engage with what is there for 20 minutes in some form of poetic answer and you’ll be absolutely fine. Fantastic. Just lastly and briefly, how should people use their time in this exam? Okay. Now, this is very rough, but it’s 3 hours 20. You have three big questions and one small one. So, I’m going to go an hour each question and 20 minutes. Now technically it’s a little adjusted because the comparative is actually 70 and the prescribed is 50. But if you went in expecting one question per hour with a 20 minute uh on scene, don’t leave until it’s all done. Okay. Thank you so much for that, CLA.