Seminar 14 - EXAM PRACTICE Your mark will be a 10 if you accumulate 100 points.

The marks are allocated as follows: 1. 10 base points (nota 1 din oficiu). 2. semestrial activity 30 p, out of which - attendance 10 p (1p /seminar for 10 seminars) - portfolio 20 p (containing the 4 pieces of homework; 5 points each if it was brought on time and 2.5 if it wasn't); 3. final exam 60 p, for two subjects: one based on the texts studied during the semester, one based on a text at first sight. The exam questions will require you to apply the principles and techniques taught during the course to analysing a known text (question 1) or to analysing a fragment at first sight (question 2). Here is what the questions may focus on: characterization point of view setting plot framing genre style

Exam tips: - Make sure you know what 100 words look like in your handwriting - you need to be able to appreciate this because you won't have time to count words in the exam - Look at the task carefully and underline any key words that will help you decide what you need to focus on - Stick to the task and to the word limit - this is one of the marking criteria - Don't waste time on general information on an author (not even in the introductory paragraph), or on re-telling the plot - stick to what is strictly relevant to your task. - Dont philosophise about life in general remember this is an exam that tests what this course has taught you (the way you can use the tools we have studied in your own analyses of literature) - Make sure you have written your name and group on the paper - Dont forget to bring a picture ID 1. Set text question (30 points) - question based on the texts read during the semester. It will test your use of the critical concepts in analysing a familiar text (however, it will not be one of the issues discussed in detail in class). You won't be given a fragment to look at, so you need to be familiar with the texts. Set texts: - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice - Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange - Raymond Carver, Little Things - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World - Katherine Mansfield, Life of Ma Parker - Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat - Myla Goldberg, Going for the Orange Julius - Donald Barthelme, City of Churches - John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums 2. Analysis of a text at first sight (30 points) - will test your ability to apply the terms and concepts studied in a fragment from an unknown text. Task 1: The following is an example of examination handout. Look at subject 2. Decide on a possible plan for your answer. What would you begin with? What observations on the use of point of view could you

For each of these, you should make sure YOU HAVE UNDERSTOOD the terms and concepts in the lecture - understanding them is actually learning them; don't try to learn the lecture by heart, but try to see the logic behind it; see also how it is applied in text analysis in the seminars. To practise, try to use the checklists in the lecture to think about the texts on the seminar handouts; think about the texts you have read, and how the concepts you have learned can be applied to them (e.g. what you could say about means of characterisation in A Clockwork Orange). Or look at the fragments on the seminar handout and try to analyse them using another set of "tools" than the one that was used in class. (Note that there are texts where certain approaches or terms simply don't apply). Criteria for marking the final examination The answers will carry the same weight - you will have 2 questions, worth 30 points each. For each question, the points will be awarded as follows: - task achievement 6p - the answer expresses judgements which are sustained by arguments 6p - clarity and coherence; register (formal, academic English) 6p - background and/or text knowledge as required by the task 6p - appropriate use of terminology, concepts etc. 6p

include, and what examples would you use to illustrate them? How would you conclude?

1. Set text question (30 p): In about 250-300 words, discuss comparatively the use of means of characterisation in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. 2. Unseen text question (30 p): Discuss the use of point of view in the following fragment (about 250-300 words). She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise. As soon as the last bell had sounded, I would rush off for home, wondering as I ran if I could possibly make it to our apartment before she had succeeded in transforming herself. Invariably she was already in the kitchen by the time I arrived, and setting out my milk and cookies. Instead of causing me to give up my delusions, however, the feat 1 merely intensified my respect for her powers. And then it was always a relief not to have caught her between incarnations anyway even if I never stopped trying; I knew that my father and sister were innocent of my mother's real nature, and the burden of betrayal that I imagined would fall to me if I ever came upon her unawares2 was more than I wanted to bear at the age of five. I think I even feared that I might have to be done away with3 were I to catch sight of her flying in from school through the bedroom window, or making herself emerge, limb by limb, out of an invisible state and into her apron. Of course, when she asked me to tell her all about my day at kindergarten, I did so scrupulously. I didn't pretend to understand all the implications of her ubiquity, 4 but that it had to do with finding out the kind of little boy I was when I thought she wasn't around-that was indisputable. One consequence of this fantasy, which survived (in this particular form) into the first grade, was that seeing as I had no choice, I became honest. Ah, and brilliant. Of my sallow, 5 overweight older sister, my mother would say (in Hannah's presence, of course: honesty was her policy too), "The child is no genius, but then we don't ask the impossible. God bless her, she works hard, she applies herself to her limits, and so whatever she gets is all right." Of me, the heir to her long Egyptian nose and clever babbling mouth, of me my mother would say, with characteristic restraint, "This bonditt?6 He doesn't even have to open a book 'A' in everything. Albert Einstein the Second!" (Philip Roth, Portnoys complaint).
1) something impressive that someone does 2) by surprise 3) they may have to get rid of me 4) presence everywhere 5) pale and unhealthy-looking 6) crook, clever guy (in Yiddish they are a Jewish family)

Task 2: Look at the following (genuine) student's response and try to mark it according to the mark scheme above. Justify your mark. (The obvious language mistakes have been underlined - but not marked down as such)

The fragment of Philip Roth, Portnoys complaint is a description where the narrator is at the first person singular, because he tells what is happening in his life and what he thinks. This description tends to be more a journal of a chield where he talks about his life, especially his relation with his mother. I can say that is a short story about what is related in this fragment. In the final of the fragment we also have the description of the mother made to his chield. The author is relating the thoughts of the chield on his cruel word. The majority of his thoughts are about the kindergarden/school and his mother. He always imagin his mother being anywere. The narrator is not reliable because of the fact that he is only a chield and he doesnt know who life is and dont know the pearsons to have such a caracterisation. The action present in the fragment is not so complicated, because there are not many caracters involved or many places. It is a complexe description because he relates every steap he make and everiting he is doing, also he reproduce the words of the other people, his mother Portnoys Complaint of Philip Roth is a chield description and is not a reliable story. (215 words) Task 3:Would this score more than the previous answer? Why/why not? The point of view used in Portnoys Complaint by Philip Roth is a first person, intrinsic, internal and innocent eye one. The narrative voice bearer describes his views on the story he is involved in from the perspective of a nave child in kindergarten. The grammatical marks that point out the first person are the pronouns and verbs in the first person: I, was, my etc. The use of the first person point of view makes the reader sympathize with the character, he understands the reasons why the boy thinks his mother has supernatural powers, perhaps because the teachers agreed with his mother made him think it must be her in disguize. However, because the reader knows more than the narrative voice, for instance when he confesses to his fantasy, his mother might have taken it as a metaphor: the teachers were her in disguise meant that they told her everything he did or that they had the same principles as her. One can argue that because the story is narrated in the first person by an intrinsic narrator, he is unreliable, he himself being involved in the story as the main character. The reader only gets his biased perspective on the situation. Being a first person narration, we as readers get insight into the characters thoughts and we say the point of view is internal. For example when he says that was indisputable, we tend to believe him because we are looking through his eyes and we tend to sympathize with him.

In conclusion we can say that the point of view is used in all the ways described above to achieve a humorous effect by playing on the belief that children, who see their parents as ideal, have. (290 words)

What should the following students have done better? Which of the criteria did they lose marks in? 1. (Analyse point of view in the following fragment). My point of view is that the narrator knew the characters well, he knew all about them. The gentleman was kind, but she was a little bit rough with this gentleman. 2. (Point of view in The Black Cat) The Black Cat is a short story which is written from the authors point of view, using the 1st person. After I read it I still havent figured it out what kind of story it is. Of course Ive done some research and I came to the conclusion that it is a horror one. What can I say? It didnt seem like a horror story to me to be honest and I hope this doesnt affect my mark given the fact that the whole narration is based on the killing of a cat and on the interior struggle of the author. The story is told from the authors perspective. Who else can it be? Who else can tell the story? The cat???! 3. (Setting in a fragment at first sight) In this text is described a house called Higher Crowstairs and the place where the house is placed. Use of means of foregrounding because it tells us how difficult life is in this place. 4. (Style in a fragment at first sight) The work is a very strange and unsymetric opera. First of all, it has a main deviation, an external one, because it deviates from a precise style. 5. (Style in a fragment at first sight) I find it deviant to let work define you, because your job feeds you, it doesnt tell you who you are. I find also deviant that after the repetition I teach, she tells what she is teaching her students, and normally robots are built, not trained in schools. What should the following students have done better? Which of the criteria did they lose marks in? 1. (Analyse point of view in the following fragment). My point of view is that the narrator knew the characters well, he knew all about them. The gentleman was kind, but she was a little bit rough with this gentleman. 2. (Point of view in The Black Cat) The Black Cat is a short story which is written from the authors point of view, using the 1st person. After I read it I still havent figured it out what kind of story it is. Of course Ive done some research and I came to the conclusion that it is a horror one. What can I say? It didnt seem like a horror story to me to be honest and I hope this doesnt affect my mark given the fact that the whole narration is based on the killing of a cat and on the interior struggle of the author. The story is told from the authors perspective. Who else can it be? Who else can tell the story? The cat???! 3. (Setting in a fragment at first sight) In this text is described a house called Higher Crowstairs and the place where the house is placed. Use of means of foregrounding because it tells us how difficult life is in this place. 4. (Style in a fragment at first sight) The work is a very strange and unsymetric opera. First of all, it has a main deviation, an external one, because it deviates from a precise style. 5. (Style in a fragment at first sight) I find it deviant to let work define you, because your job feeds you, it doesnt tell you who you are. I find also deviant that after the repetition I teach, she tells what she is teaching her students, and normally robots are built, not trained in schools. What should the following students have done better? Which of the criteria did they lose marks in? 1. (Analyse point of view in the following fragment). My point of view is that the narrator knew the characters well, he knew all about them. The gentleman was kind, but she was a little bit rough with this gentleman. 2. (Point of view in The Black Cat) The Black Cat is a short story which is written from the authors point of view, using the 1st person. After I read it I still havent figured it out what kind of story it is. Of course Ive done some research and I came to the conclusion that it is a horror one. What can I say? It didnt seem like a horror story to me to be honest and I hope this doesnt affect my mark given the fact that the whole narration is based on the killing of a cat and on the interior struggle of the author. The story is told from the authors perspective. Who else can it be? Who else can tell the story? The cat???! 3. (Setting in a fragment at first sight) In this text is described a house called Higher Crowstairs and the place where the house is placed. Use of means of foregrounding because it tells us how difficult life is in this place. 4. (Style in a fragment at first sight) The work is a very strange and unsymetric opera. First of all, it has a main deviation, an external one, because it deviates from a precise style. 5. (Style in a fragment at first sight) I find it deviant to let work define you, because your job feeds you, it doesnt tell you who you are. I find also deviant that after the repetition I teach, she tells what she is teaching her students, and normally robots are built, not trained in schools. What should the following students have done better? Which of the criteria did they lose marks in? 1. (Analyse point of view in the following fragment). My point of view is that the narrator knew the characters well, he knew all about them. The gentleman was kind, but she was a little bit rough with this gentleman. 2. (Point of view in The Black Cat) The Black Cat is a short story which is written from the authors point of view, using the 1st person. After I read it I still havent figured it out what kind of story it is. Of course Ive done some research and I came to the conclusion that it is a horror one. What can I say? It didnt seem like a horror story to me to be honest and I hope this doesnt affect my mark given the fact that the whole narration is based on the killing of a cat and on the interior struggle of the author. The story is told from the authors perspective. Who else can it be? Who else can tell the story? The cat???! 3. (Setting in a fragment at first sight) In this text is described a house called Higher Crowstairs and the place where the house is placed. Use of means of foregrounding because it tells us how difficult life is in this place. 4. (Style in a fragment at first sight) The work is a very strange and unsymetric opera. First of all, it has a main deviation, an external one, because it deviates from a precise style.

5. (Style in a fragment at first sight) I find it deviant to let work define you, because your job feeds you, it doesnt tell you who you are. I find also deviant that after the repetition I teach, she tells what she is teaching her students, and normally robots are built, not trained in schools.