<p>i have the ib orals tomorrow on either William Carlos Williams Poesm, Bluest Eye, Shake Peare's Mucha ado about Nothing, and Annie Dillard essays....can anyone give some tips how to well during this exam...especiallly if i am stuck or summed up everthing in five minutes/....i dont that to happen......so please some good pointers</p>
<p>bump.........................need some help...really scared and nervous</p>
<p>Don't worry too much. </p>
<p>I finished mine back in January. I was really nervous and afraid I wouldn't fill the time up, but I had no problem. </p>
<p>[I'm assuming your format is the same as ours was]</p>
<p>There are a couple important things. First off when you get your piece don't even react to it, that just takes up time and takes your mind off the task. Just start thinking and writing notes. </p>
<p>During your mark up time you should organize your thoughts into a nice little presentation. Start with a basic introduction: what piece you are doing, the context and a basic summary as well as touch upon the major themes, conflicts and literary devices. </p>
<p>For me what worked best was to go line by line and analyze (I had the choice of Shakespeare's Hamlet or John Donne poetry) </p>
<p>While you are marking up make a list of important literary devices used in the passage. That way if you get stuck you can just refer back to that list and look for things you missed. Worse comes to worse and you are completely stuck just paraphrase a little bit. </p>
<p>Also you should try and not think about it. When you get in there you just have to do it. Leave your nerves at the door and just get it over with. </p>
<p>Tonight just go over your notes. Maybe do a practice one or two. There is no sense in any cramming. Just be prepared for any piece. </p>
<p>That's all I can think of now. I hope that helps a little. Try not to be too nervous. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>General Tips
1) Speak calmly. Don't rush.
2) Avoid trying to sound sophisticated- be yourself.
3) The tape recorder is just proof you did the commentary- don't worry about it.
4) As you deliver your commentary, make sure you're in the right place in your notes.
5) Identify the work and the author.
6) Where is the passage located in the work?
7) Have an introduction and conclusion.
8) Decide if you will organize line-by-line or by literary techniques.
9) Highlight passage; write brief notes about the details of the passage (not the whole work).
10) Answer the guiding questions.
11) State the obvious, but don't end there. ELABORATE!
12) Balance critical analysis with personal impression:
-Sense of questioning
-Acknowledging/working through ambiguity
-Consider alternate interpretations or responses.</p>
<p>Where to Start
1) In the introduction, introduce your plan and place in context.
2) Avoid just describing and identifying-what is the effect?
3) Look for descriptions of characters and characters' states of mind.
-______ makes the character seem...
-Based on ______, the character will...
4) Does this passage introduce or reinforce themes?
5) What words express thoughts or emotions? How do they create their effects?
6) What do allusions/images suggest or reveal?
7) What is the primary purpose of the passage?
8) Who is the speaker? Does this make a difference?
9) Is the vocabulary/diction important?
10) Is there any irony? Expand and describe its purpose.
11) How is form important? How does form fulfill the content?
12) Include literary techniques:
-Rhythm?
-Rhyme?
-Deviations in form?
-Breaks in passage?
-Stream of consciousness?
-Questions in passage?
-Transitions?
13) Make sure to cover setting, characterization, style, mood, and tone. </p>
<p>I'm sure you'll do fine. Don't worry about the tape recorder; only look at your notes if you need to. Speak slowly and distinctly. Keep your finger on your notes if you tend to lose your place. Make sure to follow your notes; they'll help you remember what to say. Make the best of your prep time. The 10-15 minutes will go by quickly. It's really not that bad. Good luck!</p>
<p>ty guys....its really helpful.....</p>
<p>wing it. j/k. study up to the last minute because the truth is that you will never be a hundred percent prepared so prepare as much as you can. sitting outside waiting for my turn, i was still shoving shakespeare down my throat. i had 20 poems and two books to cover. fortunately, i got a nice long poem to analyze and i had to rush the last few minutes to make sure i covered everything.</p>
<p>we had orwell and one passage was "A hanging."</p>
<p>I went in joking that I would get that one because this is gonna be my hanging, and I drew that one out of 25. lol</p>
<p>^
:eek:</p>
<p>Last year we got either the opening prison description in The Scarlet Letter, a scene from Macbeth, or a paragraph from A Room of One's Own. It wasn't "random" at all. The people horrible in English got Hawthorne, the ok people got Shakespeare, and the good students got Woolf. I got AROO. :(</p>
<p>Good thing is that she rated me a 25/30, which I find odd because I have a C+ in that class despite my best efforts.</p>
<p>I hate english....</p>
<p>lol. we had annie dillard, july's people and hamlet. am i the only one that absoultely loves analyzing annie dillard? she puts so much stuff in, it's ridiculous.. i got hamlet though. it's a pity... annie dillard would have been a lot better for my IB grade. .... and we had a kid get a 100% on his oral. damn him.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>thanks...this sucks, i have a fever, very nasueas, not feeling well....and i have to do it tomorrow.....i dont know how I will do it since i have a continous headache......what a TIME to get a fever</p>
<p>Well, my friend in right after getting back from knee surgery and she did fine.</p>
<p>Torn ACL + cartilidge damage....</p>
<p>what kind of IB oral is this? at our school we have to do panal dissusions ( debate on a topic) in groups..then we have to sit down with the teacher for another oral on a topic we choose one on one with the teacher and see asks you questions about it.
I m doin SL spainish</p>
<p>yea i already did that...thats for foreing language......this is for english though</p>
<p>oh..my bad..didnt read..I guess I am all spanished out! But I think spainsh orals are really easy because all you have to do is memorize everythig.</p>
<p>We had a random choice of 5 or 6 Hamlet scenes or 5 John Donne poems. </p>
<p>Some of the other classes had passages assigned. We drew them out of envelopes. I was so lucky that I got a Hamlet piece that I studied for like an hour the night before. I got a 7, so it went very well.</p>