Hey there,
I told you the other day I was going to give you the correction criteria for EBAU. The page I took them from is here. There are a couple of huge PDFs -all the subjects are included, as are last year’s exams, in all subjects (I haven’t checked for the ones that had to be repeated).
As for the specific criteria, these are of course very much linked to the precise exams. Still, the basic idea is clear, I think. At any rate, they serve as a very good guide as to how to respond to certain types of questions and, of course, what’s most important. The type of answer that’s expected of you, and how to word it, that kind of thing. Some of the things I keep telling you might appear overkill, (“Why do I have to put the line number if the criteria don’t specify that I have to?”), but in fact they’re strategies -both showing rigour and making it easier to double-check yourselves (remember the crazy/mad surprise?) Plus, once you get to uni they’ll insist you quote the right way, so you might as well start doing so now.
Finally, you already know that in some subjects, including English, the format of the exam is most likely going to change, in as yet unpredictable ways. As for that, apart from me keeping you posted: the idea is to get the exam into a shape that more closely relates to LOMCE. I guess you have a fairly good idea what the vast majority of teachers, at all levels, think of that law: some great ideas, a lot of really bad ones, and a huge gap between reality and legal basis. My prediction is, they’ll try to narrow that gap and stress the good ideas over the bad. Still, Manolo -the UEx coordinator for English- seems to have a certain liking for the following:
- Dialogues. Remember when you had to perform little dialogues in front of the class, and you wrote and tried to memorise them? Well, the written form, but at Bachillerato level.
- Finding and explaining the relationships between various images and/or short texts. Like, you have three definitely sexist ads and have to relate them between each other and to the world in general.
- Miscellaneous text types: take a look at the EOI: as it’s mainly for adults, they tend to implement some innovations way before we in Secondary Ed get to do so. For my C1, I had to write a leaflet about work-related stress and how to avoid it. The idea is to make things more “real”, but based on legislation that has little understanding of your reality.
So, what I want you to focus on -apart from language issues, that is- is strategies, especially those you know are likely to be of special use both at uni and in professional life, especially as relates to business. Mostly, it’s the kinds of things we’ll be emphasising, have been emphasising, in class:
- Fluency, especially in oral communication (OK, it’s a written exam, but what if you have to write a dialogue?)
- Constructing and defending strong arguments and their counter-arguments.
- The ability to express conviction in a non-confrontational way while demonstrating that you see both sides of the coin.
- Efficiency of expression: imagine that you are writing a speech, not a text to be read. That is, use the right level of lexico-grammatical complexity and variation. Don’t put in stuff to show you can do it, but use the most efficient and beautiful way you can to express what you want to say.
- A certain amount of self-deprecating humour: make your reader laugh at your jokes, and you win them over. Be the first to laugh at your jokes as long, and only as long, as you are the butt.
Alright, this much for that. Another thing I told you I’d do is give you the complete solution for the Gap Years worksheet. Just follow this link to the text. Please, please, have a good look at it, keeping in mind all I’ve said in this post and in class.
You can do it!
J