My "Analysis of English Texts" Exam

Today the "Analyse de textes anglophones I" exam took place. Due a change of venue, we had to go to a lecture room in the Law Faculty. Some of us came in completely wet, due to a shower — it was pouring outside; I had arrived just before it started. The second-year studens were taking their exams at the same time, in the same lecture room, so that we were sit in such a way that we didn't have a fellow student in front of us.

The exam started at 9.00 a.m. when we all got the exam sheets. Our professor, Dirk Delabastita was helped by Ruth. Since this was an open-book exam, we had the syllabus, the theory, and the two books we had to read (i.e. Dracula by Bram Stoker) at our disposal.

The exam consisted in a reletively short list of questions, but we had to give fairly lengthy answers.

First question: recognizing fragments (i.e. give the title and the author), and situate the extract in the story. Thanks to the lay out and the lettertype of the fragments, it was quite (too) easy to find out where they came from, then to contextualize them briefly. I only fear I wrote too much.

Second question: we had to link these fragments to 6 different concepts that we came across in the theory. It wasn't so clear at first, but I think I managed to do it correctly, with a few sentences to explain my choice.

Third question: on basis of an extract from The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick, we had to underline the lines where the technique of external or internal narration was used, and then briefly explain why we did so and where there is place for doubt.

Fourth question: writing an essay comparing It Happened So Quickly by Enid Blyton and The Story-Teller by Saki. Those two stories weren't that difficult; just finding what was relevant to compare in those two stories forced me to write a draft of my answer to the question — which had to have the shape of an essay.

All that took me roughly three hours, plus another 30 minutes to re-read carefully and to add here and there several words and to correct a few spelling mistakes. (And I realized later that I wrote "biaised" instead of "biased". Fool me.) And notice that we didn't get a single question about Dracula…

I was quite exhausted when I gave my exam to Ruth. And I was hungry. When I got out of the lecture room, I had a little talk with some friends, and then I walked to my dad's car. We drove back to the Carmel (where I live) to take some stuff (e.g. clothes, books) home. In fact, I had to go back to Aubel because I had to go and vote tomorrow. At least, I had a proper meal tonight! (Instead of an fryed sausage with a small quantity of rice…) I talked a lot with my parents and my brother, about the exams and many facts in the news, mostly everything that had something to do with the federal elections.