Transcription
In this grade 12 English video, we are preparing for the 2025 October November finals and we are looking into the exam scope of your English home language paper 3. We have already covered the English uh first additional language paper 3 scope. So if you're doing first additional language, go make sure that you look at that one. This one is for specifically those of you who are doing English home language. Now we are going to look at what goes into your paper and how to best prepare for it.
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Your paper three question paper is going to consist of two compulsory sections. Meaning that in each of these sections you will have to answer at least one question. Starting with section A. The section A is the essay writing section where you have to write an essay of a maximum 450 words for a total of 50 marks. And the way they break down that 50 marks is that the content and planning by planning we mean the mind map as well as your first draft is going to be out of 30 marks. And then you have language, editing and style out of 15 marks. And then the structure of the essay is going to be five marks. So meaning that to get this five marks, we need to be able to see the intro, the body as well as the conclusion. If you are unable to finish that last part which is your conclusion that will jeopardize your marks out of that five mark structure marks.
Before we get into choosing the type of essay that you can write I need to just clarify that when it comes to planning you need to show both the mind map and the first draft. And by the way the first draft doesn't have to be a full 450 essay word. Okay? It is supposed to be just a rough draft. So you can write out your introduction, your conclusion, and then in the middle just plan how what each paragraph is going to be about. So you can write a first sentence, a first introduction sentence of each paragraph. But it doesn't have to be the full thing. And it needs to appear that is your draft. It needs to appear before your final answer canceled out with a clean straight line across it to show that it is just a draft.
Then when it comes to the type of essay, we have different types of essays. I personally recommend that you look into a narrative essay and a reflective essay. The reason for this is because they are the easiest to write. Uh the narrative essay, we are talking about storytelling. So you need to you're simply telling a story of an event that occurred in your life. The most important things that needs to occur in that narrative for it to be a successful story is that first you need a protagonist. That is the main character. Who is the story about? It can be about you. It can be about some somebody else. What were their intentions? Meaning that what were they trying to do? What were they trying to achieve? And then you have to get to the events. What made them make those decisions? What happened leading to the challenges that would have happened for them to try to intercept what their intentions were. And then in the end you need to show us how they overcame those challenges for them to reach their initial intentions or maybe there is a plot twist where they have a different realization and they now have a different goal. So so long as you have these five things your narrative is going to be an excellent story to get high marks.
With a reflective essay you are describing feelings. So you are still you could still be telling your story but your emphasis is going to be on feelings trying to make me feel what you were feeling in that. So that's why usually it looks back to a personal experience because if it's your personal experience you are in a better position to explain those feelings and then you also have to talk about it in hindsight meaning looking back because we are reflecting to reflect it means that looking back this is how I felt and you are now making sense of the feelings that you are feeling at the moment and it has to be very tone sensitive so that we can feel what you are feeling.
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Section B of your question paper is going to be long transactional text from which you are required to answer two of those questions for a total of 50 marks. Meaning that each one of them is worth 25 marks and you are writing for a maximum of 200 words for each of those. How the 25 marks is broken down is that theif the first 15 marks goes to content planning as well as format. So the planning we are looking at your first draft. There's no mind mapping and long transactional text but we need a first draft. The first draft again it doesn't have to be a full 200 words. You are just showing a rough format of how you are going to place things. And the format also needs to be precise meaning that if it's a formal letter we need to be able to see that it is a formal letter. Then the 10 marks goes to language editing and style.
The transactional texts are grouped into different categories. For category A. Make sure you prepare at least two for category B and C. Make sure you prepare at least three of them. Here we are looking at the list of what falls into every single one of your categories. First you can see that we have three categories. Clearly it is category A, category B and category C. And the way the examiner sets your test is that they take at least two out of category A, three out of category B and three out of category C. Hence, that is also the format that I recommend you use to prepare yourself. If you prepare in that manner, you would have prepared at least eight of everything that falls in these categories and there's no way that you you wouldn't be able to get at least two of those. Remember, what you are required to answer is you're only required to answer two and you would have prepared yourself for eight. So there is no way that you can go wrong because there is also an issue of but which eight would I know to prepare. Choose any eight. So long as it's two from category A, three from B, three from C. There is no way that at least two of those will not appear in your exam and you will be able to ex to a set. Remember what we are focusing on most is that you know the format and you have given the most appropriate response according to what the question is asking you. So when you are given a friendly letter, they will also tell you what the friendly letter needs to be about. So make sure that you stick to that script.
So speaking of a friendly letter, when we look into category A, you will see that a friendly letter and a formal letter is what makes part of uh category A as well as a curriculum vai and a covering letter. And then when it comes to category B, we have a formal report, an informal report, a review, a newspaper article, a magazine article, agenda and minutes of a meeting. In category C, we have a formal speech, an informal speech, a dialogue and a written interview or an obituary. You will also see that they have a section for the SAS that is the South African sign language. So remember I said to you that this was taken straight out of the exam guidelines. So it is the exam guidelines for everybody. So if you want to help a friend, you know somebody who's going to be writing the South African Sign Language exam, this can you can take a screenshot and share with them and tell them that that is their section. But otherwise for you, you have to focus on the ones that are above.
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