Had to see the questions of the new mother tongue marticulation exams:
http://www.hs.fi/viesti/yo09kevat/
I read a great portion of the discussion on the subject. The general attitude seems to be negative and despite the arguments given by those in favour I have to agree with the pessimists. When the entire exam is based on a single literary work it makes things difficult but when that work is a play, the results can't be very encouraging. I remember not once having a play as part of the courses in the upper secondary school (lukio). We concentrated on prose and occasionally poetry and columns but we never had any written exercise on analysing a play.
1. Millä keinoin Villisorsa-näytelmän ennakkoesittely houkuttelee ihmisiä teatteriin?
As one of the commentators pointed out, the question is ambiguous. Does the YTL want reasons given by the ad to encourage people to come and see the play or just to go to a theatre in general. What I remember from my own exam, my teacher pointed out that the YTL may do this on purpose in order to offer possibilities for variation.
2. Erittele henkilöiden välisiä suhteita näytelmänkatkelman perusteella.
Well, this is probably analogous to the subjects in the old exams that don't require much special knowledge on a particular area but what can be written based on the scool curriculum and one's own opinions. But my teacher also said that one of the things affecting the grade is the amount of other people writing on the same subject. Imagine how many people write about the one subject that does not require much of the special knowledge on theatre or the play itself (although the latter would very much be extremely useful!). Plus (well, actually, a minus) the extract was a bit too long to be read and analysed from three points of view in six hours, at least to someone with my type of analysing style (slow but won't need much revising afterwards).
3. Tutki Villisorsa-katkelman näyttämöohjeita. Mitä tehtäviä niillä on?
Excuse me? Stage directionals? If we never analysed a play, do you think we went through the directionals in the play given to the director, whispere and actors, to name a few. I mean, clearly that's easy for me now after Renessaince literature course (at the time plays were dominating the literary field, prose was overlooked as "women's literature" aka. bad, inferior etc.) but back then: nope. This would be the easiest, less requiring for independent thought, but due to knowing the theatre world well enough to answer to this question is probably the cause it's not that popular subject amongst the laudaturs.
4. Erittele ja tulkitse Villisorsa-katkelmassa esiintyviä symboleja.
Oooo, lovely, lots of Jungian and Freudian interpratation. The more outrageous, the better. "Ajatuksillesi kuulijan saat provosoimalla korkeintaan, maailma on huono." This topic is THE topic for the saying "you can claim anything as long as you can justify it". Yup, pretty much.
5. Millä tavoin arvostelijan mielipiteen kielteisyys näkyy arvostelun kielessä?
After reading the given material, the assignment shouldn't be that difficult. But again, imagine how many others write about this same topic.
There was one commentators saying that getting the full six points out of one of these does not require any backgound knowledge of the given subject. I know that is also what the YTL says but there's a catch: yes, you can pass the exam by relying on the given material.
"Tekstitaidon kokeessa tutkitaan kokelaan kriittistä ja kulttuurista lukutaitoa ja kielellistä ilmaisukykyä. Tekstitaidolla tarkoitetaan kokelaan taitoa eritellä, tulkita, arvioida, hyödyntää ja tuottaa erilaisia tekstejä tietoisena niiden tavoitteista ja konteksteista. Siihen kuuluu myös taito tehdä havaintoja tekstin ilmaisukeinoista ja soveltaa taitojaan sekä tekstin vastaanottamiseen että tuottamiseen."
http://abitreenit.yle.fi/yo-kokeet/ohjeet_aidinkieli_tekstitaito
If you write and argue your claims well, you might get five points even if you didn't know about theatre or plays anything in particular. But for those who want the six points, I do think the background knowledge is required exactly because it is not officially required! The ones to stand out amongst the 29 thousand others are the ones that display outstanding knowledge on the subject, knowledge that is not acquired at school but on one's own time! And that's why I would have been very angry if it were me sitting in that room yesterday with this paper: my goal is laudatur, six points of two out of three texts and that would not have been possible with this topic!
One of the notable aspects in the discussion forum was the use of the phrase "[genre X] didn't get much attention *at least in our courses*". Tut, tut: the whole point is that all the writers are given an equal possibility to have the six goddamn points! If one school has a teacher who takes their students to see a play once during each mother tongue course and have them write an analysis of the play, of course this is easy for them! But what about those who have never seen a play by professionals or read a play let alone write an analysis of it? No chance to get the six points.
Have to watch out for the rest: B level Swedish, A level English (which I've been doing ever since my own marticulations just for fun), C level Latin and Italian. The 'reaali' is so weird now that they're separated.
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My day began so well yesterday, feeling neutral. And then going to the university to have lunch and seeing K there, surrounded by guys as usual. It's a bit like she's "one of the guys" but it's so unnerving to know that whenever I see her with someone, there's at least one guy there with her. What is it that I'm always interested in the straight ones? Where's my fucking gaydar?
