English A subject report · November 2009

November 2009 Extended Essay reports Page 1 © International Baccalaureate Organization 2009 ENGLISH A1 Overall grade boundaries Grade: E D C B A Mark range: 0 - 7 8 - 15 16 - 22 23 - 28 29 - 36 The range and suitability of the work submitted This was the first set of essays from the southern hemisphere written to the new criteria and in general candidates performed most satisfactorily. There was the customary wide range of topics, from Shakespeare and Spenser, Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, to contemporary science fiction and writers like Roy and McEwan. As usual the novel predominate d, though a number of candidates stepped beyond the familiar to explore the work of African, Australian and New Zealand novelists. In quality the essays ranged from university level work that was critically astute, imaginatively researched, and well -written, through the routine and mediocre, to the positively inept. Fortunately, examples of the latter were rare and there were very few essays in the bottom E grade. Among the best essays were those that challenged a widely held view, such as the assumption that Pullman’s presentation of religion in His Dark Materials promotes atheism. In this case the candidate persuasively argued that the work is hostile only to organized religion and is at heart deeply theistic. Another candidate did well by arguing that The Lord of the Rings cannot be fairly categorized as fairytale or fantasy since the characterization of Gollum has the psychological subtlety that one may expect of a novel. This was straightforward and unpretentious, but distinguished by its careful close reading and clarity of argument. Comparisons between two texts that were made to shed light on each other, such as Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and Steven Berkoff’s play of the same name, were also fruitful topics. There was a sophisticated comparison of Tim Wint on’s Cloudstreet with Murukami’s Kafka on the Shore, and a lively and eloquent examination of the use of the underworld setting in Alice in Wonderland and Dante’s Inferno which displayed admirable originality and insight. An essay on ‘Economics and the Con trol of Individualism in Brave New