Unlike Maths,
an English exam is not something you can really cheat on. Often, there is no
right and wrong answer, because you usually include your own opinions and
discussions in the exam. However, one should also make sure to add some facts
to the paper, to make it more interesting and reliable. These facts can be
found on the World Wide Web.
 |
| Image from Google |
On previous
English exams, all you could do was guess what the topic for the exam would be.
Then you would spend time the days before the exam doing research on the
Internet, and making notes to yourself about the “imagined" topic.
I think that
letting us use Internet during the exam would be of great help. When you
know the exact topic, you will be able to find a lot of great and useful
information, to make the paper more reflected.
All you have to know is where to look for it. We should embrace the
technology we have, and make the most of it! In almost every subject I have at school, I use the
internet. Psychology, marketing, Norwegian, history..the list goes on. Internet is also of great help when I write texts and blog posts in English-class. It helps me
get inspired to write, and I really do believe that our exams will be a lot
more enjoyable to read if we used the Internet.
 |
| Image from Google |
When this is said,
it is imporant to make sure what we read off the Internet is correct. This we
can do by using more than three different sources. When researching a specific topic, I'll often
use Wikipedia, but it's important to remember to use other websites as well ,
such as articles written on bbc.com or cnn.com. CIA (Central Intelligence
Agency) World Factbook is also a trustworthy website, as the information on this
website is written by "well-qualified people in nearly all fields of
study". However, this does not mean one can copy the exact same sentences
from these websites, and paste it into their own paper. What I like to do, is
first read about the topic on several different websites, and find facts and
details that I find fascinating. Then I try to rephrase what I've read, by
using my own words.
 |
| Image from Google |
When writing, I also
try to avoid using the same words repeatedly. I'll often use Google to find synonyms. For example, I could
write "Lucky + synonym". It gives me 184,000 results, in 0.29
seconds. Now I know that other alternatives to the word "lucky",
could be: advantegous, beneficial, blessed, serendipotous, or fortunate.
Sometimes I like to finish with a good question or quote, like the this one
that I found at www.quotegarden.com:
Give a person a fish
and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they
won't bother you for weeks. ~Author Unknown
