HKDSE Lit Eng case studies
HKDSE Lit Eng · Put your knowledge to work in context.
Literature in English is one of the elective subjects listed under Category A: Senior Secondary Subjects in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE), the public examination system administered by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA). It sits alongside the four Category A core subjects - Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and Citizenship and Social Development - and is intended for senior secondary students who want to study literary texts in English as part of their HKDSE subject combination. The HKDSE Lit Eng case studies are 5 cases and about 4,643 words.
1The feature-spotter: 11/25 on the unseen poem
A candidate's timed mock on the unseen-poem question comes back with 11 out of 25. Her 850-word answer, on a poem about a family clearing a flooded house, names six techniques - enjambment, sibilance, anaphora, metaphor, caesura, rhetorical question - each correctly defined, and her quotations are accurate throughout.
913 words, about 5 min2'Macbeth is a villain': verdict versus dramatic method
A student's essay on Macbeth opens: 'Macbeth is a villain. Murder is wrong, and he chooses to murder Duncan, so the play teaches us not to be ambitious.
937 words, about 5 min3'Possible but unsupported': irony in an unseen prose passage
A candidate is practising the unseen-prose question on a passage written for the mock. It describes a retired stationmaster, Mr Achebe, who keeps a timetable of trains that no longer stop at his village.
917 words, about 5 min4Nine days to the SBA deadline: film, study guide and a classmate's idea
A student's school-based assessment portfolio is due in nine days. Her chosen text is a novel she has read once; she has also watched a two-hour film adaptation and read an online study guide's chapter summaries.
962 words, about 5 min5Which essay question? 'One location' versus 'what a character cannot say'
The essay paper offers a choice of questions on the novel the class has studied. A candidate has memorised an essay called 'The importance of setting', which surveys three locations and quotes eight phrases, none longer than four words.
914 words, about 5 min