NEW YORK REGENTS HIGH SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS
Comprehensive English
[Format]
Your Task:
Write a critical essay in which you discuss two works of literature you have read from the particular perspective of the statement that is provided for you in the Critical Lens. In your essay, provide a valid interpretation of the statement, agree or disagree with the statement as you have interpreted it, and support your opinion using specific references to appropriate literary elements from the two works.
Guidelines:
Be sure to
- Provide a valid interpretation of the critical lens that clearly establishes the criteria for analysis
- Indicate whether you agree or disagree with the statement as you have interpreted it
- Choose two works you have read that you believe best support your opinion
- Use the criteria suggested by the critical lens to analyse the works you have chosen
- Avoid plot summary. Instead, use specific references to appropriate literary elements (for example: theme, characterisation, setting, point of view) to develop your analysis
- Organise your ideas in a unified and coherent manner
- Specify the titles and authors of the literature you chose
- Follow the conventions of standard written English
[Critical Lenses]
- "... ignorance is never better than knowledge." - Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family, 1954
- "Much, however, of what we call evil is really good in disguise ..." - Sir John Lubbock, The Pleasures of Life, 1887
- "... only when it is dark enough can you see the stars." - Martin Luther King, Jr., "I've Been to the Mountaintop" deliver at Memphis, April 3 1968
- "... the truth is often unpopular ..." - Adlai E. Stevenson, Commencement Address at Michigan State University, June 8 1958
- "... the greater the difficulty, the greater the glory." - Cicero, Ethical Writings of Cicero, 1887 Translation
- "Circumstances are beyond the control of man; but his conduct is in his own power." - Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming, 1832
- "... it is impossible to go through life without trust ..." - Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, 1945
- "... fear is simply the consequence of every lie." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, from The Brothers Karamazov, 1990 Translation
- "No two persons regard the world in exactly the same way ..." - J.W. von Goethe, "Introduction to the Propylaen", from Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books, 1910
- "... we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world ..." - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1908
- "... men are at the mercy of events and cannot control them." - Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus, 1958
- "... although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it." - Helen Keller, Optimism, 1903
My add-on list
- "A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water." - Eleanor Roosevelt
