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AQA AS English Literatre: Othello and Poetry (after the exam)

Hi, how did everyone find the exam?
I thought I did dreadful on it but I know my class thought it went well.
Also, does anyone have any ideas on what the grade boundaries could be and how many marks roughly you need for an E?

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Original post by EvieEmerald
Hi, how did everyone find the exam?
I thought I did dreadful on it but I know my class thought it went well.
Also, does anyone have any ideas on what the grade boundaries could be and how many marks roughly you need for an E?


Did you do love poetry pre 1900? (Poem: Garden of Love)

And I also think that the exam was extremely hard. The Othello question threw me quiet a bit, i was not expecting them to ask us about Emilia and Desdemona.
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EvieEmerald
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Original post by nehad.lamrani
Did you do love poetry pre 1900? (Poem: Garden of Love)

And I also think that the exam was extremely hard. The Othello question threw me quiet a bit, i was not expecting them to ask us about Emilia and Desdemona.


Yeah I did the Garden of Love too and my argument for that didn't really have two sides for it- I just argued that Blake presents love and religion as total opposites :/

Same! I really thought It'd be on Iago's character or even the tragic flaws of Othello but the fact it was asking for a comparison between Emilia and Desdemona surprised me and I just panicked.
Original post by EvieEmerald
Yeah I did the Garden of Love too and my argument for that didn't really have two sides for it- I just argued that Blake presents love and religion as total opposites :/

Same! I really thought It'd be on Iago's character or even the tragic flaws of Othello but the fact it was asking for a comparison between Emilia and Desdemona surprised me and I just panicked.


I tried to compare the poem to The Flea. So hopefully i picked up marks there but over all i struggled a little bit.

And exactly, I agree with you. That was such a stupid and annoying question. Usually they would put to characters together such as Othello or Desdemona. The whole bit about 'how does Shakespear use love in this passage and elswhere in the play' was confusing.. what points did u make about that question?
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I tried comparing to Remember but I called Rossetti a Romantic and I think looking back now she's a Victorian writer :/

The whole love thing confused me as I wanted to use destructive love but because it was just Emilia and Desdemona I felt like I couldn't include it so I mentioned failed and false love instead- if those are even types of love, I mean I know of Courtly, unrequited, unconditional, but none seemed to fit that question.
The points I made were not coherent at all- even trying to remember them is hard because I didn't identify 3 specific points of argument I just rambled on about how Desdemona is naive and faithful unlike Emilia who has a better idea of men possibly due to social class- all my 3 points were similar to this so if I get an E it'll be a miracle. I mean even the passage didn't have many iconic quotes in which I could analyse without having to spend a few minutes picking out terminology... What points did you make?
Original post by EvieEmerald
I tried comparing to Remember but I called Rossetti a Romantic and I think looking back now she's a Victorian writer :/

The whole love thing confused me as I wanted to use destructive love but because it was just Emilia and Desdemona I felt like I couldn't include it so I mentioned failed and false love instead- if those are even types of love, I mean I know of Courtly, unrequited, unconditional, but none seemed to fit that question.
The points I made were not coherent at all- even trying to remember them is hard because I didn't identify 3 specific points of argument I just rambled on about how Desdemona is naive and faithful unlike Emilia who has a better idea of men possibly due to social class- all my 3 points were similar to this so if I get an E it'll be a miracle. I mean even the passage didn't have many iconic quotes in which I could analyse without having to spend a few minutes picking out terminology... What points did you make?


Honestly, I just rambled. I made a reference about the end of the play when Desdemona forgives Othello for killing him and made a point about how they were reunited in the end by death. Then I linked that point to Rome and Juliet. But honestly I feel like I messed up that question. I reached a point where I was just writting random things hopeing that it would help me pick up marks. The extract that they gave us was annoying. I found it hard to understand what they were speaking about and in some cases what they were saying to one another. I totally messed up that question.
I did this exam today and was never told we were meant to compare it to another poem?????? :s-smilie:
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Original post by nehad.lamrani
Honestly, I just rambled. I made a reference about the end of the play when Desdemona forgives Othello for killing him and made a point about how they were reunited in the end by death. Then I linked that point to Rome and Juliet. But honestly I feel like I messed up that question. I reached a point where I was just writting random things hopeing that it would help me pick up marks. The extract that they gave us was annoying. I found it hard to understand what they were speaking about and in some cases what they were saying to one another. I totally messed up that question.


I ended up just writing random things too in the hopes of picking up marks- I can remember now that I talked about Desdemona and her father in Act one but I've no clue why I wrote that in a essay on similarities between wives. And I also wrote about William Blake having his first vision at the age of 10 but it had nothing to do with love or religion as it was more nature related I think :/

Fingers crossed for low grade boundaries and also nice questions on Thursday's exam- which texts are you doing for that one? I'm studying Wuthering Heights and Great Gatsby.
Original post by nehad.lamrani
Did you do love poetry pre 1900? (Poem: Garden of Love)

And I also think that the exam was extremely hard. The Othello question threw me quiet a bit, i was not expecting them to ask us about Emilia and Desdemona.


i thought the exam was way better than expected, and such a good poem too thats short but othello was so strange, really weird extract and question!
for othello i couldnt find much to write about so i wrote a lot of stuff thats more generalised and doesnt really answer/fit to the question but it is actual legit analysis, would that get me marks or not if it wasn't overly relevant to the question?
Original post by EvieEmerald
I ended up just writing random things too in the hopes of picking up marks- I can remember now that I talked about Desdemona and her father in Act one but I've no clue why I wrote that in a essay on similarities between wives. And I also wrote about William Blake having his first vision at the age of 10 but it had nothing to do with love or religion as it was more nature related I think :/

Fingers crossed for low grade boundaries and also nice questions on Thursday's exam- which texts are you doing for that one? I'm studying Wuthering Heights and Great Gatsby.


I'm doing Wuthering Heights which should be fine & The Rotters Club which I am dreading and so is everyone else in my class.
Guys remember we also have an unseen extract that we need to analyse which might be hard! I'm dreading that in all honesty.
Original post by nehad.lamrani
I'm doing Wuthering Heights which should be fine & The Rotters Club which I am dreading and so is everyone else in my class.


I've never heard of it- good luck though! :smile:
I did Othello and The Garden of Love too! Honestly I was very happy as i thought it could've gone a lot worse! But yes, Desdemona and Emilia was really unexpected and I didn't realise we had to argue both sides for the poetry?? I just kinda agreed with the question...I also compared it to At an inn
Original post by EvieEmerald
I've never heard of it- good luck though! :smile:


Google hasn't heard of it! I struggled to revise the novel because its a new novel that isn't known! Thanks though, I'm gonna need it.
Does anyone know if we get marks for structural comments on section B?? Because I spent the second half of the essay talking about metre and I'm beginning to worry that I won't get a good grade because I've focused on that so much :s-smilie:
Original post by socialdisaster
Does anyone know if we get marks for structural comments on section B?? Because I spent the second half of the essay talking about metre and I'm beginning to worry that I won't get a good grade because I've focused on that so much :s-smilie:


I think structure comes under A02 so you're safe! :smile: To be honest though I was kind of hoping for one of the earlier poems so I could throw in iambic pentameter or iambic tetrameter (I learnt which poems had which structures) and I didn't get to use either of those two haha.
Original post by Rachyray
I did Othello and The Garden of Love too! Honestly I was very happy as i thought it could've gone a lot worse! But yes, Desdemona and Emilia was really unexpected and I didn't realise we had to argue both sides for the poetry?? I just kinda agreed with the question...I also compared it to At an inn


I don't think you necessarily have to argue both sides in the poetry one but my teacher has encouraged us to do that because we could pick up A05 marks from looking at it from different perspectives. I'm glad you thought it well though :smile: and yeah I really didn't think they'd use that extract! :redface:
Original post by EmilyJade99
I did this exam today and was never told we were meant to compare it to another poem?????? :s-smilie:


Don't worry it's not a necessary requirement- it's just another way of getting A04 marks but A01, A02 and A03 are the more important ones as they're worth more points. :smile:
Original post by EvieEmerald
I think structure comes under A02 so you're safe! :smile: To be honest though I was kind of hoping for one of the earlier poems so I could throw in iambic pentameter or iambic tetrameter (I learnt which poems had which structures) and I didn't get to use either of those two haha.


Thank god! Garden of Love is in anapaestic trimeter (and tetrameter on the final couplet), and the structure was really interesting to me so I mostly wrote about that instead of language use. I did talk about pastoral vs gothic language though, so I reckon I've done alright :biggrin:

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