17th Jan 2011 - AQA AS English Literature A

Completely agree. The extract was so confusing and I agree about typicality - I couldn't link to any of the Victorian cultural commentary that I've read.

The whole "subtle point" thing I couldn't find at all

Me neither.

But don't worry, it was a hard text so hopefully the examiners will take pity and lower the grade boundaries a bit.

Do you know when we'll get our results?

I just found the whole thing a bit crappy I think :/

I thought the bit about factories and railways was good because you could just link that, but the whole Middle Ages thing was rather random I thought. I didn't really include women apart from mentioning them in the factory acts...
Did anyone do similar poems to me on the Hardy question?
xxx

Did "Drummer Hodge" on the Hardy question. Don't think I did enough linking between poems though.

The same goes for the context question - not enough linking, although I managed to insert a couple of good quotes. Needed more context though, especially as that's the main assessment objective. Oh, I'm so worried about this.....

I wouldn't worry. I got a U last year, AQA really ****ed things up for everyone in my school, and we are an english specialist school with people going to oxbridge to do english for crying out loud! They got looked into by ofqual so I think they will be pretty lenient this year. Besides, if everyone found it pretty difficult then the grade boundaries will be kinder xx

I got a grade E. Very disappointed. Really hope I don't get the same when I get my results sheet on 10th March or I think I'll just curl up into a heap and cry

I wouldn't worry. I got a U last year, AQA really ****ed things up for everyone in my school, and we are an english specialist school with people going to oxbridge to do english for crying out loud! They got looked into by ofqual so I think they will be pretty lenient this year. Besides, if everyone found it pretty difficult then the grade boundaries will be kinder xx

I got a U last year too in the exam - with an A in my coursework -_-
pretty much same situation loads of us failed and we are the boroughs top grammar school... I wanna do english at uni and people who dropped it got A's... I haven't spoken to those people since

Got it remarked went up by 3... gave my paper to my teacher and she just went "you have made a few assertions... but I don't understand..." says it all really.
Any of you get your papers back from the summer? It seems all of our papers got the same examiner who was really sarcastic - we would make a statement like "the extract gives a sense of whatever shown by the repeated use of religious terminology" and s/he would write "Really?" and just stupod comments like that
AQA are one of the banes of my existance, fast becoming on top!
Hope we all either do really well as it was hard or we all fail big time so AQA realise they are being ***** and do something to compensate!

OMG you are exactly the same as me; grammar school, english at uni, failed...

Our whole year got remarked, mine went up five marks, my friend's went from a U to a D?!?!?!?! Mental. Oh we had an examiner who wrote 'nonsense' and 'boring' on ours?! I didn't care if they are bored - they chose to mark exam papers!

If I don't get at least a B, and if not I will cryyyyy.
Where have you applied for english?

Boring and nonsense.. wow. Says it all really...
One of my English teachers (who is a proper bitch warning you!!!) is an A2 examiner told us they aren't allowed to be insulting/sarcastic
Reading, Kent, Porstmouth, Essex and Cardiff
all offers but Cardiff :/ (which was my favourite in terms of course - there were like no set modules you picked all of them including Norse mythology and stuff )
Where have you applied??

Same. I NEED an A in english for most of my universities so bleurgh. I wouldn't fret, I've spoken to so many people from so many different areas and so many different schools and loads of people seem to have got a D, E, or U. I personally think the examiners are just stuck up and dont understand we aren't university students - the exam is taken one year after gcse god sake!
rant over

Yeah, I heard the same thing. Lots of people were shocked by AQA's Eng Lit marking last year from what I've heard. But if the same thing happens this year, how the heck am I going to get to the uni I'm yearning for?