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people who have done English Literature Specification A

hi guys,
how easy did you find the course? im really worried about the unprepared element of the course-----im not very good at understanding poems, or plays using older language under pressure, although im fine analysing them once somebody gives me an idea what they are about lol which defeats the point i guess.
is it just a question of practice?
did anybody feel the same but when it came to exam time, found they were much better at facing unprepared texts.
or would you recommend i do not take the course.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1

FuzzySheep

I found it awful, but that's probably down to having a terrible teacher for the unprepared half who was never in. Which one are you doing? I did Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature, is yours the same? I can tell you more about the exam if it's the same one.

I should say that my 2nd year is much, much better though, much nicer course. If you have good teachers, then you should be fine. They always give you a bit of context about the extract in the paper, and as it's skills based there's not much to revise for. You just need to be taught wider reading properly.

Reply 2

wasuup

Original post by FuzzySheep

im doing world war 2(which sounds so boring) and meaning of love for exams. hmmm im self-teaching which may be a problem- i have looked at a few past ones and I
guess thats the good thing that there's not too much to revise and you get choice but then i also feel much safer knowing more or less whats likely to come up lol.

Reply 3

Reaffy

I didn't hugely enjoy AS English Literature (but I think that is mainly due to the texts I studied) - A2 is MUCH better. But regarding your worry, in your exam you'll have a choice of two (or it might be three) questions for the poets you're studying; I did Larkin & Abse. But, often one question will specify a particular poem you have to refer to in your question, while allowing you to choose two others. But, there is also quite often a question that isn't specific at all, whereby you can choose the 3 poems you wish to refer to (but obviously dependent on the question). For example, a specific question would be:

'Discuss Larkin's employment of mortality within 'Ambulances' and two other Larkin Poems'

Whereas a none specific question would simply not refer to a particular poem, but obviously you've got to use your revision and memory from class as to which poems are best suited for the theme specified.

In the build up to your exam, you should go through the poems and allocate particular themes to each & which pair up best with each other, so when you sit the exam, you're not wasting time finding a suitable poem.

But, in class, your teacher will (or should anyway) go over most of the poems and certainly the MAIN ones with you, so when it comes the question, you won't be faced with anything that you haven't seen before. So don't worry about that, that simply isn't part of AS English Literature. However, in A2 English Literature, this DOES happen - you will study one poet (I'm doing Donne) and for the poem question, you'll have to talk about a poem the question paper provides you with- a poem that you certainly wont have seen in class before.

Reply 4

hello90

hey!
I'm re-sitting the AS course The Struggle For Identity... I really enjoyed the course. In my opinion, the more wider reading you do, the better.
But I got a C last year in the exam, but full marks in the coursework, so I got a B overall.
The only thing that majorly let me down in the exam was structure :frown: