AQA AS English Literature A May 2012

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Reply 60

Bevanite

Maybe you'd suffer a little for AO3 due to the lack of balance implicit there but I'd say you've nothing to worry about

Reply 61

Bevanite

I don't subscribe to the formulaic nonsense, I think they will be enamoured that you've made such astute points

Reply 62

lemongrass

Original post by agraham1994

the extract was weird to write about!

I agree. The form was EXTREMELY weird! Like seriously...

It was a report about a conversation, inside a letter.

That is three things at once! I had no idea what to focus it on because those things are so different, mainly I said it was informal because it was between friends and neighbours, and all middle class. Likely to be biased etc...

My links were mainly about middle class/working class divide. Made some references to role of women too, I guess that was partially relevant.

Original post by Charlotte49

That was basically my counter argument too :biggrin:

I think I said that and that he really wanted her to haunt him because he misses her so even seeing a ghost would be good. I kept thinking 'what the hell am I writing here....' all the way through haha

I said something very similar! Any argument is fine as long as it was supported by the text.

I wrote that Emma's haunting of Hardy was mainly self-induced... he surrounded himself in memories of her to ease her passing and come to terms with her death - like in 'Beeny Cliff' he visited the hills to remember her. Then I said he released his emotional pain and her spirit in 'The Photograph'... and by 'He Resolves To Say No More' he was focusing on his own death... So basically Hardy was just asking questions about life :smile:

Ahaa

Reply 63

samedi_

Original post by Bevanite

Maybe you'd suffer a little for AO3 due to the lack of balance implicit there but I'd say you've nothing to worry about

Thank you. Is that a truthful opinion? I mean no offence, but all my friends have been saying similar things so I needed to believe that you genuinely think that, sorry! How many marks do you think I would lose altogether?

Reply 64

Bevanite

You seem similar to me! I've been on the AQA UMS converter all day cross-checking with my coursework marks, praying for an A...what you write seems good, and obviously it would have been all backed up with quotations in the exam so I honestly think you'll be fine!

Reply 65

berryripple

Original post by Bevanite

My argument for Q1 was basically that Carlyle's letter was indicative of a sneering, dismissive attitude towards the working class on the part of the bourgeoisie...which was warped and clouded and contrasted from the reality of destitution - they weren't feckless and idle but they were victims of rapid industrialisation that sustained the avarice of the upper classes - linked it to Hard Times, AWONI, and Song of the Shirt although that was only a quick paragraph and managed to omit Thomas Hood's name and got the year wrong :frown:

For Hardy I did Q7 and argued Hap was appropriate as it showed his status as a reluctant atheist BUT neglected the important theme of lost love and thus I thought Pentargan Bay (aka After A Journey! SO STUPID) was a better fit as it showed his intellectual development over the years and tied the themes of lost love (Emma) and atheism together

I only wrote a small paragraph on Song of the Shirt too :sadnod:

I referred to the author of the extract as 'Welsh Carlyle' as I was confused and thought that might be the best way to do it, but thinking about it now it's probably better to say 'Carlyle' :erm:

Reply 66

berryripple

My focus for the extract was pretty much on over-dramatic attitudes of women (link to female hysteria, fainting in French Lieutenant's Woman - although I forgot Ernestina's name) and people ignoring women's issues and pushing them aside (she made the birth sound trivial as if the servant had done it out of spite, I linked the idea of trivialising women's medical issues to the Yellow Wallpaper).

Reply 67

samedi_

Original post by Bevanite

Oh, hello, my twin. That is exactly what I utilise the AQA site for, nowadays. My teacher implied that I have got maximum coursework grades without breaking any rules, and since I got back home and dried my tears today all I have been doing is convincing myself I will get an A. I pray that both of us do. An A is what I expect, English Literature is my niche.

Reply 68

Bevanite

My teacher refused to give me an extra 700 words via the back door :frown:

so I got 67/80 UMS for my coursework (51 raw, hate the word limit!) and so I'm hoping I got more than 63ish (which seems to always correspond to 93 - which is what I need min for an A in terms of UMS). But having said that I didn't finish Hardy...and the lack of thorough poetry analysis in my first question and lack of thoroughness in the Hardy answer (plus not referring to After a Journey by its actual name!) will let me down and I estimated myself 50, being conservative (35 + 15)

Reply 69

samedi_

Word limits are horrid. If it wasn't for my teachers nagging at me to reduce my word count, I would have suffered. And the paper really annoyed me. If question 1 had been decent and comtained room for analysis, we might have had a better chance at completing Hardy quicker. I managed around 8 links in my contextual linking - Then I got stuck on what the form of the extract conveyed. In English Lit they seem to take all your ideas into consideration, so I wrote that the form was a letter in which Mary, the povertised female, was degraded - However, what the upper class women didn't deduce is that though there is a difference in classes, all woman are forever the possessions of a man. Wealth acts as a shroud and illuminates a female's life, yet they shall never know of the freedom that man so freely basks in.

Reply 70

I'll.Be.Back

Original post by Bevanite

Am I the only one who saw the extract as being about views of the upper class towards the urban poor?

Also, had a mare on Hardy - ran out of time and called "After a Journey" "Pentargan Bay" - ****

NO! Me too :')

Reply 71

dineshn

omg i dunno ho i did in this exam . my teacher aid she will give us extrcts but at the last moment took it away from us, aking me completely clueless n what to write.

I commented on how the women seemed convoinced by her neighbour, possibly due to her also coming rom an higher class background. I talked about how the carlyle had power and misused it- microcosm for victorian society. i said she referred to her husnad as mr showing formalities -her feelings may have been so loud due to not being able to present them to her husband. in all, i simply said it shows the showecase of power, ad the misuse of it and how she takes advantage of it.

for contextual linking, i said how christine linde and nora in A DOLLS HOUSE have a conversational and realsitc tone, but with her husband, nora seems like a kid. here, carlyle shows similarly and she expressed her thoguhts vividly not to her father but friend.

i then said the idea of using a leterr presents ictorian attitudes as it displays how people were secretive - she can moan to her freind without being judged by tohers for sacking the wrong maid. etc

my worst point, due to having nothing else, was SISTER MAUDE, where i said she does not have a ramling tone but seems methodical and powerful

BTW guys i acciddentally said that SISTER MAUDE was written by TENNYON - thsi is wrong - will i penalised by a lot.?

Reply 72

scl95

Oh wow. Literally failed the contextual linking, only made reference to women... And about how other authors portrayed them in more optimistic lights etc...

Oh I did one text on scandal..The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, recon that's ok?

Reply 73

HannahKM

For the first question i only linked in women and the injustices that they endured i included quotes from 'the crimson petal and the white' and then went on about personas and how Mary acted differently with different people because of the virgin Mary thing and the threats at the end of the first paragraph to link this to wider reading i talked about Dorian Gray and the different attitudes with Lord Henry and Sybil Vane. I then went on to talk about the way that Mary was seen to be the person who was the temptress and how this was different in Goblin Market because the men were the people enticing the women with their fruits. I also linked in the little princess, Mrs Warren's Profession and Pride and Prejudice and included some reference to Virginia Woolf. However im not sure if the fact that i didn't include any reference to Hard Times or Arcadia will act against me as my teacher said these were the key texts to include in the exam!

For the second i did the one about how Emma was in all his later works and said that really the question could have been interpreted in two different ways the influence Emma has had on his life and how that is shown through his compassion and things like that but also the actual context of Emma in his work and how only after his death did he really realise his love for her and that can be seen in his work.

Reply 74

Rose957

Does anyone know if a few spelling mistakes will move you into the lower bands and down grade you?

Reply 75

berryripple

Original post by samedi_

Took me ages to faff around reducing my word count because my title was so bloody long, only to discover after I'd handed it in that the title doesn't even count!

Reply 76

HannahKM

Spelling has no efffect on the boundries i checked with my teacher when i came out cause i realised i'd made a few

Reply 77

loveheartsandall

I thought the extract was okay but it really threw me with how informal it was. I've never read a letter with such a gossipy tone and three exclamation marks in a row!!

I talked about A Woman of No Importance (the illegitimate child) and how Mrs. Arbuthnot 'triumphed', the Lady of Shalott (typical Victorian woman, subordinate to Sir Lancelot), The Time Machine (class divide, Morlocks vs. Eloi) and the Yellow Wallpaper (the form reflects insanity, the form of the extract, dialogue reflected the trivial, gossiping nature of the moneyed class). The last link was via form rather than theme... are we supposed to do that?

I think I messed up on Hardy though, I did the Hap question and I messed up the terms 'chance' and 'fate'. Are they the same thing? Thinking back, I probably shouldn't have used those words because they mean contradictory things.. oh I dunno. I talked about Convergence on the Twain, developing the theme of fate. On the other hand, I talked about Wessex Heights and how it's got major Hardy themes. Fingers crossed

Reply 78

I'll.Be.Back

How did everyone do and what did you get?
I was really shocked to find I got an A... Especially with that first question o.O

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 79

Denver2010

I was amazed to see that I got 120 UMS in the exam - full marks!! Didn't do so well on the coursework - 56 UMS B grade. But got an A overall. Very p[leased with myslef. I hope everyone else did ok?