Lita3: Aqa reading for meaning - love through the ages exam 2013

This was really helpful! Just concerned that you said context is not as important if the marking is equally weighted between all AO's? Confused! Help!

Hi! Thanks for all the advice you've given us

Very quick question - is commenting on the effect on a modern audience/reader and perhaps also a contemporary audience/reader sufficient to pick up all the context marks? Or would you say there needs to be a bit more about, say, literary convention?

Isn't context combined with the wider reading AO? So basically wider reading will take up the majority of marks in that AO.

People get bogged down in context because they treat it as an opportunity to launch into a mini essay on the features of restoration comedy, or metaphysical poetry, or postmodernism, or whatever, and it's only important in as much as it informs you about the text itself. The text always comes first, not the history, and once you've made a point about, say, epistolary form being a common feature of early novels, you should move on immediately to saying exactly what it is that being written in the form of a letter adds to this particular extract, and how it compares to the other one. The paper is not about the history of Eng Lit, it's about your understanding of it. Your understanding of it will certainly be informed by the history, but the exam is really about interpretation of literature, not the dating of it.

Might sound a bit stupid, but just want a bit of clarification.

Do we only get given a specific theme to talk about in the second question? So, in the first, we choose the direction we go in?

Oh right! I though wider reading was AO3 and context AO4? Slightly confused

Brilliant thank you I now feel as though i've over revised context and wider reading :/ but I feel a little less worried about the exam tomorrow

Hey! Not always .. its quite random as to when a certain 'theme' is given that you should focus on. My teacher said that they sometimes do it for less able students to be able to focus on something but this isn't always the case. If you go on the AQA site and look through some past exam papers you will be able to see how many papers have given an theme to look for and which haven't

I think people do tend to do that and I fight a big battle with my students at first. They think that knowing millions of quotations is the answer, but it really isn't. It's the quality of analysis which is always going to score most highly. Don't forget that you have three texts from your coursework which you already know inside out and all you need to do is plug the gaps. Analyse, analyse, analyse. The wider reading is the side dish, not the main course. (I seem to be using a lot of food analogies here - I'm in the middle of cooking!)

Haha! Well thank you for taking time out from cooking to help us students stressing out!

It's nice working it out isn't it

But aim high anyway. You could get an A*

Hi, I did this exam the other year so if you need any help on certain books/poems/plays just ask! I know 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Othello' especially well

Don't get bogged down on learning quotes. Learn short ones by all means, but at the end of the day you will be fine with paraphrasing. That's what I did and I got an A.

Context is important, Just a couple of lines per extract will do. I remember saying something about how a poem was a very typical poem of romanticism and how one extract had a very gothic feel to it, which changed the way you perceived the romance in it or some bull like that. Try and link your points to the context though. Don't just randomly throw stuff in

I think you're meant to do critical interpretations of stuff and my English teacher used to go on about a feminist reading and Marxist reading, but if you don't know just discuss how it may have been read differently in the past to how it is now. e.g. with 'Wuthering Heights' you could say that now readers are more likely to romanticise Cathy and Heathcliff, but in the past when everyone was very religious it would have been considered far more shocking.

My approach in terms of how many points to make was I usually either covered 4 comparisons in depth or I'd do lots of general points, but the first method is better in my opinion. You can probably aim for about 3/4 sides of A4. No doubt some people write a lot more than this!

Poems- with poems if you're foggy on the meaning then just focus in on single words to fool the examiner you think you know what it's about. Don't worry if you don't understand the entire thing! Also poems are the easiest place to discuss form/structure. e.g. maybe the choppy rhyme scheme echoes a turbulent relationship or whatever. If all else fails and you have no idea what the structure of the poem then make something up based upon the content :P So if it's a fluffy love poem then chances are the structure will echo this with flowing lines, lack of caesoras ect haha :P Also it's good to make your form/structure points to back up your language points

As for plays you have to show you are aware it is a play. The easiest way to do this is to comment on stage directions. I think my play was Richard the 2 and I remember something along the lines of the man kneeling as the woman held a sword to his chest, which would make it clear to the audience that she was the one in control of their relationship if it was on stage. So yeah.

Be ruthless with time. It's important

WR- make sure you link in at least one poem, one play and one novel across the exam paper. You don't need to compare WR every time you make a point, only when relevant. Also it's a lot easier to compare specific words than it is to compare general ideas as this way you can link pretty much anything in even if that's the only part of the text that bares any similarity :P Obvs it good to have the themes link to, but heh if times get desperate as they often do in exams :P

Any questions and feel free to drop me a line!

An a* would be amazing, but i haven't managed to get above a b on any practice essays i've done! Oh well, maybe they'll be a miracle tomorrow lol. Good luck and i hope you get your a*!

Thank you for your comment has helped me a lot! Any idea if three points are enough for one question? I usually have no time to fit anymore in!
P.S - I did a mock on the 'Richard III' extracts a couple of weeks ago! My teachers were surprised as they said it was the only scene in the play that could have been picked :L

Thank you! Good luck to you too



I did that mock, hated that extract

Has anybody revieced any predictions from teachers? or have any guesses about what may come up??

To my knowledge they haven't done a question on friendship and love between friends before, so I'm guessing this may come up perhaps!!!!

Also could they give us Chaucer??

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