Tips for studying English literature at A-Level?

I will be studying A-Level English literature from September and was wondering if you guys have any tips? I literally feel like I've forgotten everything this summer and need to get back on track in preparation for A-Levels.

Hey there I finished A level Lit this year so I'll try my best to help out! Firstly, which exam board will you be with? I can give you more specific advice if you will be with the board I was, if not I'll just make it general

Hey there I finished A level Lit this year so I'll try my best to help out! Firstly, which exam board will you be with? I can give you more specific advice if you will be with the board I was, if not I'll just make it general

I'm doing English Lit too - I'm on AQA A if that helps?

Hi, thanks for replying! I will be with AQA. Thank you.

Great I was with AQA B so I'm not sure it'll differ too much to AQA A.

Okay, so:

-My biggest word of advice is to read your texts several times. You can spread this out across the year so it doesn't get too overwhelming. This may seem obvious, but it's something I didn't do and something that would have helped a lot by knowing your text inside out, you're making it so much easier for yourself. AS is open book, so although you'll have your texts with you in the exam, you won't have much time to flick through it, and you'll end up panicking and running out of time like me!

-Do plenty of practise essays. Again, this is something I didn't do, I probably wrote about 5 essays across the whole two years as my teachers didn't bother too much with them. But seriously, it'll help you so much! You'll get an idea of what's expected, what you have to cover, how to ensure you can manage under timed conditions, and where your weaknesses and strengths lie. Again, it's an obvious, but vital point.

-People seem to have issues with AQA, believing they have been unfairly marked. Whilst this can be the case, often it's simply because they haven't stuck to the assessment objectives. This is probably the most important point. You may think your essay is brilliant, but if you don't sufficiently cover the objectives, you'll get a poor mark. Ensure you know these inside out! You need to follow a somewhat formulaic approach, show the examiner what they want to read. Comment on the language, form, and structure. Make connections between texts, this includes doing wider reading and creating a link between a text you have studied and one that perhaps isn't on the syllabus. It'll show you know what you're talking about! you also need to incorporate a bit of history behind the text, this doesn't mean talking about when the book was published, but perhaps why it was published then. An example could be Macbeth; James I was greatly interested in witches and so on, thus the witches in Macbeth were very appropriate. The threat of witches was prominent, so the Jacobean audience would have been pretty frightened

-Do as well as you can in your coursework. It could really bring up your grade! Honestly, coursework saved me at AS

-Enjoy it! I absolutely loved studying literature, it was actually quite fun at times try your hardest to like your texts, you'll make it so much easier for yourself!

I'm terribly sorry if this doesn't apply to AQA A, I don't know much about what it consists of

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woah, thank you! Very helpful indeed. Would you say structuring essays is a bit similar to gcse by any chance? Thank you again for taking time out to reply with a helpful answer.

You're welcome! oh gosh I can't even remember GCSE too well, but I guess it's similar in some ways. At A level, you take a more 'sophisticated' approach. Your answers have to be a lot more concise, if you waffle or mention something slightly unrelated, they'll cross it out (which is mean! ). With LITB1, I made sure I structured it identically each time. So something like this:

-introduction
-form and structure
-setting and imagery
-narration
-time and place
-conclusion

Do you know if you're with A or B? and it's absolutely no problem

Sorry to hijack on your reply, but how concise should it be (one sentence/basic explanation)? For example, I always have issues with thinking I've not explained things enough, thus I end up writing far too much!

You're welcome! oh gosh I can't even remember GCSE too well, but I guess it's similar in some ways. At A level, you take a more 'sophisticated' approach. Your answers have to be a lot more concise, if you waffle or mention something slightly unrelated, they'll cross it out (which is mean! ). With LITB1, I made sure I structured it identically each time. So something like this:

-introduction
-form and structure
-setting and imagery
-narration
-time and place
-conclusion

Do you know if you're with A or B? and it's absolutely no problem

I guess it is a bit similar!I'm not too sure but i'll know by next week. I don't tend to waffle but i think I do repeat my self! I'm absolutely dreading the workloadApparently it's like crazy essays every day, can you confirm?

That's no problem! simply put, as concise as you can be. If you can put it across in a couple of sentences, great! If not, don't worry too much as long as you don't ramble for a silly amount of sentences. Being concise was never my strength either, I love writing all flowery so I make my work really descriptive; it never caused any major issues! If you're as relevant as possible, it shouldn't matter too much however, you'll find yourself being fairly concise in the exam anyway as you just don't have the time to write loads

Yeah! Great, let me know well that's good, and don't worry about repeating, it's easy to fix and not drastic if you only do it a couple of times I really don't think the workload, at least for literature, was bad at all! It really varies on the sixth form/college but I didn't feel overwhelmed very often

i did a lot more work than the other people in my class , and as a result i only dropped 2 UMS points out of 200 at A2

i read all of my texts at least three times , i looked for critical quotes , i looked for alternative views on texts (marxist/feminist/modern/contemporary etc.) and i spent a long time making notes on my texts

i did so many practice essays it's not even funny - i did above 20 , as after i finished the past papers i went on to made up ones by my teachers and myself. i both handwrote them and typed them - handwriting the entire exam was a bitch , but it showed me how much time i had.

on poems , i did a lot of reading around at modern poets , analysing their poems , and i read the 100 most famous poems , analysing them and searching online for any additional points. it really helped me get to grips with the whole analysis thing and in the exam i literally just did it automatically... i remember very little of that part of my exam :')

i also learned most of my quotes - the important ones - by heart , which wasn't hard after i'd read the texts so many times. although you have access to your texts (in my exam anyway) , you waste so much time searching for quotes. it's a waste of time :P

you should probably come up with a structure for when you're analysing poems/texts in the unseen part (i can't remember mine , it had an acronym , but it was essentially read the unseen , read it again whilst underlining , read the question and underline important parts , organise ideas into categories , place into a spider diagram , order according to importance remembering to end on a strong point) , and to get used to planning the essay part in categories

i was on edexcel btw

Great I was with AQA B so I'm not sure it'll differ too much to AQA A.

Okay, so:

-My biggest word of advice is to read your texts several times. You can spread this out across the year so it doesn't get too overwhelming. This may seem obvious, but it's something I didn't do and something that would have helped a lot by knowing your text inside out, you're making it so much easier for yourself. AS is open book, so although you'll have your texts with you in the exam, you won't have much time to flick through it, and you'll end up panicking and running out of time like me!

-Do plenty of practise essays. Again, this is something I didn't do, I probably wrote about 5 essays across the whole two years as my teachers didn't bother too much with them. But seriously, it'll help you so much! You'll get an idea of what's expected, what you have to cover, how to ensure you can manage under timed conditions, and where your weaknesses and strengths lie. Again, it's an obvious, but vital point.

-People seem to have issues with AQA, believing they have been unfairly marked. Whilst this can be the case, often it's simply because they haven't stuck to the assessment objectives. This is probably the most important point. You may think your essay is brilliant, but if you don't sufficiently cover the objectives, you'll get a poor mark. Ensure you know these inside out! You need to follow a somewhat formulaic approach, show the examiner what they want to read. Comment on the language, form, and structure. Make connections between texts, this includes doing wider reading and creating a link between a text you have studied and one that perhaps isn't on the syllabus. It'll show you know what you're talking about! you also need to incorporate a bit of history behind the text, this doesn't mean talking about when the book was published, but perhaps why it was published then. An example could be Macbeth; James I was greatly interested in witches and so on, thus the witches in Macbeth were very appropriate. The threat of witches was prominent, so the Jacobean audience would have been pretty frightened

-Do as well as you can in your coursework. It could really bring up your grade! Honestly, coursework saved me at AS

-Enjoy it! I absolutely loved studying literature, it was actually quite fun at times try your hardest to like your texts, you'll make it so much easier for yourself!

I'm terribly sorry if this doesn't apply to AQA A, I don't know much about what it consists of

Posted from TSR Mobile

Yeah! Great, let me know well that's good, and don't worry about repeating, it's easy to fix and not drastic if you only do it a couple of times I really don't think the workload, at least for literature, was bad at all! It really varies on the sixth form/college but I didn't feel overwhelmed very often