PLS HELP what poems do I learn for English Lit tomorrow?

I'm doing Love and Relationships and at this point I think I'm only going to try learning 3/4 poems plus context for all 15. Which ones should I do!!!

Reply 1

rwnsl

I'm past GCSEs but do A-Level English as well and I defo think trying to learn every poem in your spec in depth is unrealistic for lots of people! If you can I'd try to learn 60-70% of the poems in some depth, as that gives you a good chance of something you know coming up!

I'd recommend looking at past papers to see what has come up in recent years, as obviously with the range of poems it's relatively unlikely for poems from 2020-22 to come back up yet. Looking super quickly at recent papers for AQA, these poems have come up in those years (obviously I don't have access to the 2022 paper, but your teachers may have mentioned what poems came up there before!)
- The Farmer's Bride (2021)
- Walking Away (2020)
- Winter Swans (2019)

Remember these could still be relevant in the context of the question you're asked in the exam, but you're less likely to have these as set poems.