"Love through the Ages" AQA A2 English Literature

Hi, I sat the exam in January and came out with a good result so I hope I can help here. I think that looking at different types of love is certainly more valuable that trying to revise in a chronological way. The advice that we got is that, as long as we had one text from each genre to talk about, that would be enough wider reading. I basically went over the texts that I studied last year for Victorian Literature and also revised the texts that I'm using for coursework. I also put a small collection of poetry from different poets and time periods together.

Honestly, though, I think the most valuable thing that I did in terms of revision was just practice. I got hold of lots of different extracts and poems to do with love and worked out where I could make links etc. Remember, the main bulk of the marks in the A2 exam come from analysing the unseen texts rather than wider reading references so practice is the best thing you can do!

Hope this has helped!

Well done on your result!! So you didn't do extreme amounts of wider reading then?

Thank you I wouldn't say extreme amounts, no. My wider reading was basically the texts that I studied at AS and then 'Measure for Measure', Chaucer's 'The Wife of Bath' and 'The Remains of the Day' plus a few extra poems. I didn't use all of those in the exam.

From my own experience, it's really about making sure you make links between the unseen texts and focus of form, structure and language.

That's great, thank you On the first question where it referred to one genre, was it poetry? My English Teacher seems to think it will this for our summer exam

I'm studying the same specification and was struggling with the same problem.
Thanks for the advice!

Yeah, we got two poems which, I guess, makes it less likely for you to get that in the summer.

Hi, I sat the exam in January and came out with a good result so I hope I can help here. I think that looking at different types of love is certainly more valuable that trying to revise in a chronological way. The advice that we got is that, as long as we had one text from each genre to talk about, that would be enough wider reading. I basically went over the texts that I studied last year for Victorian Literature and also revised the texts that I'm using for coursework. I also put a small collection of poetry from different poets and time periods together.

Honestly, though, I think the most valuable thing that I did in terms of revision was just practice. I got hold of lots of different extracts and poems to do with love and worked out where I could make links etc. Remember, the main bulk of the marks in the A2 exam come from analysing the unseen texts rather than wider reading references so practice is the best thing you can do!

Hope this has helped!

I think that looking at different types of love is certainly more valuable that trying to revise in a chronological way

Okay thanks, they've done poems for every past paper so far so I guess you're right!

Thank you.



Do you have any tips on categories, e.g. first love, jealous love etc? Because I can think of so many categories that it would be hard to study them all and I'm wondering if I should look at slightly broader categories of wider reading or whether I should be really specific.

No problem I hope you get decent unseen texts in the summer! Are you wanting to study English Lit further?

I really like it, if I wasn't doing Law i'd be doing that how about you?

Hello
Just thought i'd watch this thread as i'm doing the same syllabus and need tips on how/what to revise!

Hi Are there any specific questions you want answered or is it just more general?

What texts have you studied?

Just anything really, resitting victorian literature again as well :|
any ideas of the best wider reading texts to use for both?

& i'm doing emma, wife of bath and antony and cleopatra for coursework and then going through the aqa book for the exam, yourself?