The Student Room Group

AQA English Literature A - Love Through the Ages June 2011 Exam :D

Scroll to see replies

band 5? there isn't a band 5...?

and I posted one above :smile:
Original post by Rachel_Leah
Gradually writing up my English notes, but I feel like I have a lot of poetry, an adequate number of plays but few novels. Does anybody have any recommendations for novels?

I have 'The Passion', 'Atonement', 'Handmaid's Tale', 'A Room With a View, 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' at the moment.

How is everybody else finding the course?
x


I seem to have done lots of plays, an average number of novels and not a great range of poems !!! So here's a list of what i've studied and if anyone has any more suggestions that would be great :smile: xx

Novels:

The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time (Haddon)
Great Expextations (Dickens)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
Jazz (Morrison)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Moll Flanders (Defoe)
Lady Chatterly's Lover (Lawrence)
Dracula (Stoker)
Birdsong (Faulks)
Captin Corelli's Mandolin

Plays

Shakespeare:

King Lear
Much Ado About Nothing
Romeo and Juliet
Othello
Trollius and Cressida

Edward the second (marlowe)
The Crucible (miller)
Blood Brothers
The Beaux' Stratgem (farquhar)
Tis' Pity She's a Whore (Ford)
Phaedra's Love (Kane)

Williams:

The Glass Menagerie
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A streetcar named desire

Poetry

Bright Star (Keats)
Porphryia's Lover (Browning)
To His Coy Mistress (Marvel)
Young Love (Marvel)
The Beggar Women (King)
The Sick Rose (Blake)
Valentine (Duffy)
Havisham (Duffy)
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 116

thanks :smile:

x
Reply 62
Original post by JessElizabeth_x
I seem to have done lots of plays, an average number of novels and not a great range of poems !!! So here's a list of what i've studied and if anyone has any more suggestions that would be great :smile: xx

Novels:

The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time (Haddon)
Great Expextations (Dickens)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
Jazz (Morrison)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Moll Flanders (Defoe)
Lady Chatterly's Lover (Lawrence)
Dracula (Stoker)
Birdsong (Faulks)
Captin Corelli's Mandolin

Plays

Shakespeare:

King Lear
Much Ado About Nothing
Romeo and Juliet
Othello
Trollius and Cressida

Edward the second (marlowe)
The Crucible (miller)
Blood Brothers
The Beaux' Stratgem (farquhar)
Tis' Pity She's a Whore (Ford)
Phaedra's Love (Kane)

Williams:

The Glass Menagerie
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A streetcar named desire

Poetry

Bright Star (Keats)
Porphryia's Lover (Browning)
To His Coy Mistress (Marvel)
Young Love (Marvel)
The Beggar Women (King)
The Sick Rose (Blake)
Valentine (Duffy)
Havisham (Duffy)
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 116

thanks :smile:

x


Looks like a good list to me :smile: May be worth reading a bit of Chaucer (prose) before the exam, if you haven't already, just to sort of get the style a bit...

http://www.librarius.com/canttran/mttrfs.htm

It is, after all, the oldest thing specified in the syllabus.

Also - one other thing - the metaphysical poet is named "Marvell"! :tongue:
Reply 63
Some people are getting way too worked up over the wider reading aspect of this paper. In my opinion, the best thing is to learn some extracts that cover a good range of themes, while also making sure that they cover the whole 'through the ages' aspect of the paper. This allows you to make sure that you can compare and contrast different language styles, form, structure, context, themes etc all within extracts that you are extremely familiar with. It's important to remember that the wider reading you bring in doesn't have to cover the same theme of love as the extract you're given, you could contrast the different styles that the writers portray love through their imagery, for example, or how modern readers could interpret an extract differently to an older one.

As someone said earlier, English Literature isn't a particularly revision heavy subject, other than making sure you can discuss the structure, language techniques etc. The most important thing to do would be to practice your essay writing and how to analyse unseen texts. This way when you get into the exam you will feel far more confident that you are going to be able to analyse and discuss the extracts you're given. The more you practice your essay writing the easier it is for you to get your essay to flow as well, which will be beneficial in the exam. It also helps you to learn how to make your points concise, reducing unnecessary 'waffle' in your answer.

Your analysis of the unseen texts will gain you far more marks than bringing in some wider reading. Just learning about the different time frames that literature was written in and discussing that briefly will give you some marks, and that is something that is usually given to you above the unseen extract. This small piece of information can be extremely useful in giving you ideas, make sure that you read it and make some notes around it.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 64
Wrong thread. Sorry :frown:
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 65
does anyone know if it is entirely necessary to have long quotes for every piece of wider reading?
or can we just explain why it is similar/different and maybe use a short embedded quote/word here and there?
Reply 66
Original post by lolly21
does anyone know if it is entirely necessary to have long quotes for every piece of wider reading?
or can we just explain why it is similar/different and maybe use a short embedded quote/word here and there?


No- don't use long quotes, examiners like to see that you can choose specific and relevant quotes from your wider reading to compare and contrast with the extract. Spend more time thinking about how good a comparison it is to the extract, and write more on the links between the two rather than using long quotes to back up your point :smile:
Original post by Beth1234
Looks like a good list to me :smile: May be worth reading a bit of Chaucer (prose) before the exam, if you haven't already, just to sort of get the style a bit...

http://www.librarius.com/canttran/mttrfs.htm

It is, after all, the oldest thing specified in the syllabus.

Also - one other thing - the metaphysical poet is named "Marvell"! :tongue:



thanks you !!! I'm just praying for nice extracts :smile: haha it's a great start when I can't even spell the poets name :colondollar: !!!!
Reply 68
Also, has anyone got any tips on how to structure the essays?
Will you do the generic structure of paragraphs of form, structure and language?
It confuses me a little...
Reply 69
Original post by JoeK
Some people are getting way too worked up over the wider reading aspect of this paper. In my opinion, the best thing is to learn some extracts that cover a good range of themes, while also making sure that they cover the whole 'through the ages' aspect of the paper. This allows you to make sure that you can compare and contrast different language styles, form, structure, context, themes etc all within extracts that you are extremely familiar with. It's important to remember that the wider reading you bring in doesn't have to cover the same theme of love as the extract you're given, you could contrast the different styles that the writers portray love through their imagery, for example, or how modern readers could interpret an extract differently to an older one.


I completely agree.

People in this thread need to pay attention to the quoted comment, as it is correct.

What worries me as a whole, is that this thread appears to be devoted to how people are organising their wider reading, whether people have enough wider reading or enough diversity within their wider reading. This would be great, if the exam was a memory test. It isn't however, and wider reading makes up at most, 30% of available marks.

It's interesting to see that very few people are interested in exam writing technique, as well as analysis of unseen texts, which is what I've been looking at over the last week. English isn't revision heavy, you can't write out pages of notes and expect them to help you, it's about going into the exam and feeling confident that whatever extracts are on the paper, you'll be able to analyse them somehow.

So to steer the conversation away from Wider Reading a little, how are people finding analysing unseen extracts? Given that there's so few past papers, I'll assume we've all been practicing the same ones mostly, as well as any extra unseen stuff you can find and compare.

I'm finding that I can do an A4 plan of two extracts, usually in about 15 minutes. Seeing as we have so long in the exam and are recommended to actually spend a total of 1 hour out of the 2.5 just reading and planning, I think this will prove pretty helpful. An A4 plan includes a large amount of detail, and will prevent me from spending too much time looking at historical context, which is easy to get stuck in once you start talking about it. The most common themes for comparison/analysis I'm finding across the board seem to be:
- Use of colour to show passion/love
- Use of gems/luxuary to show passion/love
- References to classical myths
- References to astrology

Original post by lolly21
Also, has anyone got any tips on how to structure the essays?
Will you do the generic structure of paragraphs of form, structure and language?
It confuses me a little...


The way I'm doing things is with an A4 plan first. I tend to plan points to talk on Theme, Form, Structure, Language, Context and Wider reading, then go over the extracts, making notes on each of those. I use these to structure the essay, but not necesserily with the same weight placed on each, or in that order. I try and weave wider reading in throughout, as well as context. Also, you're likely to end up with a lot more language points than anything, seeing as that's basically going to be your comparison/contrast argument, but it's important to make structure/form points too. Once I've got all of the planning done, the essay just sort of falls into place.

I find that doing a generic paragraph on form, generic paragraph on structure and generic paragraphs on context/wider reading is certainly an easy way to pick up marks, but probably not absolutely all the possible marks. Examiners like to see these sorts of things weaved in, for example an essay that looks purely at one piece, then purely at another and finishes with a Wider Reading paragraph won't be marked as a high as one which weaves everything in, even if the content is similar. If you're having trouble fitting anything in to the structure, just go for a paragraph on it however. You can always comment on it later so that it appears to be more weaved into the essay. I tend to focus on Form and structure before I make any language points, but then will come back to form and structure at the end so that It isn't just a chunk at the start. Same for wider reading

I tend to go by -

Introduction > Talk about theme > Talk about Form and Structure in both extracts > Talk about langauage points in both extracts for the bulk of the essay > Include wider reading language comparison > Link the context of the texts with wider reading context > Compare form/structure to wider reading > Compare language to wider reading > Conclude.

For me, that allows me to put everything in a reasonable order, whilst still weaving both texts and the wider reading throughout.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 70
Original post by Pthaos

I'm finding that I can do an A4 plan of two extracts, usually in about 15 minutes. Seeing as we have so long in the exam and are recommended to actually spend a total of 1 hour out of the 2.5 just reading and planning, I think this will prove pretty helpful. An A4 plan includes a large amount of detail, and will prevent me from spending too much time looking at historical context, which is easy to get stuck in once you start talking about it. The most common themes for comparison/analysis I'm finding across the board seem to be:
- Use of colour to show passion/love
- Use of gems/luxuary to show passion/love
- References to classical myths
- References to astrology

The way I'm doing things is with an A4 plan first. I tend to plan points to talk on Theme, Form, Structure, Language, Context and Wider reading, then go over the extracts, making notes on each of those. I use these to structure the essay, but not necesserily with the same weight placed on each, or in that order. I try and weave wider reading in throughout, as well as context. Also, you're likely to end up with a lot more language points than anything, seeing as that's basically going to be your comparison/contrast argument, but it's important to make structure/form points too. Once I've got all of the planning done, the essay just sort of falls into place.

I find that doing a generic paragraph on form, generic paragraph on structure and generic paragraphs on context/wider reading is certainly an easy way to pick up marks, but probably not absolutely all the possible marks. Examiners like to see these sorts of things weaved in, for example an essay that looks purely at one piece, then purely at another and finishes with a Wider Reading paragraph won't be marked as a high as one which weaves everything in, even if the content is similar. If you're having trouble fitting anything in to the structure, just go for a paragraph on it however. You can always comment on it later so that it appears to be more weaved into the essay. I tend to focus on Form and structure before I make any language points, but then will come back to form and structure at the end so that It isn't just a chunk at the start. Same for wider reading

I tend to go by -

Introduction > Talk about theme > Talk about Form and Structure in both extracts > Talk about langauage points in both extracts for the bulk of the essay > Include wider reading language comparison > Link the context of the texts with wider reading context > Compare form/structure to wider reading > Compare language to wider reading > Conclude.

For me, that allows me to put everything in a reasonable order, whilst still weaving both texts and the wider reading throughout.


Virtually idental to yourself in terms of my structure to be honest. I find this by the far the best way to structure an essay, as the points can easily flow from one to the other. It also makes it much easier to incorporate wider reading extracts into the essay. The only difference I sometimes make is talking about the context near the start, as it's usually pretty easy to write something about it and helps me ease myself into the essay. If you can teach yourself to follow a similar structure whenever you write an essay, it becomes extremely beneficial in the exam as it's pretty much second nature.

The points that you've picked up regarding comparison/analysis are similar too. The extracts that I've seen seem to like having references to astrology and classical myths in particular.

This is one exam that I'm actually not overall worried about, seeing as a large amount of it will come down to luck on getting good extracts. However, once again you can increase your chances of being able to discuss them by analysing some unseen extracts that cover a wide range of eras and themes.
Reply 71
Original post by JoeK

This is one exam that I'm actually not overall worried about, seeing as a large amount of it will come down to luck on getting good extracts. However, once again you can increase your chances of being able to discuss them by analysing some unseen extracts that cover a wide range of eras and themes.


I'm trying to study English at Uni, and unfortunately I am most worried about this exam BECAUSE of the "luck of the extracts" aspect... It's not something I can control such as History, where I was able to write pages of revision notes before the exam. Despite practicing, I am still worried that something particularly annoying will come up that will prove difficult to analyse.
Reply 72
Original post by Pthaos
I'm trying to study English at Uni, and unfortunately I am most worried about this exam BECAUSE of the "luck of the extracts" aspect... It's not something I can control such as History, where I was able to write pages of revision notes before the exam. Despite practicing, I am still worried that something particularly annoying will come up that will prove difficult to analyse.


Yeah this is true, but as it's not something you can control I wouldn't get too worked up over it. I'm hoping that with the complaints they've had regarding the recent exam that they are going to make sure the extracts we get are good, fingers crossed anyway :biggrin:. My worst fear is that something really ambiguous comes up. Sounds like you should be fine though.

How did you do at AS and with your coursework this year? It might mean that even if a hard extract does come up you might not have to worry about hitting the top marks?

History turned out to be my biggest fear though! I've missed a large chunk of school this year, so was pretty worried with learning everything. At least that's out of the way now though, and I don't think it went too badly.
Reply 73
OH thank you so much! that is so helpful. very much appreciated (:

Introduction > Talk about theme > Talk about Form and Structure in both extracts > Talk about langauage points in both extracts for the bulk of the essay > Include wider reading language comparison > Link the context of the texts with wider reading context > Compare form/structure to wider reading > Compare language to wider reading > Conclude.

in this plan - would you separate each into different paragraphs ?

good luck both of you
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 74
Original post by JoeK
....


Original post by Pthaos
....


What things are you revising for context, or thinking about putting into the exam? I have a lot of information on different periods but I don't really know what is relevant or not. I obviously have context on my wider reading, but obviously all of my marks can't come from this :s xxx
Reply 75
Original post by JoeK


How did you do at AS and with your coursework this year? It might mean that even if a hard extract does come up you might not have to worry about hitting the top marks?


Not amazing... I scraped an A at AS by a couple of marks which was disappointing. I don't have figures for the coursework right now, but have been told that I am reasonably well into an A, most likely not going to be affected by the small, expected grade boundry shifts. So as far as I can tell, I still need to be looking at doing reasonably well.

Out of interest, what exam board was your History? Mine was WJEC, had the exam on the 10th.

Original post by lolly21

Introduction > Talk about theme > Talk about Form and Structure in both extracts > Talk about langauage points in both extracts for the bulk of the essay > Include wider reading language comparison > Link the context of the texts with wider reading context > Compare form/structure to wider reading > Compare language to wider reading > Conclude.

in this plan - would you separate each into different paragraphs ?


I don't really have a plan for paragraphs as I think that just sort of comes to me. However from my past essays, it looks like I tend to order it at least a bit.

Paragraph 1 - Introduction
P2 - Talk about theme and subthemes within each text
P3 - Form/Structure comparison
P4 - Form/structure comparison (Usually for 3 and 4 I do one for form, one for structure. Don't do one paragraph per extract)
P5 & P6 - Language comparison in the extracts (Again, don't do one paragraph per extract, just there's a lot to say here)
P7 - Context
P8 & P9 - Wider reading, linked with language
P10 - Conclusion

That sounds like a lot, but I tend to prefer short paragraphs. It's more just to show that there's different emphasis on different areas. I'll normally spend more time covering language comparisons than form and structure comparisons combined, because there's almost always more to say.

Original post by Rachel_Leah
What things are you revising for context, or thinking about putting into the exam? I have a lot of information on different periods but I don't really know what is relevant or not. I obviously have context on my wider reading, but obviously all of my marks can't come from this :s xxx


I'm trying to avoid historical context. As long as you have a basic idea of what was happening throughout the period studied, you should be alright to talk briefly about that with the information they give you at the top of the page, (This was written in X, at a time when... etc etc.) I think a lot of good context marks can be picked up from talking about literary context, things like Mythical/Astrological themes have always featured in literature, or that Spring was seen as a time of romance/love since Chaucer's works. Also simple things such as Writer's context or attitudes of the time, like women who wrote under male names, or works which were less accepted/banned because of homosexuality. I find personally, that if I try and write about historical context, I get bogged down, generalising everything in X century to be of a certain style and classify things as "typical" or "untypical". But that's just me. For some people, historical context is the way forward.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 76
Original post by Pthaos
Not amazing... I scraped an A at AS by a couple of marks which was disappointing. I don't have figures for the coursework right now, but have been told that I am reasonably well into an A, most likely not going to be affected by the small, expected grade boundry shifts. So as far as I can tell, I still need to be looking at doing reasonably well.

Out of interest, what exam board was your History? Mine was WJEC, had the exam on the 10th.


AQA exam board, my exam was on the 10th also.

Original post by Rachel_Leah
What things are you revising for context, or thinking about putting into the exam? I have a lot of information on different periods but I don't really know what is relevant or not. I obviously have context on my wider reading, but obviously all of my marks can't come from this :s xxx


Once again, pretty much the same a Pthaos! The clues will be most likely be given to you in the short sentence above the extract. I usually just use that as a prompt for what to include, and then drop any other information that I think is relevant to something that I am talking about. I wouldn't do this too often though, make sure it is a strong point that you can discuss in a decent amount of depth. As someone else said, examiners would prefer a lot about a little, rather than a little about a lot.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by JoeK
AQA exam board, my exam was on the 10th also.



Once again, pretty much the same a Pthaos! The clues will be most likely be given to you in the short sentence above the extract. I usually just use that as a prompt for what to include, and then drop any other information that I think is relevant to something that I am talking about. I wouldn't do this too often though, make sure it is a strong point that you can discuss in a decent amount of depth. As someone else said, examiners would prefer a lot about a little, rather than a little about a lot.


I didn't realise how little context is worth.
AO4 is wider reading AND context, so essentially they're worth about five marks each which has stopped me stressing so much!

I've been REALLY worried about this exam. However, my teacher gave me a model answer which has been invaluable. I've been doing past papers and it's helped me structure more coherent responses.
Reply 78
I completely fluked my war through AS English lit last year getting 115/120 in the exam, without doing any worthy revision..
I'm hoping that this unlikely gamble pays off once more =/
Reply 79
Original post by Colour Me Pretty
I didn't realise how little context is worth.
AO4 is wider reading AND context, so essentially they're worth about five marks each which has stopped me stressing so much!

I've been REALLY worried about this exam. However, my teacher gave me a model answer which has been invaluable. I've been doing past papers and it's helped me structure more coherent responses.


Yep! I think this is a mistake quite a few people make. The amount of people in my class that reel off a massive list of wider reading is ridiculous. This paper all comes down to being able to analyse a piece of literature and then being able to formulate a coherent essay in reply to the answer. As long as you choose wisely with your wider reading and can analyse things relatively well, you should be fine. That's when it comes down to the 'luck of the extracts'.

Quick Reply

Latest