AQA LITB3 Pastoral 6th June

Hi guys. This thread appears to have died? I really hope not, I'm so worried about this exam haha.
We've studied Tess, Blake, As You Like It + Post-1945 poetry (Yeah, 4 texts, our teachers want us to have choice or something)
I really have not got along with Tess though, so I've not done any work for it.
We seem to be really behind with our teaching - We haven't finished Blake yet and we've skipped a a fair few of the post 1945 poetry. As well as this we've only done a teeny bit of practice for Section A and none for Section B!
If anyone had ANY advise on how to write a Section B answer that would be amazing. Do you compare the texts or just write them individually!? Anything would be a massive help.
Thanks.

Reply 43

Butterfly9595

OP

5

Original post by octoberbaby

Hi guys. This thread appears to have died? I really hope not, I'm so worried about this exam haha.
We've studied Tess, Blake, As You Like It + Post-1945 poetry (Yeah, 4 texts, our teachers want us to have choice or something)
I really have not got along with Tess though, so I've not done any work for it.
We seem to be really behind with our teaching - We haven't finished Blake yet and we've skipped a a fair few of the post 1945 poetry. As well as this we've only done a teeny bit of practice for Section A and none for Section B!
If anyone had ANY advise on how to write a Section B answer that would be amazing. Do you compare the texts or just write them individually!? Anything would be a massive help.
Thanks.

I tend to write on each text individually, but draw comparisons in the process eg ill write a paragraph on Larkin, and then the next paragraph will begin 'unlike Larkin, Blake portrays this aspect ...' and then write a paragraph on Blake, although continue to reference the other texts :smile:

Also, if anyone's struggling for quotes for post 1945 or Blake I've made a course on this website called memrise (www.memrise.com) and just search for aqa a2 English

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Reply 44

Original post by octoberbaby

Hi guys. This thread appears to have died? I really hope not, I'm so worried about this exam haha.
We've studied Tess, Blake, As You Like It + Post-1945 poetry (Yeah, 4 texts, our teachers want us to have choice or something)
I really have not got along with Tess though, so I've not done any work for it.
We seem to be really behind with our teaching - We haven't finished Blake yet and we've skipped a a fair few of the post 1945 poetry. As well as this we've only done a teeny bit of practice for Section A and none for Section B!
If anyone had ANY advise on how to write a Section B answer that would be amazing. Do you compare the texts or just write them individually!? Anything would be a massive help.
Thanks.

Ouch! Tess is actually really straight forward and a lot more simple than you think. As we're doing Tess for section A we've done a lot on Tess. Look back over past questions and see what passages might be applicable. My advice would be to really go to town on analysis on sections like Talbothays, Flintcombe Ash and Stonehenge. Contrast them an have a look at how the Pastoral is portrayed and how this reflects on Tess and the novel. What are you doing for Section A?

How much of Blake have you done? We've been told that there are some poems which are absolutely critical like Nurses song and have covered around 17-19.

Also what post 45 are you doing? I may be able to help you with that as we've finished that?

For section B you MUST compare. I usually write about each text separately but I order them in a certain way so I can make interesting comparisons in between to hit the AOs on the mark scheme.

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Reply 45

Haha someone in my lesson today brought up the memrise site - you made the course? It looks super useful + like I mentioned I do Blake and Post 1945.
Mmm yeah I have two teachers and I asked the... better one today about how to structure it and she said to write separately but draw links when/if you can - but not to force it.
I think my problem with Tess is just that I haven't learnt any quotes for it, and I haven't collected any and I'm concerned it's too late to re-read the book and collect them now? If you could maybe upload some of the most useful quotes or chapters that would be amazing?
I'm intending to do AYLI for Section A or maybe Blake if the questions is horrible.
We've done a large proportion of Blake, we skipped Divine Image in E + I, The Angel (E), The Fly (E), A Cradle Song (I) and yeah for Blake that's it. Our teacher did mention that she thinks these are the least important and relevant which is why we've skipped them.
In post 1945 we skipped A Kumquat for John Keats, Thirteen Blackbirds look at a man, all of Norman MacCaig and A Chorus.

If anyone has any exemplar essays or anything on Section B that would be amazing? thanks!

Reply 46

RAW AND UMS LITB3.docx16.7KB

Original post by octoberbaby

Haha someone in my lesson today brought up the memrise site - you made the course? It looks super useful + like I mentioned I do Blake and Post 1945.
Mmm yeah I have two teachers and I asked the... better one today about how to structure it and she said to write separately but draw links when/if you can - but not to force it.
I think my problem with Tess is just that I haven't learnt any quotes for it, and I haven't collected any and I'm concerned it's too late to re-read the book and collect them now? If you could maybe upload some of the most useful quotes or chapters that would be amazing?
I'm intending to do AYLI for Section A or maybe Blake if the questions is horrible.
We've done a large proportion of Blake, we skipped Divine Image in E + I, The Angel (E), The Fly (E), A Cradle Song (I) and yeah for Blake that's it. Our teacher did mention that she thinks these are the least important and relevant which is why we've skipped them.
In post 1945 we skipped A Kumquat for John Keats, Thirteen Blackbirds look at a man, all of Norman MacCaig and A Chorus.

If anyone has any exemplar essays or anything on Section B that would be amazing? thanks!

I have a quote sheet with lots of important quotes from Tess but they're more like essential extras you have to learn, there's about 40. Don't bother reading the whole book, it will takw you too long, just find key passages which are related to the pastoral and tie in with lots of themes like ch 20 and the ones I mentioned above or the one which the dancing and refs to syrinxes etc.

The poems that you mentioned you skipped aren't that important. We skipped all of those too apart from Angel.

I can't believe you skipped Kumquat for John Keats! :O There's so much to talk about and it comes under so many themes. There's so much analysis for that poem it would probably take me hours to wrote out the whole thing on tsr! Your teacher probably didn't cover it as it takes ages, we wrote about 5 pages worth of notes.

Also for section B I can provide an exemplar intro :smile:

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Reply 47

1234sam1234

12

I don't know if this will be of any use to anyone but I've put all of the raw mark and UMS data (with grades) into a word document. Its's attached if anyone will find it of any use.

Reply 48

Thanks rageagainstessays; deffo useful.

Mmm yeah I think we did skip kumquat because of it's length - because we're studying four texts it has been quite tight for time.
The exemplar intro for Section B would be of huge help :smile:

I think I'm going to go through my Tess notes for 'love' and the pastoral. Our teacher reckons it's a valid option and looking through past papers it seems so to. I think I could cope with most other questions without the use of Tess. Thanks for the help.

Reply 49

Original post by octoberbaby

Thanks rageagainstessays; deffo useful.

Mmm yeah I think we did skip kumquat because of it's length - because we're studying four texts it has been quite tight for time.
The exemplar intro for Section B would be of huge help :smile:

I think I'm going to go through my Tess notes for 'love' and the pastoral. Our teacher reckons it's a valid option and looking through past papers it seems so to. I think I could cope with most other questions without the use of Tess. Thanks for the help.

Fair enough :smile:

I have an examplar for "Et in Archardia ego. To what extent does death play an essential part of the Pastoral?"

I think question spotting is a dangerous game and it's best to just know your texts well. No offence but it seems like your teacher is quite disorganised and is using Tess and love theme as a last resort. I would find key pasaages and if you want any extra help I can upload pics of this amazing handout I have on Tess :smile:

I do think though that along with a few key passages, its a good idea to learns sections which might be specific to certain themes. Like you mentioned love, or maybe learn bits on industrialisation, Angel, Alec's house, quotes like 'psychological phenomena' are important too.

One thing examiners HATE is regurgitation. Learn quotes throughout the book by all means but make sure they always link to the Pastoral. Its more important to know your stuff and apply it accordingly to the Q :smile:

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Reply 50

Original post by nespix

Fair enough :smile:

I have an examplar for "Et in Archardia ego. To what extent does death play an essential part of the Pastoral?"

I think question spotting is a dangerous game and it's best to just know your texts well. No offence but it seems like your teacher is quite disorganised and is using Tess and love theme as a last resort. I would find key pasaages and if you want any extra help I can upload pics of this amazing handout I have on Tess :smile:

I do think though that along with a few key passages, its a good idea to learns sections which might be specific to certain themes. Like you mentioned love, or maybe learn bits on industrialisation, Angel, Alec's house, quotes like 'psychological phenomena' are important too.

One thing examiners HATE is regurgitation. Learn quotes throughout the book by all means but make sure they always link to the Pastoral. Its more important to know your stuff and apply it accordingly to the Q :smile:

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Hey Nespix,
The examplar you mentioned sounds like it would be really useful.
No offence taken, teach is so disorganised! I mentioned to my tutor that we hadn't done ANY work on Section B and obviously it got reported back because in our lesson she came up to me and was quite snooty about it saying we'd been doing Section B all the way through. I said that although the information is of course applicable for Section B we had done NOTHING on how to structure the answers (and the rest of the class agreed) and she said it had been covered in a 'discussion over' kind of way. Absolutely awful.
Mmm I see how that came about but I wasn't trying to question spot! I just meant that because I'm studying four texts I would rather cover the other three texts (AYLI, POST 1945 + BLAKE) over Tess on all areas other than love, so I was planning on covering those three in all possible areas and knowing them fully but then just knowing Tess and love... not trying to guess that love will come up.
The amazing hand out on Tess you have.. is there anything on love on it? if so pictures of that would be fantastic.
Thank you! :smile:

Reply 51

Original post by octoberbaby

Hey Nespix,
The examplar you mentioned sounds like it would be really useful.
No offence taken, teach is so disorganised! I mentioned to my tutor that we hadn't done ANY work on Section B and obviously it got reported back because in our lesson she came up to me and was quite snooty about it saying we'd been doing Section B all the way through. I said that although the information is of course applicable for Section B we had done NOTHING on how to structure the answers (and the rest of the class agreed) and she said it had been covered in a 'discussion over' kind of way. Absolutely awful.
Mmm I see how that came about but I wasn't trying to question spot! I just meant that because I'm studying four texts I would rather cover the other three texts (AYLI, POST 1945 + BLAKE) over Tess on all areas other than love, so I was planning on covering those three in all possible areas and knowing them fully but then just knowing Tess and love... not trying to guess that love will come up.
The amazing hand out on Tess you have.. is there anything on love on it? if so pictures of that would be fantastic.
Thank you! :smile:

Hello

I will try to post the intro and stuff over the course of this weekend :smile:

Also, do you know that you can use one of the texts you've used for section B again for section A as long as you don't talk about the same stuff? I'm not really sure why your teacher covered so many texts, we only did post-45, Blake and Tess but we've covered them all in so much depth I have to try and filter out material rather than find material!
That's so annoying, something similar happened to me in another subject so I've basically had to self-teach myself the whole thing.
There's some references to love but remember that the theme of the Pastoral is the most important thing. Any theme whatsoever that has been mentioned in the handout always links back to the Pastoral whether its related to rural life, religion or whatever.

:smile:

Reply 52