English lit AS help ( calling all English lit students )

English Literature B would be the one I'd pick at first glance due to the lack of unseen poetry as seen in A. It really helps to know what you're up against when you go in to the exam, but if unseen poetry is your forte then A may be the one for you!

Also there are more drama texts in B than A (which is more poetry based). This again completely depends on you and what you prefer- but I've found that poetry is easier to get key terminology in to essays whilst drama texts are good for context, overall enjoyment (in my opinion at least!) and structure.

A is all open book (I am so jealous!) apart from the unseen poetry whilst B is half open book and half closed. So that's irrelevant really unless you have a particular preference for either.

Having looked at it all I would still go for B just due to the fact you know what will be on that paper (roughly) and the course is more varied throughout the year.

Try and base your decision off the college though as a good teacher will help you get marks regardless of the board.

Thank you so much , do you think the new spec is an improvement or harder/easier ? especially considering there is no coursework ?

For me I'd say more difficult purely due to the fact I love coursework! That sounds so pathetic but I find it really straightforward and end up relying on it to drag my grades up. It also takes the pressure off for exams.
However not taking time away from lessons to do this coursework means you can (as the person above me has said) focus more on exam technique. It's not like my spec at all so I couldn't really comment fairly on it.

I should imagine a but of both: easier because you have more time to work on exam technique, especially the unseens and harder because you have no back up grade percentage.

Thank you do you think it will be a good idea to do it along with biology,chemistry and maths because they don't really link together and also how big is the step up from GCSE to AS because i honestly love analyzing the literary , historical context and i love finding connotations and language analysis. How similar is this to AS

Well I'd love to say it's an awful idea but I did those exact subjects for AS... Chemistry and Biology link together really well and English helps with Biology as coursework means you need to be able to analyse and draw conclusions from information and write well-organised, concise essays. Maths didn't really link with anything I did but it was different and increased my confidence in dealing with some of the Chemistry formulae.
AS is literally that- context, language/form/structure analysis, critical viewpoints and alternative interpretations. The essay style is similar to GCSE initially but you will build on it massively. I didn't find the step up too dramatic at all- in fact it was the easiest out of all of my subjects. However you do need to put in effort to raise your essay skills as that is what English Lit revolves around.
It's good fun! English is probably my favourite subject. I was going to drop it last year (that was my plan through most of Year 12) but due to a rather unfortunate lack of strong ability in Maths and the potential of studying Blackadder in Year 13, I dropped Maths instead.

haha thank you so much , also was it hard to keep up with all the work since i am presuming you had to do a lot of reading/wider reading/essay practice for english

so i am in year 11 and want to take English lit at AS but the specification is changing for my year so we have no coursework just 2 exams for AS , do you think this would be easier ? , overall do you think the new spec is an improvement or is it harder/easier ?

some colleges i am applying to do this spec http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-literature-b-7716/spec-at-a-glance

and some do this one : http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-literature-a-7711/spec-at-a-glance

also which spec is better in your opinion ?


Thank you

You will have coursework over the two years, but only in the final year where it is worth 20%.

None of them is harder than the other and you don't get to pick which one you can do - your English department of that school/college chooses based on the expertise of their staff and knowing what their past students are like.

A takes the shape of a historicism approach - where you will focus more on literary cannon through its ages. So you will be looking at how literature has changed over the years and focuses on a specific even in history when literature was most prominent. For example, World War 1 changed the course of Literature, so did Civil Rights and etc.

Option B takes more of a genre theory approach where you will have to learn about different genres. Not forms of genres like Poetry or Prose, but Comedy or Tragedy or Crime and Political Writing.

They are all different focuses and none of them is considered harder than the other in terms of content. However, my Year 12 English teacher who did AQA B (she taught us AQA A) did feel as if AQA B was harder just because the mark scheme required a lot more sophistication and more of a technical skill of writing. However, she did say AQA A was a lot harder in terms of having to read loads more and remembering stuff in a logical and focused way. So there are advantages and disadvantages in them both.

However, I am thankful that I did AQA A cause it prepared me for reading a lot more different things and a lot more widely at university. Even though I read a lot of things to do with Love in my 2nd year and just WW1 lit in my 1st year, A2 was very widely and I chose to read widely as well which prepared me for the demand of Literature at uni.

If I was stuck to read things with a similar genre element then, it would not have prepared me for reading things from a historical context (which is what Lit at uni is like). A taught me a lot about historical and about different thematic issues too.

Thank you so much , what other subjects do you take ?