OCR A2 English Literature 2015

Is there anyone who got A*/A for English literature or has any good useful revision tips for the mocks and exams?
I can't seem to memorise quotes when it comes to dramas and poetry, only novel's strangely enough.
The texts I'm studying for the exam are Tis Pity She's a Whore with Andrew Marvell's selected poems and King Lear.
I'd really like an A, A* might be stretching it a bit because my school won't allow me to retake my AS coursework which was a complete flop so any advice on raising my grade would be much appreciated

You are going to have to try and remember quotes from poetry and drama texts. If not, then try and make sure you know a lot of background stuff to when the texts were written. Make sure you know your texts inside-out so you can refer to them and paraphrase instead.

Also, just practise essays. That's the one thing I regret when I did my A-levels was not practising enough!

What grade did you get and what texts did you study?

I think my grade changed as all of the A2 English Language and A2 English Literature marks were all sent back because they examiners f**ked us over aha. I have yet to collect my certificates aha.

AS: Birdsong, Not About Heroes, Journey's End, Oxford's Book of War Poetry, Regeneration and Black Adder Goes Forth!

A2: Othello, Wuthering Heights, Picture of Dorian Gray, Enduring Love, A Woman of No Importance and A Street Car Named Desire.

What was the grade you've got before changing?
How's enduring love? I have to study that next term

Is there anyone who got A*/A for English literature or has any good useful revision tips for the mocks and exams?
I can't seem to memorise quotes when it comes to dramas and poetry, only novel's strangely enough.
The texts I'm studying for the exam are Tis Pity She's a Whore with Andrew Marvell's selected poems and King Lear.
I'd really like an A, A* might be stretching it a bit because my school won't allow me to retake my AS coursework which was a complete flop so any advice on raising my grade would be much appreciated

Hated it. Too much endless detail and the character's a science lecturer and I can't stand science so I found it ridiculously boring.

Also studying Tis Pity She's a Whore and King Lear!!! So glad to know there's someone else out there studying the same texts (we're doing Blake's Innocence and Experience poetry instead of Marvell though).

I took the exam last year, didn't do too well, messed up quite badly but came out with a B overall (long story, but I'm resitting to get an A).

Biggest advice is to understand the type of questions they are likely to give you. For example, I figured out that for the comparison section, there is almost always a question on love, power, corruption etc so I prepared a couple of essays that would fit a broad range of themes. Having a balance between the two texts is also key; we started the poetry far too late last year so I knew more about Tis Pity than I did Blake so ended up seriously lacking poetry in the majority of my essays. As for the Shakespeare half, either get to know all the characters as individuals or work on themes. I studied The Tempest last year which was a dream as there were only about 5 characters which could come up in the exam... I think Lear has a few more as it's considerably longer, so I'm interested to see how it will work in terms of predicting the character that will come up.

For quotes, start gathering them as early as possible. We started Tis Pity a couple of weeks ago, so I've been typing up key quotes from each scene as we go along. I started revision really late last year (I also struggle with remembering quotes!) but found the most effective thing to do was to write them out on big pieces of paper and stick them on the wall opposite my bed and on the ceiling above my bed so I'd always be able to see them and get some last-minute-late-night-about-to-sleep-revision in. Oddly, I liked to put my poetry quotes on those little revision cards? And I drew little pictures on them if there was an image that reminded me of the title of the poem or its contents to help me remember it. Everyone works differently, some of my friends preferred just to highlight their books (which I did!) and others just to learn 5/6 general quotes that can be used for any argument.

The best way to revise is to practice writing; produce enough essays to make your teacher hate you forever. Also find inventive ways to incorporate AO3, I went to see Tis Pity at the theater last year and managed to write about it in my exam. Film's are a good way to get alternative interpretations too, Youtube has loads of resources that might help.

Re-read the plays if you get a chance too. I re-read The Tempest on an hour and a half bus ride the night before my exam because I stupidly decided to go shopping!!! It worked though, the quotes were fresh in my mind for the exam! I also didn't do any hardcore revision the night before, best not to get too stressed in the days coming up to it.

The worst part for me was that I suffered all the way through it by choice. Wasn't even studying it but wanted to see why everyone hated it so much!