WJEC English Literature GCSE 18th and 22nd May.

Guess who thought Candy would come up!!!!! I actually think I did a bit of a happy dance in my chair when I saw it. Did around 8 points for that.

Extract question was awful but I remembered to put where it was from & probably got about 7 or 8/9 points that I did. Did about two sides.

Poetry wasn't too difficult but it wasn't easy. I'd say it was a nice challenge & I wrote about three sides for it. What did you guys put for the structure? I couldn't find one for the first poem but the second I thought was partly trochaic trimeter... :s

I am. I don't know about you but AAB is absolute **** to write about

The first poem was based on drugs and prostitution... completely missed the point! Couldn't have gone any worse.

After leaving the exam, my friend and I analysed the poem on his phone and we kinda thought about how the lilacs were probably a portrayal of female prostitution. Think about it, the cracked, isolated alleyways. The men on the phones and also the flesh and cash? Which probably links to human trafficking and how female 'flesh' is bought with cash. In addition, it mentioned that love is not a distinction for the lilacs. I just wish I wrote this in my exam. My exam went so terrible.

Yeah I can see why people interpreted it as this, but the examiner put this poem is about nature and the invasion of mankind. What does that have to do with prostitution?

Poetry was easy. Candy was a decent question. A/A* for me Who else is doing A view from the bridge/A christmas carol on friday?

i put the second one was all one stanza which could represent the power nature has

The first poem was based on drugs and prostitution... completely missed the point! Couldn't have gone any worse.

Ahh that's good! I put for the first that because the poem was broken up into stanzas & the second was all one stanza, that represented how the city was easily broken up yet the farm itself didn't quite get broken up as much

I don't think there is a definitive right and wrong answer for the poetry. We are asked to write how the poem affects us, and if we see it to be about prostitution then that is your view. My view of it was that it was about people being too caught up in their lives to worry about things happening in nature. I don't think they can mark you down for how you interpreted it.

How did you manage to get so many points down? Do you think you could give me an example?

I only used 4 quotations but made the points in detail. There was more to say but I didn't have the time.

After leaving the exam, my friend and I analysed the poem on his phone and we kinda thought about how the lilacs were probably a portrayal of female prostitution. Think about it, the cracked, isolated alleyways. The men on the phones and also the flesh and cash? Which probably links to human trafficking and how female 'flesh' is bought with cash. In addition, it mentioned that love is not a distinction for the lilacs. I just wish I wrote this in my exam. My exam went so terrible.

Yup. I think that's the general view of us who are doing About A Boy tbh (I say that - it's only you and 10studentlife I've talked to who are doing it, so maybe we're the odd ones out. Somehow I doubt it though)

I also find the plot really, really boring D:

Poetry was easy. Candy was a decent question. A/A* for me Who else is doing A view from the bridge/A christmas carol on friday?

When I have to constantly look at the paper (e.g for the extract question) I end up getting easily distracted & this caused me to spend about 30 minutes on it instead of the planned 20 But when I'm completely focusing on the answer, and I have all the quotes in my head, I can write really quickly. That's partly the reason why & partly because I already had about 6 main points along with quotes and analysis in my head that I could write about (that I posted here last night). One of the points I broke into two sections, and one I thought up off the top of my head whilst writing about another, so I wrote about that too

I can't remember what I wrote about for all of them (and I used better structure in my actual paragraphs ), but for the one I split up, the basic thing was:

1) Candy overhears Lennie and George and their plan to get a ranch, and he says he'd contribute "three hundred and fifty bucks" (couldn't remember all of the quote so I embedded!). This was quite a lot of money in 1930s America which shows that not only did he have an American Dream of his own - which is likely why he was saving up so much - but that he was so desperate to achieve it that he would contribute all of his money towards achieving it along with two people that he had only just met.

2) His dislike for Curley's wife is also shown (my first paragraph was about calling her a tart) later in the novel when he's in Crooks' (**** I forgot to put the apostrophe after the s) room along with her and Lennie, where Candy "had control of himself. He was the master of the situation. "We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not." On 1930s American ranches there were usually hierarchies, and although Curley's wife is a woman, because she is married to Curley and Candy is disabled she is higher up than him in the hierarchy. Here it is showing that Candy wants the American Dream so much that he is defending it in front of a person higher up in the hierarchy that he would not usually dare to speak to. This suggests the desperation that people had in 1930s America for the American Dream.