Petition for Allowing GCSE English candidates to have blank texts during their exams.

i dont see why your so worried, i have "unseen poetry" meaning that ANY POEM could come up you just gotta b ready for it
in fact i feel yours is easier bc you can thoroughly study each poem in ur anthology and you'll have that feeling of knowing what may come in the exam however ours is unexpected and we have to be prepared

I remember doing unseen poetry! Was it weird that it was my favourite part of the exam?

i dont see why your so worried, i have "unseen poetry" meaning that ANY POEM could come up you just gotta b ready for it
in fact i feel yours is easier bc you can thoroughly study each poem in ur anthology and you'll have that feeling of knowing what may come in the exam however ours is unexpected and we have to be prepared

In Northern Ireland, CCEA has been doing closed book GCSE and A Level English Literature for years. It's becoming the norm now, to make the exams harder, and I don't think a petition can stop it - because as you've said, it's not even been trialed yet.

ugh r u fr? i h8 unseen i prefer analyzing the novels bc ik whats gna come up

It's not even just in Northern Ireland - our school does the WJEC exam board, which does closed book examinations (my school's in England, by the way).

Having an open book examination might be nicer, but I really do think that the boards should firstly trial it, like you said, for at least a year to firstly see if this is a viable method of examining Literature.

At least you know that it'll be one poem from your anthology, whether you're familiar with it or not.Try dealing with four different texts, from any period of time, that you're almost guaranteed to have never have seen before. For one question, two of the texts are of the same genre of prose or drama or poetry, and for the other it is one of each of the other two genres not tested in question 1. Question 1 asks you to compare the poems, Question 2 asks you to compare an aspect (we were asked about proposals in our mock exams). You have to bring in wider reading from anything that you've read, and relate something you know to something you don't, even if it's the most vague thing.

AQA English Literature A2, everybody! *claps*

were u supposed to quote me?

It's not even just in Northern Ireland - our school does the WJEC exam board, which does closed book examinations (my school's in England, by the way).

Having an open book examination might be nicer, but I really do think that the boards should firstly trial it, like you said, for at least a year to firstly see if this is a viable method of examining Literature.

You're correct, sorry :c

Everyone is just kicking up a fuss because AQA have introduced it (I did AQA for GCSE but CCEA for A Level - preferred CCEA).

So that's what happened. Well, they can't really complain about something they haven't tried yet.

You might already know, but current Year 9 & 10 are having to memorize their texts instead of having it in front of them as a blank text during the exams. My friends told me about this petition online on https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121692 and hopefully it will get to 10,000 signatures. Honestly, I don't really know if they would change it because they haven't even had one year group do the new GCSE yet, but we can try. Just wanted to raise some awareness on this issue and say that there is a petition so we can do something about this, even if 10,000 of us have to do it to get heard.

But why? There is no point. It is an approved specification and closed book exams have been happening on many specifications - they are not going to change their specification because students are not happy with the change.

Closed book exams may seem quite daunting and quite terrifying at first, but, really, they are much more fruitful: you do not have to spend all the exam searching the book for a quote and you can just focus on writing the essay. Plus it does not really have to be about memorising a bank of quotes, but, if you engage with the text or have worked on it, you are likely to remember them anyways; it's like song lyrics, you listen to a song for awhile and you don't have to think before you reiterate the lyrics. Same situation here. If you actually revise for the subject, the quotes that are important and ones you engage with most you should remember.

It also complements the increased rigour of the reformed GCSEs.