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A-level English Lit Issues

So I went to my taster day at one of the colleges I might go to in September and I tried an English Lit session. I love English Literature and it is probably the subject I most want to to and enjoy, potentially taking it on to a-level. However, during the session the teacher took us through the course and the books were all really good (Great Gatsby and Carol Ann Duffy poetry etc.). The only issue is that as the exam board was AQA quite a lot of the questions were comparative questions and I really don't like comparative questions I rather prefer writing about one text and going in to depth with analysis and theories on that one text. The college itself looks amazing and quite a bit better than the other sixth form I'm considering, plus all the other subjects I tried were really good and I liked them all (English Language, Drama and Theatre Studies and Media) so I would love to go to that college but I don't know what to do with English Literature. Basically I was wondering if anybody could give me advice on how they found AQA English Literature and what you think I should do (the same other subjects don't look as good at the other sixth form but the English Lit looks better). Thank you for any advice or help!
Alice x
Reply 1
Avatar for giella
giella
15
There is only a maximum of one actual comparative question for any AQA exam paper at A level so I'm not quite sure how you've got that impression really. There are questions where you have to split your time between two texts but not actually compare them directly. Look again would be my advice.
Reply 2
Avatar for alicelearn
alicelearn
OP
5
Original post by giella
There is only a maximum of one actual comparative question for any AQA exam paper at A level so I'm not quite sure how you've got that impression really. There are questions where you have to split your time between two texts but not actually compare them directly. Look again would be my advice.


THANKYOUUUU! Maybe I misunderstood because the teacher didn't actually explain how to answer the questions so I must have jumped to a conclusions. Do you have any examples of your/others answers for me to have a little look at, that you could private message me? x
Reply 3
Avatar for cooldad
cooldad
3
I've just done English Lit AS level and studying it was amazing. I sat two AQA A exams- one that consisted of an Othello extract and question, as well as a poetry question, and the other having an unseen extract and then a comparison question of The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights. Comparing really isn't that bad, as you are still analysing them separately, but then explaining whether they are similar are different for different themes/accounts. Honestly, it's my favourite subject and if you loved English GCSE then I wouldn't worry about it and just go for it!
Reply 4
Avatar for alicelearn
alicelearn
OP
5
Original post by cooldad
I've just done English Lit AS level and studying it was amazing. I sat two AQA A exams- one that consisted of an Othello extract and question, as well as a poetry question, and the other having an unseen extract and then a comparison question of The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights. Comparing really isn't that bad, as you are still analysing them separately, but then explaining whether they are similar are different for different themes/accounts. Honestly, it's my favourite subject and if you loved English GCSE then I wouldn't worry about it and just go for it!


Thank you, I think I'm going to do a bit of research into example essays to see what they're like. If it's alright with you, could you privately message me a few of yours so that I can see an example? I just used to panic over comparative but I suppose I'll got taught how to write them. Overall how did you find AS?

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