Macbeth and a Christmas carol. URGENT HELP!!!!

hi guys,
so i have my mocks starting on the 9th of january and my first exam is english lit paper 1. I'm going to be tested on macbeth and a christmas carol. my english teacher isnt .... the best and im really struggling with how to revise. please help answer my question!

1. on the exam paper, it is possible for the question to be on both a character and theme? for example: how does Shakespeare present Macbeth and the supernatural, or how does Shakespeare present the three witches and the supernatural. if this is a possibility, does that mean i will have to learn multiple quotes for each theme for each character? for example if the theme is ambition, will i have to learn 5 quotes on Macbeth and ambition, 5 quotes on Banquo and ambition, 5 quotes on macduff and ambition etc; or can i just learn say 6 quotes for ambition and each quote can be on any character as long as i have 6 quotes. and if i were to learn 6 quotes for Macbeth, they could be on any theme and i can leave it at that? i really hope this makes sense because it is really confusing me and i don't want to learn <30 quotes for each theme when i can only learn 6. to summarize: will the English lit question either be on just a theme or just a person or is it possible that it will be on both and therefore i will have to learn multiple quotes for each person regarding that theme?

thanks!

Okay, I’m slightly confused with what your question is but will do my best to answer what I *think* you’re asking (if this is wrong let me know);

For Macbeth, yes, they can ask you about a theme and character e.g. how does Shakespeare present ambition through the character of Lady Macbeth? (Fully made that up so have no clue if it’s a real past question or not).

However, if they ask you on a theme and a character, the extract should help you and the theme and character should naturally fit together. If they do ask about a character and a theme, the character would be one of the big ones most likely; Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, the Witches and Banquo, or Duncan or Macduff at a push.

I wouldn’t worry about memorising 5 quotes for every theme and character combination; you’ll be studying for ages! Instead, my best advice would be:

1. Make sure you’ve fully read through Macbeth and understand the key characters and events/plot. This is common sense but there are some difficult/irrelevant scenes (such as the Ross/Old Man scene and the Macduff/Malcolm scene) so ensure you have at least a vague idea of what’s happening in each scene.

2. Learn quotes for specific characters and themes separately - if a question requires both a theme and character you should already have covered it by doing theme and characters separately. If you haven’t, grade boundaries will be pretty low if it’s that difficult. Try and aim for 6-10 quotes for the main characters and main themes; I recommend Mr Bruff, Mr Salles and Stacey Reay videos to help with higher level quote analysis.

3. Pick the hardest scenes, or the scenes you like the least, then pick the biggest theme/character and invent your own question, and plan a response. Maybe do this after your mocks but if you have a go at devising your own questions and thinking like an examiner it will help you to appreciate the bigger themes and threads in the play.

4. Try and read through the play as many times as you can. Again, you’ll probably need to do this after your mocks, but try and read even just a chapter a night - if you can try and absorb as much as possible, hopefully you’ll subconsciously memorise more quotes than you think.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any other questions!

this is extremely helpful, thankyou! but one of my main concerns is what if the question is, for example, the question you came up with, what would i do if i have learned 6 quotes on lady macbeth and only 1 of them shows ambition and 6 quotes on ambition and only 1 of them is lady macbeth/ i have none. Then that means i will not have enough quotes for the essay. will i just have to blag my way through it? really hope that made sense haha. Also, i assume you have already sat your gcses, if you have, how did you revise?
thankyou, and have a good christmas! (if you celebrate it)

Okay, so as I suggested above, whilst for mocks it’s fine to try and learn 6-10 quotes per character or theme, by May you need to really have memorised a lot more—this should happen naturally if you keep rereading the play and practicing essays.

If the question I said did come up, I’d be very surprised if out of all the separate ambition and Lady Macbeth quotes you’d learnt, only one was relevant to both. Worst case scenario though, use the extract for 50% of the essay as this would have suitable quotes, then use the quote you’d remembered, then use ambition quotes of other characters to compare (eg Macbeth’s ambition is shown through X and this contrasts to how Lady Macbeth’s ambition is presented through Y). Of contrasting characters didn’t seem relevant/focussed enough for the question, just referring to an event rather than quote would work too. Also, quotes can be really short - in most of my essays the quotes were only a few words long - it’s better to say a lot about a little, so don’t feel you need to quote lots of full sentences. Also, this all depends on what grade you’re aiming for and how important English Lit is to you - if you want to get a 9 and do it for A Level you’d be wise to try and memorise as much as possible, and go through as many Mr Bruff, Mr Salles and Stacey Reay videos as possible, whereas if you’re naturally quite good at essays or are aiming for a slightly lower grade, I wouldn’t worry too much about trying to memorise most of the play, as it’ll be unnecessary and just stress you out when revising other subjects may be more important.

As for your other question, yes, I’ve already sat my GCSEs. But ‘how did you revise’ is a pretty broad question to try and answer! It varied a lot by subject, but I used content revision and application revision. For content revision (essentially memorisation and understanding things) I memorised textbooks or set texts, just by reading and occasionally making flash cards or posters (reading stuff does not work for everyone though so don’t just do that!). For application revision, I did a lot of old and new spec past papers, practice essays, and so on, often making notes of feedback or things I kept getting wrong. Let me know if you need more specific advice with a particular subject and I’ll do my best to help. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas too and make sure you get some rest and have some fun as well as revising!

thank-you so much this is very helpful! i'll try not to stress myself out too much haha

You’re most welcome. Have a lovely Christmas and good luck with your mocks! Feel free to quote/tag me in future if you have any other questions you think I could help with.