Unseen Poetry Mock

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revised poetic forms. There are a lot of resources online for this, so it shouldn't take too long. I found it easiest to list the most common forms (such as sonnets) and list the criteria. It helps to read poems (online, from lessons or from your own reading) and identify their form. Once you've learned some common forms, it can be helpful to understand why those forms are used and what the poet is attempting to convey by using that particular form. This all helps you to include critical terminology in your essay (which is credited at least in the Pre-U markscheme) and to ensure that you have analysed form and structure.

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revised rhyme schemes. This probably falls under form, but revising rhyme schemes (or even just remembering to comment on them - or the lack thereof) is helpful, even if you have little else to say.

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revised meter. Again, there are lists online of different meters - so learning common ones shouldn't take too long - and you can practice identifying meters not only by reading poems but also by reading many other lines of literature or text. Also gains you points for use of critical terminology. As with poetic forms, make sure you know what the poet is conveying by their use of a particular meter if you decide to comment on it.

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revised context. Is the poem Romantic? Was it written in the time of war? Was it written at the time of an industrial revolution? Are you aware of its connections to other works by the same author? If you study history, this may come naturally to you (I didn't, so sometimes struggled to include relevant context), but if not it's always helpful to try and build up a general knowledge of literary, historical and social context. Literary is arguably best, but I usually found myself defaulting to general, well-known social context in order to score points. I even found things such as memorising things such as regnal dates of English monarchs helpful, just in order to state that a work was Victorian or Edwardian, for example. Context is something you'll develop knowledge on as you progress, so don't try and memorise a lot in a short amount of time. Just make sure it's relevant and you're making a point out of it rather than just listing it.

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revised poetry techniques. Exploring things such as alliteration, metaphors, assonance, anaphora, etc. and how the poet uses them is helpful in order to, once again, score you points for use of critical terminology and analysis of structure. It's also useful to remember them in case you find yourself in a situation in which the poem is difficult to understand or you have little to say about it. If you remember techniques and see one being used, you can discuss the author's intended effect when using that technique (it doesn't necessarily even have to be true - just believable). I'm sure there are many lists of these online, and you only have to learn a few common ones.