OCR A2 English Literature Exams - 15th June?

English Literature literally sucks balls. Good luck with your poems. I remember when I took my A2 exam last year, and I hated the poems, as there's just so much to remember, even though I got higher marks in this paper than in my comparison of 2 Gothic novels.

I think you're lucky, looking at Paradise Lost. I don't kow The Duchess of Malfi but Othello's not bad.

Try to enjoy it (coming from someone who took English Lit last year), be challenged by it and appreciate it - complexities, craft and so on.

I misplaced my annotated poems a few weeks before the exam and couldn't be bothered to annotate them again, so I just read them a dozen times.

If you know 'themes' or certain ideas or interpretations of actions, you can bring them in quite a few questions for some easy marks.
For example, an offer of marriage from a duke to whom you owe a great deal, is arguably tantamount to statutory rape - that can be brought up in questions about that duke's character and responsibility as a ruler, and in questions about sex, and in questions about the play's ending, and in question's about...

Quoting phrases (not full lines) can be okay for poems - like I said, read them over and over.

Thanks.


I did enjoy reading and studying Paradise Lost (I only did Book 1).

It's just the thought of having to know it and quote it like this for an exam seems really difficult. I think it's because of all the biblical language and references, so you have to keep looking up every other word (in some parts) just to understand what is being said.

Have a Bible handy (you can use a large copy as a seat too).
Once you know a his source for some of the imagery and such like, it can be useful for many questions.

Yeah, the notes section at the back (my copy) is as big as I've ever seen - they don't use numbered endnotes (little circles, rather) because those numbers would be as long as some of the words, by the end.

I didn't like some of mytexts to begin with and didn;t even read them completely but would have had an A* as my final grade, if it was a year later. I don't really revise either, besides reading parts of the texts and a few of my essays before the exams. So it's not that hard if you see it as a challenge of your mind and analysis skills, and of getting your views across (I know this sounds like motivational tripe, but that's the only was I can motivate myself - multiplied by 10 for tedious sociology).

Yeah, the Bible and Christianity offends me, so...

Hey I am doing Othello and Donne too! Is anyone doing Dr Faustus?

How are people revising? I have no clue!!!!

Planning to make flashcards of key quotes which I can talk most about. Make mind maps, etc. Read York Notes, Spark Notes, Shmoop. Practice essays.

My teacher for Othello hasn't taught us anything. He has just gone through the plot and the theme of racism. My other teacher has had to teach us what he isn't and use her lessons (Duchess of Malfi and Paradise Lost) for Othello.

Then today, the head of year 13 (who is an English teacher) came into our lesson and taught us all she knows about Othello. And she was really shocked about how little we knew. It's scary how much she taught us.

So, currently freaking out about Othello.

A02/A03 will be examined in Othello.. right? has anyone watched a DVD on Othello? 'cause that will gain you marks if you mention it

A02/A03 will be examined in Othello.. right? has anyone watched a DVD on Othello? 'cause that will gain you marks if you mention it

What? I didn't even know this!

What if you've seen it at the Globe?

What are you supposed to say about the DVD?

I am the total opposite! I am fine with Othello, in my last timed essay I got 27/30 but I am really struggling withe Donne and Faustus - we had a closed book mock in class and I got 18/30!!

And that sucks about Othello, but I am sure it will be fine now that you have other teachers going through it too

I'm seriously struggling with Donne! What poems are you looking at? ALthough I'm comparing it with Duchess of Malfi...

At least you've done practice essays!!! we're doing our FIRST one tomorrow; this is going to be a complete disaster :/ x

I was told that too (about Dr. Fau) but I couldn't find anything!

Absolutely flipping scared for the exam though... its my first one out of the lot and I'm only just starting to revise. How are you all going about it? X

We only just found out about this in out exam today too... 4 weeks before the exam, thats just brilliant really!
I'm totally freaking out about this whole thing. I'm doing Othello, Duchess of Malfi and John Donne (anyone doing that tooooo ?)

The poetry/prose is more heavily weighted for A03 and A04 while Shakespeare is more heavily weighted A01 and A02.

Yes, seeing it at the globe is fine, using passing references to show you have 'detailed exploration of different readings of the texts'... this is of course critics quotes, which are a pain to learn too

How are you revisinggg?