Enduring Love Aqa English

this is the THIRD time i'm sitting this exam. both times i got a U- :eek:

i dont get it, i got B's in the other two modules! also, i always have problems remembering quotes as its a closed book exam, and if thats the reason i keep failing, it's a bitch, because all the modules this yr are closed book!! :frown:

any advice? anyone done it and done well? how do i nail this one?!! :confused:

Reply 1

asianangel86

OP

13

oh come onnnnnnn is nobody gonna help me??

Reply 2

FunkyIguana

Don't quote me on this, lol, but I have a sneaky feeling the theme of 'children and childhood' might come up this time. It's such a major theme and has yet to be examined... this is the last time Enduring Love is being assessed, iirc :wink:

I got 81/90 on this in the summer (answered the question on how important was chapter nine to the whole of the novel). Just remember to introduce a relevant theme (such as distrust, love, Keats, children etc.) and relate that through the entire novel and you won't go far wrong :smile:

Best of luck!

Reply 3

asianangel86

OP

13

thanks dude. i studied joe and clarissa's childless marriage closely in my first exam in summer '04, and screwed up badly; hope the knowledge will be of some use this time.
how about quotes, i can't remember more than 3 or four, and know none by mcewan himself! how do i remember them? i think you need to memorise about 20 :eek:

Reply 4

FunkyIguana

The important thing to remember about quotes is that you can only use them if they're relevant to the immediate paragraph you're writing. It might sound obvious, lol, but examiners hate to see quotes out of context and will often award no credit for them :wink:

I honestly can't remember the exact quotes anymore - and have lent my book to a friend for their resit on Tuesday :frown:

- but know the general gist of the quotes I memorised, to use in discussion of the major themes:

- Joe's distrust with Clarissa
--- when he didn't tell her about the phone call at 2am
--- when he went through her desk
--- when he recalls the breakdown of the relationship during the car ride to Mrs Logan
--- when he resolves to win her back on the way home from Mrs Logan

- children and childhood
--- recalling Clarissa's loss of a child due to medical negligence
--- bad memories of childhood on the night of the balloon accident (Wales, recorder recital etc)
--- the first time Joe sees Logan's two children
--- the ending on the river, when Joe is walking hand in hand with them

Obviously, some of these quotes are useful for more than one theme. When talking about forgiveness, if you don't know much about forgiveness - which happened to me during the exam :wink:

- you can say something like... "of course, McEwan is also re-emphasising the theme of children here, with Joe's quote..." and swing the argument to a theme you're more comfortable with :wink:

Sorry I can't remember any of the actual quotes... I hope you still find some of this useful, lol. And as for McEwan quotes, the main one I remembered was that the balloon accident was a 'microcosm' of society, about how mankind could be better if we were all altruistic (and 'held on') but all suffer through some people's selfishness. Or something along those lines, lol!

Reply 5

Possession

1

Identify the main themes running through the novel and search for appropriate quotes that supports these concepts.

Children and Childhood is a very common theme that runs throughout most of McEwan's novel, for example 'Enduring Love' and 'The Child in Time'.
If you read some of his other novels you'll notice his constant allusion to how public events collide with private issues, and how his protagonists are forced to deal with the aftermath of a tragedy. In one interview (with Jonathan Noakes) he mentions how he's always 'been interested…in how private fates and public events collide'.
There's something you could research on.

I hope that helps.

Reply 6

asianangel86

OP

13

wow... thats uber-cool... thanks! i will do all this in my free periods tomorrow... right now i am so tired... thank you so much though guys, i hope more people will reply to this whilst im gone! xx

Reply 7

LoveMusic

1

Isn't it open-book?

It was in the Summer

Reply 8

Possession

1

asianangel86

this is the THIRD time i'm sitting this exam. both times i got a U- :eek:

i dont get it, i got B's in the other two modules! also, i always have problems remembering quotes as its a closed book exam, and if thats the reason i keep failing, it's a bitch, because all the modules this yr are closed book!! :frown:

any advice? anyone done it and done well? how do i nail this one?!! :confused:

Nah...

it must be open-book

Definitely closed book :frown:

Reply 11

Sarzy

Hi, I don't do English, but was wondering, if you can try and remember quotes, and read them over and over and try and get them into your head, then go into the exam and before you even read the questions, write the quotes down, and at the end cross them out? When I was doing my GCSEs I found that even though I had studied something and was really confident about it, as soon as I read the question and my mind was buzzing with ideas, this kind of drowned out what I had studied.

Reply 12

*starry_eyed_*

14

omg i've got this exam tomorrow....i managed to get A/B in my other modules but a U in this one!!!! i'm really freaking out....i can't find many practice questions, can only remember a few quotes and i just can't seem to fit relevant themes into the questions!!!!

Reply 13

LoveMusic

1

Try the teachit. site it has so much = and search it.

And read all the posts earlier - they really help x

OP

hey! the distrust one came up!! i was expecting the children one but anyhow... i revised it, so thanks for the tip!!
the other question was to examine mcewans presentation of the character of jed parry methinks... the one i did was the passage at the end of the chapter where joe goes through clarissa's stuff and she screws at him- and the importance of this episode in the novel. i did comparisons to the logans, talked about how the rift in their marriage widened and widened... and then just for the sake of it, made up some crap about joe's disbelief in god (but made it fit in).
how did *starry_eyed* find the exam? xoxox

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oh, and i really hope i pass... i don't want to have to learn a whole new book for summer!

Enduring Love Aqa English

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