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WJEC English Literature A2 Exam 11th June 2015

I've been searching everywhere for a WJEC thread and couldn't find one, so I thought I'd start one! How is everyone's revision getting on? It would be really great if we could compile a range of sources for us to all use. I'm doing Paradise Lost for section A and Hamlet + Revenger's Tragedy for section B. Is anyone else in the same boat?

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Sorry you've not had any responses about this. :frown: Are you sure you’ve posted in the right place? Posting in the specific Study Help forum should help get responses. :redface:

I'm going to quote in Puddles the Monkey now so she can move your thread to the right place if it's needed. :h: :yy:

Spoiler

Reply 2
Original post by Elvish
I've been searching everywhere for a WJEC thread and couldn't find one, so I thought I'd start one! How is everyone's revision getting on? It would be really great if we could compile a range of sources for us to all use. I'm doing Paradise Lost for section A and Hamlet + Revenger's Tragedy for section B. Is anyone else in the same boat?


Hi :smile: I'm doing Lear/Oedipus and Blake (poetry), the quotes will be the death of me :frown: , and remembering all the critics.
Memrise.com is good for remembering the quotes though, if you just search your texts there should be existing courses on there.

Does anyone have any advise for AO2/lang. analysis? Because I find it quite difficult to integrate it into my answers without the actual text there.
Original post by LadyKatsa
Hi :smile: I'm doing Lear/Oedipus and Blake (poetry), the quotes will be the death of me :frown: , and remembering all the critics.
Memrise.com is good for remembering the quotes though, if you just search your texts there should be existing courses on there.

Does anyone have any advise for AO2/lang. analysis? Because I find it quite difficult to integrate it into my answers without the actual text there.


Hey :smile: I'm doing Blake and Lear/Oedipus too, to make your language analysis for AO2 strong you should, as my Lit teacher says, really zoom in on quotations - pick the language apart and then link it back to the theme or question.

I'm worried about memorising quotes too, for Blake I've been re-annotating all of the poems to try and memorise them, I've re-read Lear this week and I'll probably re-read Oedipus too. Other than that I think I might make mind maps of quotations and critics for different themes.

Hope this helps :smile:
Reply 4
Original post by futurejournalist
Hey :smile: I'm doing Blake and Lear/Oedipus too, to make your language analysis for AO2 strong you should, as my Lit teacher says, really zoom in on quotations - pick the language apart and then link it back to the theme or question.

I'm worried about memorising quotes too, for Blake I've been re-annotating all of the poems to try and memorise them, I've re-read Lear this week and I'll probably re-read Oedipus too. Other than that I think I might make mind maps of quotations and critics for different themes.

Hope this helps :smile:


Ooo, I like that 'zoom in' on quotations. And I've just finished listening to an audiobook for Oedipus - it's making me lament having ears, but it's better than nothing I suppose. Also, you may already have found it, but the No fear Shakespeare 'King Lear' is excellent! on sparknotes.com

I've made revision cards for quotes (half of the quote on each side) and will have to the same for Oedipus. I'll try and find an easy-to-remember quote for each theme. And I really must buckle down and sort my poetry quotes out. So much to remember :'(

Good luck with your revision :smile:
I'm doing King Lear (with Oedipus) alongside John Donne. I've struggled all year with writing essays- I want to write them but I get a block every time I start. Also feeling swamped by all the quotes, especially as we haven't covered the plays properly!! Does anyone have any advice or tips that could help? Thanks
Reply 6
Original post by Maxwell1997
I'm doing King Lear (with Oedipus) alongside John Donne. I've struggled all year with writing essays- I want to write them but I get a block every time I start. Also feeling swamped by all the quotes, especially as we haven't covered the plays properly!! Does anyone have any advice or tips that could help? Thanks


No Fear Shakespeare on sparknotes is really good for getting your head around the play. I've been using memrise.com for learning quotes, and revision cards with half the quote on each side. I think the least-worst option is to pick one or two quotes for each theme and just keep going over them. Same with Oedipus (or as I like to call it 'Incest McIncest':wink:.
Do you plan your answers out first? I think we get about 15 mins to plan, but I also really struggle with 'introductions', I never know how to begin, and they just seem pointless to me, don't know about you.

Good Luck :smile:
(edited 8 years ago)
Does anyone have any example essays on Either Hamlet/Revengers or Blake that they can share on here?
Or any general tips for structuring essays and how to get a higher grade?
Thank you!
Hello everyone, im doing Blake for Section A, and The Tempest + Dr Faustus for section B. I gotta say, out of all my remaining exams, its this particular one (LT4) that im the most scared for, for some reason... :frown:

Section A: Blake
I'm feeling quite confident about this, the nice thing is, is that I found Blake actually interesting, and his ideas/messages too, for sure. His poems aren't forgettable thank god and context (AO4) is quite interesting too. Overall im grateful Blake is one of them where the poems are short and separate, as this makes learning quotes significantly easier - originally, we were going to do Wife of Bath, and wow, memorizing some huge chunk of text like that, I know for sure, i'd struggle, but then luckily our teacher left at the end of yr12.

Im really learning these poems off by heart, but I just have to say-I can't help but feel the unseem poem part adds an element of luck to this exam, however big or small? It really feels like theres no guarantee you're gunna get a poem that fits with your chosen argument, I had 4 mocks (timed essays), and in 1 of them, i struggled immensely because i couldn't see how any of the 5 poems were relevant to Blakes ideas, while in another one (forgot the name of the unseem poem), I managed to link a "church of death" to "blackening church" in Blakes 'London' for maximum AO3i marks - that felt really luck-based that it just happened to be there.

Overall though, feeling a lot more confident about this than the next section, really enjoyed William Blake :smile: just please for the sake of my uni spot- please give us relevant and easy-to-link unseen poems!


Section B: The Tempest + Dr Faustus
No, sorry, in my humble opinion, whats sure to be the most bland and forgettable Shakespeare play- forgettable, oh yes,something that becomes a huge problem when this is a closed text exam. If Dr Faustus were the main text instead, i'd be a lot happier. Well, I personally feel theres too much focus on religion in both of these texts, and for me, someone who isnt religious, that makes it fairly harder to learn the context. Themes feel fairly forgettable too unfortunately, and realistically speaking, not much goes on in the play. Oh and, I really dont like how the questions all sound so vague.

Although im revising both these texts as much as i can, im really "scared' as to whats gunna come up here; ive looked through all the past papers and unless im mistaken, it feels like everything possible has come up already? Last year had a question on the theme of ambition, i would have loved to have had that, came up in a mock and I got an A :frown: I think the real challenge here is learning as many quotes as you can since its closed text-two plays is a lot, and if you know the themes very well whats the point if you dont know any good quotes? :P

anyway, im sharing a link that helped me deal with AO's , hopefully this helps anyone:
http://crossref-it.info/textguide/wuthering-heights/35/2540



In all honestly, just sharing my opinion of the LT4 exam, I personally feel they jacked up the difficulty way too much from AS, to the point where my A2's (French , English Lit + Drama) are horribly unbalanced as a result. Oh well.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 9
For section A I'm doing Wife of Bath and Section B Hamlet with The Revenger's Tragedy. For Hamlet I found two model essays on someone blog
-> http://shakespearefiction.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-five-reasons-for-hamlets-delay.html and there's another if you browse through her blog too.
Does anyone have any resources like critics or important quotes for either Hamlet and The Revenger's Tragedy and/or Wife of Bath?
For Hamlet I feel that a question about women may come up - like misogyny or how women are presented as weak etc - I've looked through all past papers on the WJEC website and a question relating women has not come up so far... *fingers crossed*
Original post by Faith.A
For Hamlet I feel that a question about women may come up - like misogyny or how women are presented as weak etc - I've looked through all past papers on the WJEC website and a question relating women has not come up so far... *fingers crossed*


I've been thinking the same too. If it does come up, I think I'll die of happiness.
Also, how are you structuring your Poetry essays? How many of your studied poems are you going to include? Also, with the unseen poem, are you going to link it throughout your answer, or link them together in a final paragraph?

Any tips for writing introductions or conclusions?
Any sample poetry essays?
Thank you! :smile:
This is how I structure my essay for poetry:

Intro -

Para 1: AO1, AO2, AO4 (ONLY for core text) + AO3 Part 1&2 (comparison + critic/ interpretation - ONLY for core text)
Para 2: AO1, AO2, AO4 (ONLY for core text) + AO3 Part 2 (critic/ interpretation - ONLY for core text)
Para 3: AO1, AO2, AO4 (ONLY for core text) + AO3 Part 1(comparison)
Para 4: AO1, AO2, AO4 (ONLY for core text) + AO3 Part 2(critic/ interpretation - ONLY for core text)
Para 5: AO1, AO2, AO4 (ONLY for core text) + AO3 Part 1(comparison)

Conclusion -
Remember that comparison is only 5 marks out of 40 making it 13% so a 70:30 ratio is recommended

You do not need AO4 AND AO3 part 2 for the unseen poetry obviously - but if you know a little about that century then feel free to write about it - such as the 14th to 17th century was famous for Renaissance Literature and the Romantic Movement/ Romanticism was popular in the mid-late 19th century (1850's)
hi yes i have i put them together im doing the same exam too. im so sacred my memory is rubbish. how do u uplod i can sen them to u its chaucer and hamlet uotes the important theme ones.
Original post by faith.a
this is how i structure my essay for poetry:

Intro -

para 1: Ao1, ao2, ao4 (only for core text) + ao3 part 1&2 (comparison + critic/ interpretation - only for core text)
para 2: Ao1, ao2, ao4 (only for core text) + ao3 part 2 (critic/ interpretation - only for core text)
para 3: Ao1, ao2, ao4 (only for core text) + ao3 part 1(comparison)
para 4: Ao1, ao2, ao4 (only for core text) + ao3 part 2(critic/ interpretation - only for core text)
para 5: Ao1, ao2, ao4 (only for core text) + ao3 part 1(comparison)

conclusion -
remember that comparison is only 5 marks out of 40 making it 13% so a 70:30 ratio is recommended

you do not need ao4 and ao3 part 2 for the unseen poetry obviously - but if you know a little about that century then feel free to write about it - such as the 14th to 17th century was famous for renaissance literature and the romantic movement/ romanticism was popular in the mid-late 19th century (1850's)

i coud marry you, thank you
Original post by mizzcoolkat
hi yes i have i put them together im doing the same exam too. im so sacred my memory is rubbish. how do u uplod i can sen them to u its chaucer and hamlet uotes the important theme ones.


Next to submit reply there is go advanced under additional options there's attach files from there u can attach the document :smile:
Original post by gingerlucy
i coud marry you, thank you


Only if it's 24 carat gold ring :tongue: haha but no problem :smile: you can more or less follow the structure for drama too but tweak it for the partner text such as having a critic - luckily for me Hamlet and The Revengers Tragedy have the same context but that may differ with the texts studied.
Any fellow Hamlet/TRT students I'd really recommend listening to this podcast: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/revengers-tragedy-thomas-middleton
It basically covers any AO3/AO4 you'd need when talking about The Revengers Tragedy :biggrin:
i uploded the doucuments but what do i do cuz itsnot cming up on this message any help?

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