OCR English Literature A Level

I’m doing tempest / duchess of malfi and paradise lost for the exam on Thursday - anyone have any predictions or advice ? Starting to panic !

Reply 1

_HS

14

how did you find the exam? I do the same text as you. The tempest passage and question was good and the range of choice was good but as usual I managed to mess up

Reply 2

Martins1

13

I would have predicted morality, freedom or sin for Measure for Measure but NO they give us comedy??

Lol in a play which is essentially more tragic than comic and there is NO literary criticism on the "funny side of life", that was an odd choice of question. Also, the fact that our extract was about a drunkard refusing to die (which is irrelevant to the plot...)... thanks OCR. Just, thanks.

Went alright though. Also nice questions for the comparison.

Anyone else do Measure for Measure and just thinking "???"?

Reply 3

Sizeable Muppet

4

Original post by Martins1

I would have predicted morality, freedom or sin for Measure for Measure but NO they give us comedy??

Lol in a play which is essentially more tragic than comic and there is NO literary criticism on the "funny side of life", that was an odd choice of question. Also, the fact that our extract was about a drunkard refusing to die (which is irrelevant to the plot...)... thanks OCR. Just, thanks.

Went alright though. Also nice questions for the comparison.

Anyone else do Measure for Measure and just thinking "???"?

Same! I predicted deceit/ disguise or a status question - difficult when you consider it's only the second year running it! Yeah I found it hard to slip many named critics in there. I found comparison q's ok but still not very nice!

Reply 4

Martins1

13

Original post by Sizeable Muppet

Same! I predicted deceit/ disguise or a status question - difficult when you consider it's only the second year running it! Yeah I found it hard to slip many named critics in there. I found comparison q's ok but still not very nice!

Ah, shame

I did folly, and adapted it for my own ends. Still can't get over the oddness of the choice of question and scene, but sometimes I suppose the niche topic is nice...

Reply 5

aldaidyl

OP

3

Original post by _HS

how did you find the exam? I do the same text as you. The tempest passage and question was good and the range of choice was good but as usual I managed to mess up

The passage was ok but I definitely didn’t feel too confident with it - same with the Prospero question I felt as I was too general and didn’t put enough AO5 in ! I chose the love question and made some vague points but I don’t think I put enough context in to get an A which I need for uni !!! How did you find it ???

Reply 6

_HS

14

Original post by aldaidyl

The passage was ok but I definitely didn’t feel too confident with it - same with the Prospero question I felt as I was too general and didn’t put enough AO5 in ! I chose the love question and made some vague points but I don’t think I put enough context in to get an A which I need for uni !!! How did you find it ???

Yeah Tempest is definitely my weakest area. I had two points for section A about the extract: it shows prospero's relationship with ariel and also prospero's renouncement of magic. My points for section B was that he abuses his powers by using magic to torture caliban and Ariel, he uses magic to secure miranda's future and he uses magic to reconciliate with his enemies. I feel like my OA5 was ok because I used a lot of productions but my AO1 was awful....

I chose the change question for duchess and PL which was a mistake! Should have done the foolish actions leads to consequences question... My points were both Duchess and Eve wants to change their sheltered lives to one they can control but both have dire consequences. Bosola and Satan both want to change their social class but again it leads to their downfall. My third point was that change could have positive outcomes like the restoration of peace. I messed that up because I did not address the statement "the world is constantly changing" once...

Reply 7

fraserdupuis

1

Original post by Martins1

I would have predicted morality, freedom or sin for Measure for Measure but NO they give us comedy??

Lol in a play which is essentially more tragic than comic and there is NO literary criticism on the "funny side of life", that was an odd choice of question. Also, the fact that our extract was about a drunkard refusing to die (which is irrelevant to the plot...)... thanks OCR. Just, thanks.

Went alright though. Also nice questions for the comparison.

Anyone else do Measure for Measure and just thinking "???"?

I did MfM too. What the hell was that. I took the 'problem play' angle, and talked about how the serious stuff makes people forget it's funny, but there are comedic elements there. But it was so hard.

Reply 8

Martins1

13

Original post by fraserdupuis

I did MfM too. What the hell was that. I took the 'problem play' angle, and talked about how the serious stuff makes people forget it's funny, but there are comedic elements there. But it was so hard.

Yeah I did similar, and took possible comedic parts from the play / productions of M4M and then inverted them, displaying why they actually convey the perverted morality and sinister ideology of Vienna - thus making it a "problem play"/tragic'comedy'. But it was hard - plus the question was harder than just "comedy" since we couldn't just argue that it was a comedy but that it's funny - and ON TOP OF THAT we had to engage with the idea that Shakespeare never forgets the funny side of life which is pretty difficult to argue since I doubt anyone remembers many quotes from the Pompey/Froth silly scenes or Lucio's jokes about Mistress Overdone.

Reply 9

_Joe24_

6

No idea what happened in that exam but I managed to mess up every single question. We studied Twelfth Night and I guessed the extract that came up, yet the fact I guessed it didn't help at all. Section B was seemingly a decent viewpoint/question, but actually I really struggled with it (ironic because the question was about appearances concealing a different reality lol). Definitely messed that one up and genuinely considered leaving the exam room.

I studied Duchess of Malfi and Rossetti poetry, and I thought the range of questions were quite decent. Ended up choosing the intense feeling and emotion after deciding the love question was too oddly phrased. However, I only wrote two different points, used 4 quotes from the play and 3 poems. Got quite a lot of context (both production and reception) in. Ultimately feel absolutely rubbish which I'm gutted about because I got 58/60 in the mock and need an A for uni.

Reply 10

farokh21

3

If it is any consolation I am a teacher and it was an utterly stupid question on Measure for Measure- I have written a formal complaint on behalf of my students- ask your teachers to do the same.