What is OCR English lit like at A level

I’ve made a couple posts like this but haven’t really gotten any answers and what with the new school year coming up fast I really need to decide whether to take this or not, sooo if you’ve taken this as your A level can you please tell me:

Did you struggle with the workload?

Was it really time consuming compared to other subjects you took (if so what were the other subjects)?

Did you regret taking it? Or did you enjoy it?

Is there more coursework than exams (I mean like will we be expected to do loads and loads of work outside of the classroom or is it more remembering stuff and applying it in the exams)?

Is it similar to gcse, for example is it mostly memorising quotes and poems, or is it different?

Any other advice would be appreciated as well, thanks

Reply 1

ChunLi

Hii!
I'm starting year 13 this September so I completed AS level for Ocr English lit.
Bare in mind that my experience might be different from others :smile:

I was really good in GCSE eng lit and I loved it so I decided to do it for A level. Guess what? It was really different, ok... not that much, but in terms of work load and expectations yes.

I studied Hamlet, Rossetti (poetry pre 1900), The bloody Chamber by Carter (prose post 1900), A streetcar named desire by Williams Tennessee (drama post 1900- you won't study the play in year 13 and you can use it for your coursework task). In Year 13 you study the same text + a pre 1900 prose and play, we're gonna do Frankestein and A Doll's House.

I did struggle with the workload because in year 12 you have to memorize a lot of quotes, I made flashcards and I ended up with more than 300-400 quotes.
You also have to memorize critical quotations which are basically interpretations made by critics of the text ( you also have to remember the name of the critic). The problem here is that you don't know which topic will come in the exam so which critics to memorize, so you have to remember tons of critics for different themes and characters.

It was much more time consuming than Psychology (which is a heavy content subject but as long as you memorize the facts you're fine) and Spanish.

Before the exams me and my friends were complaining about taking English Lit and how we regretted it 😭. Ocr has really high grade boundaries than other exam boards like aqa ( more than 80% for an A in AS level and more around 95% for an A* in alevel but obviously grade boundaries change every year and with covid they might be lower) . But it is an enjoyable subject during lesson as you have interesting discussions, also the classes tend to be small so you get to know each other well.

You definitely need to work a lot outside of class memorizing quotes, critics, context, interpretations, making annotations... but unlike my other subjects it had less homework and if I had any they were either doing extra reading or doing research.
In Year 13 you'll be expected to do extra reading on the topic chosen by your teacher. Mine chose the gothic (That's why I'm studying Frankestein and the Bloody Chamber) and in the exam in Year 13 the question will also refer to the Gothic genre in general. So you'll have to include other Gothic texts you read on your own time.

Unlike GCSE you need to do more than memorizing quotes, you need to be critical and analytical. For example you might get questions like:
" Sexuality is the destructive force that leads to an inevitable downfall"
In light of this statement discuss how XXX presents sexuality in YYY. / or to what extent do you agree?
You can't just argue, yes sexuality is destructive because... you have to be more like: yes it is in X case however this shows it is not...
Basically you need to argue different points.

For Shakespeare and poetry in year 12 you need to include more language analysis in the essay and less context and critics. This was something my whole class was struggling with, language analysis is quite hard as you cant just say this is a metaphor but have to explain what it conveys, suggests, what effect it has on the reader etc...
While the play and prose post 1900 require you to do more contextual links rather than language analysis, this was much easier, you just have to know well the historical period and the author's life and apply it to the text. However you'll get an unseen extract to compare with the prose text.

In year 13 for Shakespeare you'll have to memorize less quotes as you'll have an extract to analyse language ( like aqa gcse eng lit). But you'll have to memorize more critics since the second section is all about different interpretations of a topic ( eg Madness in Hamlet).
In Paper 1 ( Shakespeare, poetry and drama pre 1900) you'll have to compare poetry with the drama but the focus is on historical context so also less language analysis 🥳. Although you still have to memorize quotes its easier for context than language analysis.
Paper 2 focuses on the genre chosen by your teachers ( Gothic, Dystopian, Women's literature etc...) and its highly focused on context and comparing texts.

My advice will be to keep up with what you do in class. At the start of year 12 I struggled a lot because I didn't bother myself to memorize quotes of the act or poem we discussed in class. So if you do Act 1 scene 2 in class, try to memorize the most important quotes from that scene when you go home. Be very selective when it comes to quotes, make sure you can discuss context or make good language analysis with them.
Do extra reading at home, read the text ahead, make a few annotations.
Make a list of critics for each character and theme (for the papers that require critics).
You should do essay practice at home, better if timed and if you don't have much time you could pick past paper questions and make detailed plans.

You will struggle at the start, we all do. But after writing a lot of essays at school you will get better and if you consistently work hard you'll achieve the grade you want. It was hard but at the end I got an A.

Hope this was useful.
Thank you for attending my TEDtalk :h: