OCR A-level English Literature Paper 2 - 22nd May 2025 [Exam Chat]

ye honestly they weren't the best. Which one did you do?

I did the first one, ab limitations of governments or smmin
But like first 2 questions felt the same, the first just had a littlllee more freedom for me to interpret it as the "limitations" being the ignoring of the human state and emotional liberation n all that classic dystopia shiz idk i gotta hope paper 1 carries

Hi guys can anyone remember whatthe Dystopian extract was - name of book/author? thanks x

Yeah I think most people probably did that question ngl, I did the same. I was talking about doublethink in 1984 and how they could literally control thought, showing there was no limits to these governments, then atwood i talked about forced reproduction. Honestly i think papers were around the same for me, but I wrote less for this cuz of less questions. Some of my friends used the answer booklet and the entire extra one too - insane work. I wrote 4 pages for each answer, wbu?

Hold up guys I did the limits of trust between people not the government one😭 yapped about surveillance panopticism and the contrast of Winston betraying Julia and Offred's cautious trust of those around her but it leads to her escape (is it cooked)

i did that question too and i took a similar approach, i talked about how it is difficult to trust people when you cant fully ascertain whether their conformity is genuine or not (like offred with ofglen) and i did a point about how constant social surveillance like the fear of being snitched on also prevents trust. then i did a similar point to you and talked about how while both protagonists do put their trust in others offred doing so facilitates her growth and her eventual escape but for winston him putting trust in others leads to his downfall. im so annoyed i completely forgot to talk about the panopticon stuff my context was so weird and niche*

For the unseen part of paper 2 dystopia, do references to other dystopian texts count as ao3 cuz I didn't speak about like the actual period of time the extract was from but some of my friends did. I did a lot of comparison/reference to other dystopian works, just wanted to know if that's ao3 otherwise I'm cooked.

yeah that's ao3 so you're all good

Nah I know this is a week later I've been too locked in with revising and had to put it behind me but from what I can hear you my friend have COOKED, also I heard examiners like niche context if anything I've been panicking about general context like Reaganism and blah blah whilst having very niche points like when Winston eats with Syme and Parsons

for my context about how you cant tell whether people are genuine conformers or not i talked about how gay men used to wear green carnations to signal to other gay men that they were queer and that they just couldn't openly show it because homosexuality was illegal😭 i just think it was a moot point bc thats not like a dystopian authoritarian regime but tysm your response was really reassuring!! your point about winston with syme is so good i wanted to talk about syme but i didnt know any quotes about him lmao

Does anyone know where the gothic unseen was from?

The dystopian questions were actually horrendous what on earth

I thought the comparative questions were pretty harsh - I severely bended the fantasy and human nature one to just talk about sexuality, innate desires and patriarchy. Unseen was good, but kind of boring ?? Unseen is usually my worst so I hope I did good 🙏 it's all over now though so just have to pray to the OCR gods