A-level Classical Civilisation Study Group 2025-2026
Welcome to the A-level Classical Civilisation Study Group! This is where you can chat with other students studying the same subjects as you and support each other as you head towards your exams
You can post any useful tips and resources that you come across, offer support to others, share your successes, or just have moan when it gets tough!
Just remember, it’s against the site rules to ask for or offer any copyrighted papers and to request offsite chat. Posts that break these rules will be removed.
A few possible ice breaker questions are:
What exam board are you with?
What do you enjoy most about this subject/ course?
What area do you struggle with in this subject/ course?
(edited 1 month ago)
Reply 1
Heyyy!! I take OCR Classics! I love the literature side of classics (Although it's a massive pain to write essays for) i do the aeneid, odyssey, imperial image and athenian democracy!I struggle most with remembering specific dates and writing good essays (This subject SUCKS exam wise, love the content hate getting assessed </3) I've been stuck on a middle C grade all of year 12 and 13.., never gone up and never gone down this subject is going to be the end of my career
(I do love this subject) :P
(I do love this subject) :P
Reply 2
Heyyy!! I take OCR Classics! I love the literature side of classics (Although it's a massive pain to write essays for) i do the aeneid, odyssey, imperial image and athenian democracy!I struggle most with remembering specific dates and writing good essays (This subject SUCKS exam wise, love the content hate getting assessed </3) I've been stuck on a middle C grade all of year 12 and 13.., never gone up and never gone down this subject is going to be the end of my career
(I do love this subject) :P
(I do love this subject) :P
Reply 3
13
Hihii im so glad these exist!! so cool to meet ppl doing ocr classics (luckily the only exam board that does it) and I really love the lessons because classics is just so insane at times and i love it :'') revising is a pain though and essays (especially in exam conditions) are terrifying. Alongside the odyssey and Aeneid my school does greek theatre and love and relationships. hoping to get an a/a* in the upcoming november mocks by planning essays this half term. gl everyone for this year!!
Reply 4
Hiii I’m just starting Alevel classics this year (although I did gsce classics as well) and i want to know if there are any clear structures for 10 / 20 / 30 markers, bc they are soo different to gsce. I’m doing the odyssey, Aeneid, love and relationships and Greek art, but Started on odyssey and Greek art.
Reply 5
Original post
by 5hyl33n Welcome to the A-level Classical Civilisation Study Group! This is where you can chat with other students studying the same subjects as you and support each other as you head towards your exams
You can post any useful tips and resources that you come across, offer support to others, share your successes, or just have moan when it gets tough!
Just remember, it’s against the site rules to ask for or offer any copyrighted papers and to request offsite chat. Posts that break these rules will be removed.
A few possible ice breaker questions are:
What exam board are you with?
What do you enjoy most about this subject/ course?
What area do you struggle with in this subject/ course?
HIIII!! I'm new to doing classics, I'm I year 12 right now, I'm doing OCR. What I enjoy most about this subject so far is the book the Odyssey , as I've alway enjoyed greek mythology, its really an interesting book and I love annotating in class.. right now I'm struggling with remembering key dates and names of the free standing statues. To anyone who's in year 13 please any tips fr writing essays, getting top grades etc please!!
Reply 6
Original post
by Goose_kfldHiii I’m just starting Alevel classics this year (although I did gsce classics as well) and i want to know if there are any clear structures for 10 / 20 / 30 markers, bc they are soo different to gsce. I’m doing the odyssey, Aeneid, love and relationships and Greek art, but Started on odyssey and Greek art.
I’m doing the exact same units as you! Although I didn’t do classics gcse; I did latin instead.
Reply 7
thats so cool, what grades did you get? Also where is everyone going to school that offers classics bc i thought it was a rare one, but a fair amount of people seem to know it
Original post
by alwaysfrustratedI’m doing the exact same units as you! Although I didn’t do classics gcse; I did latin instead.
Reply 8
These are tips are gotten from someone else, just passing them on.
10 markers: pick 4 or 5 short quotes from the text that you think are interesting and write a six line paragraph about each one. Thisis basically an English Literature GCSE question, you're not trying to contextualise it at all you're just saying something like Homercreates emotion through this metaphor here's what's emotional about it. If the questions asks something like "how effectively..."then do a single line conclusion saying super duper effectively or really *****ily (same thing goes for pots)
20 markers: These could do with a very brief introduction - literally no more than two sentences, explain ur initial initial thoughts,like "throughout the Aeneid, the Trojans are often shown as suffering in order to enhance our view of Aeneas as a great leader.However, Virgil ocassionally demonstrates that these characters can feel joy, or find community in their sorrows." (That's not greatbut you get the idea). Then four paragraphs, each on either a different theme/relationship or a specific moment. I enjoyed thetheme/relationships bc i think it means you can make it much broader - the question abt the Trojans could have the Trojans inTroy, then the constant stream of help from the gods (and whether or not that's a positive), the extensive loss of citizens on theirjourney (and the split in book 5 i think), and then the destruction of the peace that they think they've found in book 7. Again theseare fundamentally literature based - you don't need to quote but you need to be able to make incredibly close reference, and soyou should be analysing things like the contents of metaphors here, linking semantic fields, and trying to write a really good GCSEEnglish Literature essay. These also need a conclusion, but probably not more than a couple of sentences.
30 markers: there's a lot of debate but the best advice I got was - write an introduction that doesn't contain your conclusion. Youcan imply it but they expect you to make up your mind as you go and they'd rather you write a vague intro than end up with aconclusion that you've disproved or an introduction that disagrees with the conclusion. Besides that, try to base each (of again, 4or 5) paragraph around a scholar's opinion. Don't panic if you can't - just write an extended version of your 20 marker paragraphs,but starting with a scholar's opinion and then proving that they're right (or actually not) is going to be the easiest way to do this.Again, close reference to the text and solid literary analysis, as well as an inclusion of how it would've landed at the time andrelevant social factors are the fundamentals of your writing here. Normally, 30 marker questions are made of two parts, eg "Nowomen, no goddesses: no story". This is intentional, they're trying to give you two halves to argue for or against and it's a reallysolid idea to structure this essay by arguing for no women no story, against it, and then the same for goddesses. If it feels like aparagraph is getting too long, you probably don't have enough time to keep writing, but if you do then put in paragraph breaks bcthey get annoyed.
Welcome to the A-level Classical Civilisation Study Group!
This is where you can chat with other students studying the same subjects as you and support each other as you head towards your exams
You can post any useful tips and resources that you come across, offer support to others, share your successes, or just have moan when it gets tough!
Just remember, it’s against the site rules to ask for or offer any copyrighted papers and to request offsite chat. Posts that break these rules will be removed.
A few possible ice breaker questions are:
What exam board are you with?
What do you enjoy most about this subject/ course?
What area do you struggle with in this subject/ course?
10 markers: pick 4 or 5 short quotes from the text that you think are interesting and write a six line paragraph about each one. Thisis basically an English Literature GCSE question, you're not trying to contextualise it at all you're just saying something like Homercreates emotion through this metaphor here's what's emotional about it. If the questions asks something like "how effectively..."then do a single line conclusion saying super duper effectively or really *****ily (same thing goes for pots)
20 markers: These could do with a very brief introduction - literally no more than two sentences, explain ur initial initial thoughts,like "throughout the Aeneid, the Trojans are often shown as suffering in order to enhance our view of Aeneas as a great leader.However, Virgil ocassionally demonstrates that these characters can feel joy, or find community in their sorrows." (That's not greatbut you get the idea). Then four paragraphs, each on either a different theme/relationship or a specific moment. I enjoyed thetheme/relationships bc i think it means you can make it much broader - the question abt the Trojans could have the Trojans inTroy, then the constant stream of help from the gods (and whether or not that's a positive), the extensive loss of citizens on theirjourney (and the split in book 5 i think), and then the destruction of the peace that they think they've found in book 7. Again theseare fundamentally literature based - you don't need to quote but you need to be able to make incredibly close reference, and soyou should be analysing things like the contents of metaphors here, linking semantic fields, and trying to write a really good GCSEEnglish Literature essay. These also need a conclusion, but probably not more than a couple of sentences.
30 markers: there's a lot of debate but the best advice I got was - write an introduction that doesn't contain your conclusion. Youcan imply it but they expect you to make up your mind as you go and they'd rather you write a vague intro than end up with aconclusion that you've disproved or an introduction that disagrees with the conclusion. Besides that, try to base each (of again, 4or 5) paragraph around a scholar's opinion. Don't panic if you can't - just write an extended version of your 20 marker paragraphs,but starting with a scholar's opinion and then proving that they're right (or actually not) is going to be the easiest way to do this.Again, close reference to the text and solid literary analysis, as well as an inclusion of how it would've landed at the time andrelevant social factors are the fundamentals of your writing here. Normally, 30 marker questions are made of two parts, eg "Nowomen, no goddesses: no story". This is intentional, they're trying to give you two halves to argue for or against and it's a reallysolid idea to structure this essay by arguing for no women no story, against it, and then the same for goddesses. If it feels like aparagraph is getting too long, you probably don't have enough time to keep writing, but if you do then put in paragraph breaks bcthey get annoyed.
Original post
by 5hyl33n Welcome to the A-level Classical Civilisation Study Group! This is where you can chat with other students studying the same subjects as you and support each other as you head towards your exams
You can post any useful tips and resources that you come across, offer support to others, share your successes, or just have moan when it gets tough!
Just remember, it’s against the site rules to ask for or offer any copyrighted papers and to request offsite chat. Posts that break these rules will be removed.
A few possible ice breaker questions are:
What exam board are you with?
What do you enjoy most about this subject/ course?
What area do you struggle with in this subject/ course?
Reply 9
Original post
by Goose_kfldHiii I’m just starting Alevel classics this year (although I did gsce classics as well) and i want to know if there are any clear structures for 10 / 20 / 30 markers, bc they are soo different to gsce. I’m doing the odyssey, Aeneid, love and relationships and Greek art, but Started on odyssey and Greek art.
omg sameee! I HATE writing 20 markers, I can never get intros right, if u find a structure pls let me know.
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