Othello...how to revise?

TOP TIP: it's all very well learning key quotes but the absolutely BEST way to revise Othello is to read the play through at least three times, and to watch as many versions of it as possible, as many times as possible. Watch the RSC DVD and read the text along with it. Stick the DVD on in the background whilst you tidy your room. Think about the play whilst you read and watch, and make and learn notes. You'll find you absorb it and will be able to quote liberally and accurately. It's far better than learning select quotes as you maintain a good and thorough idea of the play, rather than a few bits and bobs - thus writing in the exam, under pressure, is much easier.

If you're doing Blake, simply re-read the poems continually, out loud as much as possible. Just take a poem a day or two poems a day, and re-read them throughout that day. Make notes, too, and learn these. Again: absorption and a good grasp will follow pretty well effortlessly.

This way it is easier to reference other scenes with regards to the extract

I think learning 29 or 30 poems or whatever is a bit much. You won't have time to talk about that many in the exam. The most you'll be able to comment on in proper and sustained analytic detail will be four or five. Which is not to say that you should only read four or five, or even only learn that amount. I think learning ten or twelve is about right, but you'll find you probably know more than you expect without trying. Re-read all of them several times through.

The trick in the exam is to create a sort of implied hinterland of the other poems around and behind the few poems you discuss - ie. making it suggested or obvious that you also know of the other poems, and what they say, and that your discussion of a particular poem is illustrative of wider things going on.

If you're doing 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience', pick out six pairs of Innocence/Experience poems and just thoroughly learn and analyse them. Re-read the collection through several times, analysing the other poems in some depth as well, so that you have a good idea of them and can make quick links from memory if necessary. But really, make an essential twelve - twelve that you think are important and you have interesting things to say about - your focus for revision.

The exam, I found, was tough only in trying to fit two essays into such a short period of time. Other than that, you should breeze it.

for the othello question, they give you two opinions and then you have to say how far you agree with them, and then there is another question as well like how do you think shakespeare has presented othello. what i was wondering is how long you should spend answering each bit? should you spend 1/3 each on the two opinions and the final question??

I think learning 29 or 30 poems or whatever is a bit much. You won't have time to talk about that many in the exam. The most you'll be able to comment on in proper and sustained analytic detail will be four or five. Which is not to say that you should only read four or five, or even only learn that amount. I think learning ten or twelve is about right, but you'll find you probably know more than you expect without trying. Re-read all of them several times through.

The trick in the exam is to create a sort of implied hinterland of the other poems around and behind the few poems you discuss - ie. making it suggested or obvious that you also know of the other poems, and what they say, and that your discussion of a particular poem is illustrative of wider things going on.

If you're doing 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience', pick out six pairs of Innocence/Experience poems and just thoroughly learn and analyse them. Re-read the collection through several times, analysing the other poems in some depth as well, so that you have a good idea of them and can make quick links from memory if necessary. But really, make an essential twelve - twelve that you think are important and you have interesting things to say about - your focus for revision.