The Assessment Objectives
- AO1: read, understand and respond to texts in a critical style, using references and quotations. AO2: analyse language, form and structure, using subject terms. AO3: show understanding of context.
- AO4: spelling, punctuation and grammar, marked on the Shakespeare and modern text questions (4 marks each).
Planning
- Underline the key words in the question. Write a thesis: your main argument, in one sentence.
- Plan three or four points that move through the text, from the beginning to the end, each with a key quotation.
Writing paragraphs
- Make a point, give a short, embedded quotation, analyse it (zoom in on words, methods and effects), link it to context and the writer's purpose, and link back to the question.
- For extract questions, start with the extract, then move out to the rest of the text.
- Write about the writer's choices ('Dickens presents…', 'Shakespeare uses…'), not as if characters were real people.
Exam timing (AQA)
- Paper 1 (1 hour 45 minutes): Shakespeare, then the 19th-century novel, about 50 minutes each.
- Paper 2 (2 hours 15 minutes): the modern text, the anthology poetry and the unseen poetry, about 45 minutes each.
- Every board uses the same four Assessment Objectives, but Edexcel and OCR organise their papers differently: check your board's sections on your course page.
Key terms
- Thesis
- Your main argument in answer to the question.
- Assessment Objective
- One of the skills the examiners reward, such as AO2.
- Embedded quotation
- A short quotation built into your own sentence.
- Context
- The time, place and ideas that shaped a text.
- Writer's methods
- The choices a writer makes in language, form and structure.
- Critical style
- Writing that analyses and evaluates, rather than retelling.
- Subject terminology
- Specialist words such as 'metaphor' and 'dramatic irony'.