The unseen questions
- Question 27.1 (24 marks): analyse how the poet presents an idea in one poem you haven't seen before.
- Question 27.2 (8 marks): compare the methods the poets use in two unseen poems. Only the methods are assessed here.
- Spend about 45 minutes on the whole section.
Reading an unseen poem
- Read it twice: first for its overall meaning, then closely. Work out who the speaker is, what situation they are in, and what the tone is. Does it change?
- Use the title and the ending as clues, and look for a turning point (a volta).
Analysing methods
- Language: imagery (similes, metaphors, personification), word choices and their connotations, and sound (alliteration, sibilance, onomatopoeia).
- Structure: stanza and line lengths, enjambment and caesura, repetition, shifts in tone, and the ending.
- Form: sonnet, free verse or dramatic monologue, and whether the rhyme and rhythm are regular or broken.
Writing the answer
- Begin with an overview of what the poem is about. Analyse methods using short quotations, explain their effects on the reader, and offer other possible interpretations.
- For 27.2, compare only the methods, using comparative words such as 'similarly' and 'whereas'.
Other boards
- Edexcel: you compare two unseen poems in one answer.
- OCR: you compare an unseen poem with a poem from your anthology cluster.
- The reading and analysis skills here work for every board.
Key terms
- Enjambment
- When a sentence runs on from one line to the next.
- Caesura
- A pause in the middle of a line.
- Volta
- A turning point in a poem.
- Stanza
- A group of lines in a poem, like a paragraph.
- Free verse
- Poetry with no regular rhyme or rhythm.
- Rhyme scheme
- The pattern of rhymes at the ends of lines.
- Iambic pentameter
- A line of ten syllables, alternating unstressed and stressed.
- Tone
- The mood or attitude of a poem's voice.