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English Literature

Course overview

Literature Paper 1 – Macbeth and A Christmas Carol (64 marks, 40% of exam) 

Literature Paper 2 – An Inspector Calls, Power and Conflict Poetry and Unseen Poetry (96 marks, 60% of exam)

Key revision resources

Books 

  • The original texts 
  • Revision Guides (provided for all elements of the exams except Unseen Poetry). 
  • Poetry Anthology 

Websites

GCSEPod 

AQA

Videos

Mr Everything English 

Mr Bruff 

How best to revise

  • Quotation revision.  
  • Dual coding recall tasks.
  • Make a statement about a text and use 'because, but, so' to interrogate the original statement.
  • Regular theme retrievals for texts/poems. Focus on a theme and write everything down that you can remember that is relevant. 
  • Timeline tasks - what happened when and to whom. 
  • Complete assessments under exam conditions to develop writing stamina. 
  • Revise texts separately. Set up a revision timetable which clearly shows which texts you will be revising and when. You don't want to be getting the texts confused! 

Additional information

The exams vary – in most you are provided with an extract or a poem. However, for 'An Inspector Calls' you are not given a text, so you must know quotations for this play.