Recommended Reading
When I meet a new tutee for the first time for help with literature, I ask them what they want from their sessions with me. Invariably they say 'I want an A*’ or the equivalent in the exam they are taking. Given my extensive experience as a teacher and as an examiner for A level, GCSE and International Baccalaureate Literature, I suppose that from the student’s point of view I should have access to the magic pill. Unfortunately, I can’t produce anything from a bottle, but I do have advice about exams and many teaching strategies to improve understanding and performance.
GENERAL POINTS
First of all, remember that examiners are not monsters who want to catch you out and give you low marks. We begin the marking process feeling optimistic and wanting to read and reward good work. We are really pleased when we read a high-quality answer. I have been known to rush into my husband’s study saying, ’Read this. It’s excellent!’ Marking is time-consuming and hard work and, strange creatures that we examiners are, we feel elated when we see a thoughtful, precise and well-expressed answer. It gives us no pleasure to fail students, but we have no alternative if the essays are unfocused, sloppily presented and lacking in knowledge and analysis.
A FEW THINGS WHICH ANNOY THIS EXAMINER
Remember that you are writing about literature, not sociology or life.
Works of literature are imaginative constructs: their authors made them by putting all the elements together. The characters are not real and it is pointless writing about what they might or should do in a different situation. Nor are works of literature necessarily teaching lessons and your job is not to dig around in books looking for messages. Your focus should be on words and the way the writers have made them work.
Do leave time to proof-read coursework and examination essays.
I would guess that other examiners feel as irritated as I do when characters’ names are misspelt and lines of poetry, particularly Shakespearian blank verse, are turned into prose. It’s like being given coffee in a dirty, chipped cup: the coffee may be excellent but you have to be determined to appreciate it and ignore the container.
THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO YOURSELF TO INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF A GAINING A GOOD GRADE.
The first is to get to know your texts extremely well.
Read and re-read them. You may feel secure because your teacher has given you notes and you have downloaded a lot of material from the Internet. But if you don’t know and understand your texts thoroughly, you may not be able to use this information appropriately. This is which is why I frequently write ‘ill-digested teachers’ notes’ in the margin of exam scripts or ‘poorly understood.’ Experienced examiners can tell!
If you are very familiar with, say, a long and complex Victorian novel like Jane Eyre, you will find that it shrinks in your mind and becomes more manageable, so that you will be able to stand back and to see it as a whole. You will be confident about discussing the ideas in the book and not end up just describing plot. You won’t waste time in the exam trying to dredge up important events. You will have more planning and writing time and be able remember short quotations and details to use in your essay as evidence for your argument.
Look carefully at the question you have been given for coursework or in the exam and answer the question actually set.
There is an understandable urge not to waste all the hours of revision you have been doing, particularly if you are not planning to continue studying English at a higher level. You may feel that this will be the last chance to use your knowledge and you want to include as much as possible. You may have learned a model answer which is vaguely connected to the question set and are tempted to see if you can sneak it past the examiner. Don’t choose any of these options, but think about the actual question set.
Practise handwriting essays.
You are probably used to word processing your coursework essays and cutting and pasting. If you are handwriting a timed exam, you need to practise in order to avoid producing a messy script full of crossings-out and desperate-looking arrows and asterisks.
Your writing must be legible (again this is about keeping the examiner happy) and buy some good quality pens which will not leak or blot after several hours in a hot hand as cheap biros sometimes do.
NOW FOR THE DIFFICULT STUFF!
A high grade will be given to a carefully planned essay which has a logically developed and coherent argument, with depth of understanding, critical analysis, perceptive insights, and a lively engagement with the text, all of which is supported by well-chosen evidence!
I agree that this is a tall order. There is no magic pill, no short cut and no quick fix for this. I can’t tell you how to how to do this in a few sentences anymore than you could be told how to drive a car, but these are the skills that we can work on in our one-to-one sessions. That is where an experienced tutor comes in.
