Edexcel A-Level Drama and Theatre: The set texts overview quiz quiz

Summarising the plot accurately so the reader can follow the story from beginning to end

Analysing the author's biography and tracing how their life shaped the writing of the play

Memorising every line of the text so it can be quoted in full from memory

Reading the script as a blueprint for performance, asking how each moment would be staged

As a performance instruction carrying the playwright's intention, to be realised on stage

As background description that can safely be skipped over whenever you happen to be pressed for time

As the only thing in the extract genuinely worth discussing in any depth at all

As a historical note about how the play was once staged

Plot, character and central theme

Writing, setting, reception

Past, present and future

Voice, body and design

Whether the contextual point is historically accurate and can be checked against the documented record

Whether the contextual detail is interesting in its own right

Whether removing it would change your reading or staging of a specific moment

Whether the point happens to be about the playwright's own life

It is not especially important, because Section C is really only concerned with the world the play was first written in

Because Section C is taken open book, so the script is in front of you throughout

Because reception is simply another word for the plot of the play

Because Section C asks you to interpret a complete text for a contemporary audience

Because the style carries conventions that tell a maker how the text should be performed and designed

It does not affect staging at all, because the same set of staging conventions can be applied to any play whatever its style

Because the theatrical style only affects the costume choices and leaves the rest of the staging untouched

Because every theatrical style is staged in essentially the same way regardless of its conventions

An unbroken fourth wall between stage and audience

Episodic structure and direct address

A detailed and realistic stage set

Motivated, psychologically believable behaviour

Always copy the original style exactly, reproducing every one of its conventions without any change at all

Ignore the original style entirely and stage the text however happens to be convenient

Decide whether to honour or deliberately reinterpret it for a contemporary audience

Change the plot of the play

A detailed plot summary of the text that runs through the whole of the story in order, scene by scene, from start to finish

A list of all the characters in the text with a short note on each one's role

A copy of the examiners' published mark scheme for the paper

A prepared set of key moments from across the text, each tagged with performance and design possibilities and context

Because a small number of well-chosen, deeply staged moments shows command of the text and outscores a thin plot tour

It does not beat coverage; the strongest whole-text answers work steadily through every scene in turn so that nothing in the plot is left out

Because markers prefer short answers and award the highest marks to whoever writes the least

Because covering the whole text is simply impossible in the time allowed for the answer

They allow you to take in your own annotated notes and a clean copy of each set text to consult during the exam

Because you answer on your set texts from memory, so you must learn them deeply and build an evidence bank

Because clean copies of the set texts are provided for you in the exam room

Because Sections B and C are practical performance components, not written ones

Writing longer free-standing history paragraphs that set out the background in much greater detail

Removing all context from the answer and writing about the staging alone

Integrating context into staging choices rather than reporting it as background

Only ever using context that is about the author's own life