Eduqas A-Level Drama and Theatre: Text in Performance (Component 3) overview quiz quiz

1 hour 30 minutes, worth 60 marks (20 per cent)

3 hours exactly, worth 80 marks (30 per cent)

2 hours 30 minutes, 120 marks (40 per cent)

2 hours exactly, worth 100 marks (35 per cent)

An extended essay on a pre-1900 poem from the anthology

A devised piece created from a given stimulus

A written review of a live theatre production

Structured questions on one complete set text

An extended essay on a second complete set text from a different period

A series of multiple-choice questions testing knowledge of the set text

A short-answer recall test on plot, characters and key quotations from the text

A practical live performance of an extract assessed by the visiting examiner

One of your two complete set texts, recalled entirely from memory in the exam

An extract from a third contrasting text, printed in the exam paper

A contrasting text that you are free to choose for yourself on the day of the exam

A live theatre performance that you attend and then write about afterwards

Both of the two complete set texts must have been written at some point before the year 1956

All of the texts studied for the component must have been written after 1956

Of the two complete set texts, one must be written before 1956 and one after 1956

There is no period rule, so any two complete set texts may freely be chosen

All three of the sections, with fully annotated copies of every text you have studied

None of the sections; the whole paper is sat entirely closed book from memory

Section C only, with any handwritten notes and annotations you wish to bring in

Sections A and B, with clean unannotated copies of your two complete set texts

A theatre maker (performer, director and designer)

A literary critic analysing the play purely as written text

An audience member only, describing what is seen from the seats

A theatre historian setting the play in its original context

AO1 and AO2

AO3 and AO4

AO2 and AO3

All four equally

Because you are not actually allowed to read the text from the clean copy at any point during the exam itself

Because the copies you are given are completely blank pages with none of the script printed

Because the marks are in the staging and design choices and their effect, not in finding the moment

Because there is simply no time during the exam to read any of the play from the clean copy

Memorising a whole play and reproducing it accurately from memory under exam conditions

Reciting learned quotations from the set texts to demonstrate detailed textual knowledge

Comparing the two complete set texts and drawing sustained connections between them

Close reading of the printed extract turned into specific, justified staging

As scripts for performance, building staging and design possibilities and a concept

As works of literature, focusing mainly on their themes, imagery and language as text

Only by reading detailed plot summaries and character guides rather than the full play

By memorising the plot of each play scene by scene so it can be retold accurately

Choosing a famous or popular set text that many other centres are also studying

Writing literary criticism or retelling the plot instead of making theatre-maker choices

Using far too many staging and design choices and overcrowding the answer with detail

Citing and quoting from the set text far too precisely and accurately all the way through the answer