OCR A-Level English Language and Literature: the language of drama (Component 02 Section B) overview quiz quiz

An unseen drama extract analysed cold, with no prior study of the play required

One essay on a set play (32 marks), assessing AO1, AO2 and AO3, closed text

A creative rewriting of a scene followed by a reflective commentary on the choices

A comparison of two unseen poems set side by side, assessing only AO1 and AO2

They simply allow you to count the lines that each character speaks and then rank them by their total stage time

They describe the physical set and props so the reader can picture the staging accurately

Drama's dialogue is interaction; conflict, power and subtext live in floor control, interruption and implicature

They govern the spelling and punctuation of the printed playtext rather than its meaning

Almost entirely through the physical stage set and the way the scenery frames each figure

Through the cast list at the front, which fixes each character's status before the play begins

Through the play's title alone, which announces who the central character is meant to be

Almost entirely through speech: idiolect, the grammar of utterances, and pragmatic behaviour

The gap between what characters know and what the audience knows, generating dread, pity, suspense or comedy

Simply a character speaking sarcastically, saying the exact opposite of what is plainly meant in order to mock another

A particular type of rhyme scheme used in the verse passages of a play to mark moments of tension

A bracketed stage direction telling the actor how to move, pause or deliver a particular line

They are merely optional notes added later by the publisher and so carry no real bearing on the play's meaning or its effect

They are part of the text and meaning: a marked silence, prop or movement is a deliberate choice with a performed effect

They are written only for directors and actors and have nothing to offer the literary reader

They never matter to the essay, since marks are awarded for analysing the spoken dialogue alone

To physically act it out on a stage rather than studying the printed text on the page at all

To read only the spoken dialogue and ignore all the stage directions, on the view that the talk alone carries every meaning

To analyse stagecraft, the audience's constructed experience and theatrical convention, not just the story

To summarise the plot scene by scene so the sequence of events is clear before any analysis

Stay strictly inside the extract and never refer to anything elsewhere in the play

Ignore the printed extract entirely and write only from your memory of the whole play

Summarise the whole plot from start to finish and only then mention the printed extract

Anchor close analysis in the extract and reach across the play from memory

Section B rewards whole-play knowledge; a mapped play lets you place any extract and trace development from memory

In order to memorise the entire play word for word, so that long passages can be quoted exactly from memory in the exam

Because OCR formally requires every candidate to submit a hand-drawn map of the set play

To avoid having to do any close analysis of the language by relying on plot knowledge instead

Simply to lengthen the quotation bank so it looks more thorough when you come to revise it

A method tag tells you what the quotation lets you analyse (a face-threatening act, a hedging modal), turning evidence into analysis

Because characters and themes are unimportant in drama, so only the method labels are ever worth keeping, and tagging by character or theme simply wastes valuable revision effort

To save revision time by letting you skip learning which character actually speaks each line

Doing far too much close analysis of the language, so that the wider play and its structure are never mentioned at all

Using far too many short quotations, which crowds out the candidate's own argument and reading

Narrating the plot and describing characters instead of analysing how language and method construct meaning

Reaching across the whole play too often instead of staying anchored in the printed extract

As a separate paragraph of historical background dropped in before the analysis of the play

Omitted entirely from the essay, since context is not assessed in the closed-text drama task

As a bare list of dates and events drawn from the playwright's life, set out neatly at the very start of the answer

Read into features: the genre, period and theatrical conventions that make a dramatic choice meaningful

In the struggle for the floor (interruptions, latched turns, silences) and the duel of implicature

In the spelling and punctuation of the printed lines rather than in how the characters speak

In the stage lighting alone, with the lighting cues carrying the whole weight of the conflict

In the character names alone, which signal in advance who the audience is meant to side with in any dispute