OCR A-Level English Literature: the comparative and contextual essay (Component 02 Section B) overview quiz quiz

An unseen poem to be analysed closely on its own in a single timed essay

A comparative essay on two whole texts from your chosen topic area

A Shakespeare play examined through an extract and a whole-play question

A multiple-choice paper testing factual recall of plots, dates and contexts

AO2 (methods)

AO4 (links)

AO3 (context)

AO1 (argument)

Only the author's own life and the personal circumstances in which the work was written

Only the plot of each text and the sequence of events that takes place within the story

Only the genre of each text and the established conventions that the genre is built upon

Both production (the world a text was written in) and reception (how readers respond)

Qualified similarity: 'both do X, but for opposite ends'

Flat agreement that simply asserts 'both texts show X' and stops there

Describing each text separately in turn, with no real link between them

Listing the differences between the texts without any supporting analysis

Whether it is historically accurate, regardless of whether it reads the text

Whether removing it would weaken your reading of a specific moment

Whether it is interesting in itself and adds some colour to the introduction

Whether it is about the author's own life rather than the wider social period

It is always far too long and so the candidate runs out of time before the second text

It uses too much historical context and crowds out the close analysis of method

The texts never meet inside the paragraphs, so the comparison is left for the marker to infer

It is explicitly against the rubric rules and is always treated by examiners as an infringement

It is very long and sets out in detail everything the essay is going to cover in turn

It names the genre of each of the two texts and the conventions that the genre relies on

It carefully avoids taking any single position so that the whole essay can stay open to the end

It says something about the relationship between the texts, not just about each separately

By aspects of a comparative argument, with both texts live in each paragraph

By writing all of text one first and then turning to all of text two afterwards

By the publication order of the two texts, taking the earlier one before the later

As a list of features found in each text in turn, with no overarching argument at all

It does not really help, since context and comparison are assessed entirely separately

It connects the dominant AO3 to the secondary AO4, so the objectives reinforce each other

It entirely replaces the need for comparison, so the two texts need not be linked at all anywhere

It is only ever relevant to AO1 and the coherence of the written argument, nothing more

One question only, with no choice at all, which every candidate on the topic must answer

Five separate questions per topic, from which you may freely select and answer any two that you prefer

Three questions (one linked to each core text and one general); choose the one that fits your texts

The examiner chooses a question for you in advance based on the two texts you have studied

Reaching for a qualified similarity between the two texts

Weaving relevant context into the heart of the comparison

Framing a clear comparative thesis at the start of the essay

Forcing a similarity, or describing each text in turn