OCR A-Level English Literature: the Shakespeare question (Component 01 Section 1) overview quiz quiz

Two parts of 15 marks each: a passage analysis (part a) and a whole-play essay (part b)

A single whole-play essay worth the full 30 marks, responding to one printed critical view

An analysis of an unseen Shakespeare extract followed by a comparison with a second set play

A multiple-choice section testing plot recall, followed by one extended essay on the set play

AO1

AO2

AO3

AO5

AO2 and AO3

AO3 and AO4

AO1 and AO5

AO2 and AO4

The whole play recalled from memory, ranging widely across its scenes and acts throughout

The historical and political context surrounding the play and the period it was written in

A sustained comparison of the printed extract with another set text studied on the course

Close analysis of the printed extract, moving from feature to effect

Part (a) does not assess AO3, so context earns nothing and wastes time

Context is never useful anywhere in the study of Shakespeare and adds nothing to any answer

It is strictly against the rules of the examination to mention any context in a part (a) answer

Context is only ever relevant to the study of poetry, never to the study of drama or of prose

"The character genuinely feels"

"Shakespeare presents"

"In real life, a person would"

"It is completely obvious that"

The author's own biography and the events of his personal life and career

The publication date of the printed text and the edition it first appeared in

Soliloquy, which grants the audience privileged access to a mind

A glossary of difficult terms printed at the back of the studied edition

Agreeing with the printed view from the start and then illustrating it with examples from the play

Summarising the printed view clearly in your own words before moving on to discuss the play itself

Ignoring the printed view altogether and instead writing your own entirely free essay on the play's methods

Testing the printed view across the play, weighing support and resistance, and reaching a judgement

A critical reading, a performance choice, or a reading that weights one theme or value over another

Only the view of a published academic critic, formally cited by name and quoted in the essay itself

The plot of the play, retold accurately from memory in your own words across the course of the answer

A precise historical date or fact about the period in which the play was first written and performed

Reaching a clear, considered judgement at the end of the essay after weighing the evidence

Name-dropping critics or 'readings' without using the ideas

Grounding each interpretation firmly in the dramatic method of a specific moment in the play

Weighing two genuinely different readings of the same moment against each other in detail

It does not really matter, since the analysis of dramatic method needs no direct quotation at all

Because direct quotations are entirely optional in this paper, so a bank is merely a useful luxury

Because you have no text in the exam, so every quotation and key moment must come from memory

Because the examiner provides a sheet of suggested quotations for candidates to use in the answer

It is always factually wrong to do so, since the characters in the play are simply based on real historical people

It wastes a great deal of paper and time that would be far better spent quoting directly from the play text

It is formally forbidden by the exam board, so any answer that does it is penalised in the marking process

Characters are constructions Shakespeare builds for effect, so you should analyse the methods that build them