Task 1: How To Get Full Marks (OCR A Level English Literature)

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Task 1: How to Get Full Marks

Regardless of which topic you are studying, the type of question asked for the first task will always be the same. You will be asked to write a critical appreciation of a passage taken from a piece of literature from your topic’s genre, and relate it to your wider reading in your chosen topic area.

It is tempting to jump straight in and start writing immediately. However, following this guide will ensure you answer the question in the way the examiners are looking for.

Below you will find sections on:

What skills are required
Steps for success

What skills are required

Each question on your exam paper has a dominant assessment objective (AO). For this task, the dominant objective is AO2, which requires you to analyse the ways in which the writer of the unseen passage has used language, form and structure to shape meanings. The minor objectives for this task are AO3 and AO1. AO3 requires you to link your analysis of the passage to your wider reading and understanding of your chosen topic area. AO1 assesses you on the way you present your response, in an accurate and coherent manner, so as long as you keep your response sharply focused on the question and the unseen passage, you will hit this objective. The following sections explore the skills you will need to demonstrate mastery of in more detail:

Critical analysis (AO2)
Incorporating context (AO3)

Critical analysis (AO2)

Being able to confidently engage in a critical analysis of a piece of unseen prose material takes practice. You are being asked to apply everything that you have learnt in your study of English Literature so far to new material. A critical analysis goes beyond just spotting elements of language, form and structure, although these can be used as a springboard for explaining the impact of such choices the writer has made. Essentially, ask yourself how the writer evokes certain feelings or meanings by manipulating language, structure and form.

To begin with, you might find the following questions useful to consider when reading the unseen passage for the first time:

What is the narrative perspective?	Who is the protagonist?	What problems (social/economic/political) can you see in the text?
Who has the power in this text?	How is the setting described?	What social issues are presented in the passage? How does the author engage with gender, race and/or class?
How might the date of publication relate to events in the passage or its setting?	What are the gender dynamics in the passage?	How does the writer use language in the passage? Is there anything striking, or are there any patterns? Is there anything that seems ‘out of place’?
How does the writer introduce and manage direct speech and/or dialogue?	Is there any use of internal monologue and, if so, for what purpose?	Is there any use of humour or irony? If so, why? Is there anything else you notice about the tone of the passage?
How are characters introduced and/or described?	How are the events organised in the passage?	Are there any ‘gaps’ or anything you are not told?

You may also wish to consider:

How the author might give prominence to certain events by their position in the passage
How the author builds suspense, tension or drama
Whether there are any shifts in tone
Whether the presentation of the character(s) is realistic, unrealistic, reliable or unreliable
The writer’s use of symbolism or motifs
Whether the passage presents events from different points of view

In addition, critically analysing language means that you consider the deliberate choices a writer has made to include specific words or phrases in their writing, and why. In order to do this, you should consider both the denotation and the connotations of particular words:

Denotation = the literal meaning of a word or phrase
Connotation = the associations or implied meanings of the word or phrase

When commenting on words and phrases from the text, you should always try to consider why you think the writer has chosen that particular word to use in their sentences. Below are some questions which you might ask yourself when analysing the words and phrases in a text:

Denotations and connotations	Emotional impact	Charactеrisation	Formality and informality
How do these layеrs of mеaning add dеpth to thе tеxt?	How do the words evoke еmotions or fееlings in thе rеаdеr? Do thеy crеatе joy, sadnеss, fеar or еxcitеmеnt?	Do the words rеvеal aspеcts of a charactеr's pеrsonality, background or еmotions?	Do the words make the text morе rеlatablе or distant?

Exam Tip

It is more important to explore the effects of the writer’s choices than it is to use over-complicated terminology. For example, if you want to comment on how the structure of the passage helps to shape its meaning, you can use words as simple as “beginning”, “middle” and “end” in your response. As the unseen passage will always be prose, learning a pre-prepared list of literary terms is not necessarily going to serve you well in this task.

Incorporating context (AO3)

It is important to remember that any commentary on context should be secondary to your analysis of the unseen passage. Links to the set texts can be credited as an exploration of context, but these texts should not be discussed in their own right. Your response should always be primarily focused on the unseen passage. While it is expected that you bring some of your contextual knowledge of the studied topic area to bear in your answer, pre-prepared chunks of historical material will not get you high marks. Instead, any contextual issues must be woven into your discussion of the unseen text.

Depending on your chosen topic, you may wish to consider the following genre conventions, but again with the caveat that concentrating on a pre-prepared list of “features” typical to the genre will not gain extra credit, and may be detrimental to your overall critical appreciation of the passage given to you in the exam paper.

American Literature

Genre feature	Contextual considerations
Cultural diversity	The unseen passage may reflect the cultural diversity and associated issues in America in the time period 1880-1940 There may be a sense of a collective or individual ‘American identity’ There may also be tensions and/or a sense of the cultural melting pot that was America during this time period
Class	In a society where almost everyone is in pursuit of the rewards of capitalism, social divisions will naturally widen
The American Dream	This covers a complex group of aspirations and frustrations, and can either be celebrated or satirised
Social mobility	This may include the effect of technological progress and new inventions
Historical context	The date of the unseen passage should give a clue as to how it relates to broad historical matters, but do not be tempted to focus on this

The Gothic

Genre feature	Contextual considerations
Presence of the past	An often-used Gothic approach is to show how the past of a building or community can resonate in the imagination of its present-day inhabitants
Unusual narrative voice/viewpoint	Writers of Gothic literature often make use of multiple narrators, unusual viewpoints and/or narrative voices
Suspense	This style of writing is full of suspense in order to build tension and to strengthen the reader’s emotional response
The supernatural	This is often a feature whereby the reader is invited to suspend their disbelief and read the story as a kind of metaphor
Dark humour	Human resistance against horror often can involve the use of dark humour as a coping mechanism
Female victimhood	These are the stereotypical ‘damsels in distress’ However, it is also important to consider any subversion of this feature, such as a male character becoming the victim

Dystopia

Genre feature	Contextual considerations
Setting	Is the passage set in the near or the distant future? A more technologically advanced setting suggests a more science fiction-led approach Whereas a setting which seems more plausible suggests a more speculative approach
Dystopia or fallen utopia	Sometimes a dystopian society may start out with utopian aspirations or good intentions
Satirical purpose	Often this genre satirises a tendency within human nature or an undesirable aspect of society Works of dystopian literature may also include the effects of the advancement of technology on humankind
Narrative approach	Dystopian literature often makes use of a limited narrative viewpoint This controls what the reader learns of the world created
Totalitarian regimes, oppression and surveillance	Dystopian worlds tend to restrict identity, freedoms and independent thought Being watched, or the threat of being watched, maintains control through fear and suspicion

Women in Literature

Genre feature	Contextual considerations
Attitudes towards women	The time span for this topic runs from the early 19th to the 21st century, so the handling of women’s issues will vary You may wish to look for efforts by novelists of either gender to expose the differences in the ways that male sexual promiscuity is treated much less harshly than that of women This may also incorporate consideration of the different waves of feminism
The female viewpoint	Consider if the passage offers a female voice or point of view, or provides direct access to a woman’s inner life There may be opportunities to examine inner monologues
Marriage	Before the industrial revolution, marriage was the most efficient means of transferring wealth, and therefore became a vocation for many women You might consider the impact marriage and its boundaries have upon any women in the passage
Women in the workplace	Consider the fact that generally most of the work done by women in these texts will be unpaid
Women as defined by men	Consider the conflict between what roles are sought by women, and what roles are given to them

The Immigrant Experience

Genre feature	Contextual considerations
Linguistic confusion	This means the character(s) may be separated by language from the culture they join, furthering a sense of alienation and isolation
Generational conflict	There may be conflict between the first generation immigrant not wanting to let go of the culture or identity of their homeland, versus the second generation wishing to (or feeling more pressure to) assimilate with their new, adopted culture
Social mobility	Is there any? Are the characters trapped, or moving upwards socially?
Prejudice/discrimination	Differences of ethnicity or faith set up tensions with the receiving culture
Staying true to cultural roots	There is often pressure to assimilate with the receiving culture, which is at conflict with the desire to remain true to cultural traditions, beliefs and practices

Steps for success

To do well in this task, you need to respond to the passage you are given in the exam paper as an interesting example of a piece of literature from your topic area, but the examiners also want to see evidence of your genuine knowledge and wider reading. Excellent answers will be able to see the passage as a whole and respond to its unique and interesting qualities. It is important to not just hunt for what is “typical” of the genre.

It is tempting to jump straight in and start analysing the extract immediately. However, completing the steps below first will ensure you answer the question in the way that examiners are looking for:

Ensure you are answering the question on your chosen topic area:

This may seem obvious, but this is one of the most common reasons for a rubric infringement in this part of the exam

Read the question carefully and highlight the focus of the question

Read the contextual information given to you about the unseen passage, and read the passage in full first (without highlighting or annotating):

This is important to get an overall sense of the passage, rather than jumping straight into “feature spotting”
This will give you the opportunity to consider your first impressions

Then read the passage carefully and critically, annotating in the margins:

Identify any key themes
Pick out any interesting or striking details
If you don’t understand a single word, don’t worry - just look to other parts of the text for clues as to what it might mean
Ask yourself the questions suggested earlier in this guide

Plan your answer:

Start by placing the extract in the context of the information you have been given about it
Develop a thesis statement (AO1)
For example: The passage is set in a totalitarian society in which individual identities appear to be replaced with numbers, and in which reproduction is tightly controlled by the patriarchy.
Decide specifically what you will be referring to from the passage (AO2)
Get a sense of what contextual factors give further insight into the ideas and themes in the passage (AO3)

Follow your plan and write your response:

Ensure each paragraph starts with a confident topic sentence
Then make sure you “prove” your topic sentence in each paragraph

Re-read and check your work for overall sense and accuracy (AO1)

The illustration below shows an example of how you might start annotating the unseen passage (which will essentially form your plan). This is taken from the June 2022 exam paper, on the topic of Dystopia, but the method applies to any of the topic areas:

component-2--task-1---how-to-get-full-marks

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