Hello everybody and welcome to this video, Final Tips for the May 13th AQA English Literature Paper 1 exam. Now in both sections of this exam, that's the Shakespeare section and the 19th century novel section, you're given an extract from the text and asked how something is presented in the extract and the wider text. You should spend around 55 minutes on the Shakespeare question, allowing five minutes to check your spelling, punctuation and grammar at the end because that's worth four marks, and around 50 minutes on the 19th century novel question. My first bit of advice is to think about the question in relation to the whole text, then dip in and out of the extract and wider text as is relevant to your answer. This was a tip that came up in the 2017 exam report which stated, and this is a paraphrase, that there isn't a fixed format for responding to questions, however high quality answers often started by addressing the main theme of the question using the entire text and then dipped in and out of both the extract and the whole text throughout their answer.
and this demonstrated a robust and assured understanding of the text and its concepts. So let's look at an example, and I go through this in more detail in my updated video on Paper 1, Section A, which I'll link in the description. Imagine you've got a question on Macbeth asking about how the witches are presented as powerful in this extract from Act 1, Scene 3 and the wider text.
Well, if you think primarily about this extract, you're probably going to come up with the idea that the witches are presented as powerful. They seem to be able to either predict or control the future as they know where they're going to meet Macbeth, so this might lead us to come up with the idea for our answer that the witches are powerful. However, if we consider the question in relation to the whole text, a different picture emerges.
Admittedly, the structural decision to start the play with the witches in Act 1, Scene 1, as well as the fact they seem to be able to foretell the future here in Act 1, Scene 3 does seem to suggest they are powerful, but it's not entirely true. But then things change. We don't actually see the witches again until Act 3, Scene 5, in a bizarre scene that many experts don't even believe Shakespeare wrote, and then they make their final appearance way before the end in Act 4, Scene 1, when Macbeth visits them for one last time.
So when we think about the whole text, I think a different picture starts to emerge. A picture where the witches perhaps seem powerful at the start, and certainly seem powerful to Macbeth when he interacts with them, but actually this sense of power is undermined by Shakespeare and diminishes as the play progresses to the point where the witches fade out way before the end of the play. Now after this we need to ask why does Shakespeare do this? What's his message or idea that he's trying to get across?
And there's not just one answer here but perhaps we could come up with something like Shakespeare initially presents the supernatural as powerful but this impression of power is ultimately illusory. employed by the playwright to explore the theme of appearances versus reality. So think about the question in relation to the whole text, but make sure you do write about the extract and wider text in your answer, because if you miss one of those out, you'll lose marks. And we apply the exact same approach to paper one, section B.
So imagine a question on Scrooge as a likeable character, and the extract you're given is this one, where Scrooge doesn't want to give money to charity, doesn't want to let Bob have Christmas Day off, etc, etc. Well, if you think primarily about this extract, you're going to say he's not likeable. But of course, if we think about the whole text, we might think differently.
Clearly, Scrooge changes as the text progresses, and Dickens does this to highlight the capacity for change and the inherent goodness that can be found within a person, no matter how buried it might seem, and of course, this is a likeable shift in Scrooge's character. Perhaps even the extent to which he changes from start to finish actually makes him more likeable than characters who are good throughout, such as Fred or Bob Cratchit. The second thing I want to talk about is the importance of thinking about where the extract comes from in the wider text.
AQA don't choose these extracts at random, they put a lot of thought into the extract they select. Now the 2017 exam report highlighted, and this is a paraphrase again, that students who consider the positioning of the extract within the text are inherently addressing the writer's methods. The same report stated that higher performing students skillfully discussed the location of the extract in the text and leveraged this to delve into character progression. Now you can do this through thinking about whole text structural theories, things like Freytag, but at this late point I don't want to go over those if you've not seen them before.
A simple way to think about this is to ask yourself what happens before and after the extract and how is that relevant to the question. So if we go back to our question on the witches as powerful that's Act 1, Scene 3, and we can ask ourselves what happened before this, for example in Act 1, Scene 2. Well in Act 1, Scene 3, the witches tell Macbeth that he will be, among other things, Thane of Cawdor, and moments later, Ross arrives and tells Macbeth he's been promoted to that very role, and that of course astonishes Macbeth. As Dr Emma Smith explains, the witches seem creepily omnipotent to Macbeth, the gap between prophecy and enactment frighteningly slender, but to us that is actually a gap between command, the king's words in Act 1 Scene 2, and fulfilment.
To Smith, the witches seem to interpose in a chain of human actions rather than direct actions themselves. And this is such an important point. For Macbeth, Ross's words are the first he's heard of his promotion to Thane of Cawdor, so he's blown away by the witch's apparent power. However, to us, the audience, we don't feel the same way. Why?
Because of Shakespeare's use of dramatic irony, because of Shakespeare's use of structure. In the previous scene, Act 1, Scene 2, we've already seen this moment, where Duncan explains he's going to promote Macbeth to Thane of Cawdor, saying no more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive our bosom interest. Goe pronounces present death and with his former title greet Macbeth.
So in the preceding scene the audience learned about one of the things the witches are here prophesying and I actually have a full answer to this question in my guide to English literature which is an instant download at mrbruff.com. Now this isn't the only time we see something like this in the play. In Act 4, Scene 1 the witches tell Macbeth to be wary of Macduff and moments later in the same scene Lennox arrives. and explains Macduff has fled to England to rally support against Macbeth.
Macbeth immediately decides to kill Macduff's entire family, seemingly drawing a direct connection between the witch's warning and Macduff's departure. However, once again, the audience already knew about Macduff fleeing to England from the preceding scene, where the Lord explained thither Macduff is gone to pray to the Holy King. Shakespeare's use of structure is very precise.
The witches prophesy something that has a great impact on Macbeth, but not on us as the audience because we knew about it already from the preceding scene. And this dramatic irony undermines the idea of the witches being powerful because we as an audience already know at least some of the things that they tell Macbeth. Or imagine a question about the presentation of ignorance and want in this moment of A Christmas Carol. Well, one thing to consider is what happens before and after this extract. And just before this terrifying moment in the novella, we read about the happy party at Fred's house.
So we might bring into our answer something about the structural juxtaposition of two very different events, one joyful and one frightening, in order to heighten the impact of this shocking moment with ignorance and want. Now I go into this exam in much more detail covering everything you need to know about the assessment objectives and of course I also have videos on every Shakespeare play and every 19th century novel so do work your way through those. but if you found this short video useful please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. We've got lots more videos coming before the end of this exam season.