ALevelGeniusEnglish Literature

AQA · 7717

AQA English Literature B

286 questions on the set texts most schools choose, with AQA's essay questions.

The papers

  • Paper 1: Literary genres 75 marks, 150 minutes.
  • Paper 2: Texts and genres 75 marks, 180 minutes.
  • Non-exam assessment: Theory and independence 50 marks, coursework.

Set texts in this course

  • Shakespeare Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth NightPractise
  • Prose The Great Gatsby, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, EmmaPractise
  • Drama before 1900 The Importance of Being Earnest, She Stoops to ConquerPractise
  • Poetry Keats, Blake, Coleridge, CrabbePractise

Not covered: Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Chaucer, the modern texts (Death of a Salesman, Small Island, Brighton Rock, Atonement, The Handmaid's Tale, The Kite Runner and others), A Doll's House (set in a modern translation), Hard Times, Oliver Twist, the comedy and tragedy anthologies and the non-exam assessment. In-copyright texts are not quoted or taught here.

Skills: assessment, interpretations, unseen texts and connections

  • How A-level Literature is assessed: papers, objectives and levelsAQA B 7717: Every paper
    • Know each board's papers, sections and set-text choices
    • Know the five assessment objectives and what each rewards
    • Know how the level descriptors separate a straightforward answer from a perceptive one
    LessonPractice
  • Genre, critical lenses and interpretationsAQA B 7717: Every paper
    • Use the terms of tragedy and comedy precisely: hamartia, anagnorisis, peripeteia, catharsis, comic resolution
    • Apply feminist, Marxist, post-colonial, eco-critical and narrative readings to a text
    • Weigh interpretations in an argument instead of listing critics
    LessonPractice
  • Unseen poetry and proseAQA B 7717: Every paper
    • Read an unseen poem or prose passage for voice, imagery, form and structure
    • Compare two unseen poems' methods as well as their ideas
    • Connect an unseen extract to the genre or period you have studied
    LessonPractice
  • Connecting texts and using contextAQA B 7717: Every paper
    • Build a comparative argument across two texts, not two essays side by side
    • Use contexts of writing and of reception to explain meaning
    • Plan a 25 or 30-mark essay with a clear line of argument
    LessonPractice

Shakespeare

  • Othello, Acts 1 to 3: Venice, Cyprus and Iago's plotAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the plot of Acts 1 to 3, from Iago's grievance to the temptation scene
    • Analyse how Shakespeare presents Iago's manipulation, Othello's love and Desdemona's choice
    • Use context: Venice, race, the Ottoman threat and Jacobean attitudes to marriage
    LessonPractice
  • Othello, Acts 3 to 5: jealousy, murder and recognitionAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the plot from the handkerchief to Othello's death
    • Analyse Othello's changing language, Emilia's role and the tragic ending
    • Judge readings of Othello as a tragic hero, and of Iago's motives
    LessonPractice
  • King Lear, Acts 1 to 3: division, folly and the stormAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the plot from the love test to the blinding of Gloucester
    • Analyse how Shakespeare presents power, nature and madness in the two plots
    • Use context: kingship, inheritance and the Jacobean fear of a divided kingdom
    LessonPractice
  • King Lear, Acts 4 and 5: suffering, reunion and deathAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the plot from Dover to the deaths of Cordelia and Lear
    • Analyse sight and blindness, justice and the gods, and the play's ending
    • Weigh readings of the play as redemptive or nihilistic
    LessonPractice
  • HamletAQA B 7717: Paper 2, Option 2A (Elements of crime writing)
    • Know the plot from the Ghost to the duel
    • Analyse revenge, delay, madness and corruption, and Hamlet's soliloquies
    • Use context: revenge tragedy, Elizabethan ideas of the soul and the state
    LessonPractice
  • The Taming of the ShrewAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1B (Aspects of comedy)
    • Know the induction, the two wooing plots and the wager
    • Analyse how Shakespeare presents Katherina, Petruchio, marriage and money
    • Weigh readings of the ending: submission, irony or performance
    LessonPractice
  • Twelfth NightAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1B (Aspects of comedy)
    • Know the plot: the shipwreck, the disguise, the gulling of Malvolio and the resolution
    • Analyse how Shakespeare presents love, identity, folly and festivity
    • Judge the darker notes: Malvolio, Antonio and Feste's final song
    LessonPractice

Prose

  • The Great GatsbyAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the plot and Nick's narration from West Egg to Gatsby's funeral
    • Analyse how Fitzgerald presents love, wealth, class and the American Dream
    • Use context: the 1920s, prohibition, old and new money and the First World War
    LessonPractice
  • Tess of the D'UrbervillesAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the seven phases of Tess's story
    • Analyse how Hardy presents Tess, fate, nature and Victorian morality
    • Read Tess as a domestic tragedy and weigh the subtitle, A Pure Woman
    LessonPractice
  • EmmaAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1B (Aspects of comedy)
    • Know the plot: Emma's matchmaking, Frank Churchill's secret and Knightley's proposal
    • Analyse how Austen presents Emma's errors, class in Highbury and comic resolution
    • Use free indirect discourse and irony to explain the comedy
    LessonPractice

Drama before 1900

  • The Importance of Being EarnestAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1B (Aspects of comedy)
    • Know the plot: Bunburying, the handbag and the double proposal
    • Analyse how Wilde presents marriage, identity and Victorian seriousness
    • Use the conventions of the comedy of manners and farce
    LessonPractice
  • She Stoops to ConquerAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1B (Aspects of comedy)
    • Know the plot: the mistaken inn, Kate's disguise and the jewels
    • Analyse how Goldsmith presents class, courtship and town and country
    • Use the contrast between laughing and sentimental comedy
    LessonPractice

Poetry

  • Keats: Lamia, Isabella, La Belle Dame sans Merci and The Eve of St. AgnesAQA B 7717: Paper 1, Option 1A (Aspects of tragedy)
    • Know the stories of the four narrative poems
    • Analyse Keats's tragic lovers, enchantment and the cruelty of the real world
    • Use context: Romanticism and Keats's sources
    LessonPractice
  • Blake: Songs of Innocence and of ExperienceAQA B 7717: Paper 2, Option 2B (Political and social protest writing)
    • Know the paired songs and the two contrary states
    • Analyse how Blake protests against church, state and the treatment of children
    • Use context: the 1790s, revolution and industrial London
    LessonPractice
  • Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and selected poemsAQA B 7717: Paper 2, Option 2A (Elements of crime writing)
    • Know the Mariner's crime and punishment, and the conversation poems
    • Analyse guilt, nature, the supernatural and the imagination
    • Use context: Romanticism and Lyrical Ballads
    LessonPractice
  • Crabbe, Browning and Wilde: the crime poemsAQA B 7717: Paper 2, Option 2A (Elements of crime writing)
    • Know Peter Grimes, The Laboratory, My Last Duchess, Porphyria's Lover and The Ballad of Reading Gaol
    • Analyse the dramatic monologue, guilt and the voice of the criminal
    • Connect the poems to the elements of crime writing
    LessonPractice

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Independent practice for AQA A-level English Literature A (7712) and B (7717) and OCR A Level English Literature (H472). Not affiliated with or endorsed by AQA or OCR.

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