GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE 9715/2H Poetry Across Time Report on the Examination 9715 June 2015 Version: 1.0
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Introduction A recurring theme of the comments from the senior examining team this year has been the improvement in the ways students are demonstrating the skills being assessed on this component. More than in any previous series, candidates seemed to be extremely well-prepared for the demands of the paper. Rubric infringements were very few and far-between, and demonstration of the required skills of AO1, AO2 and AO3 were much more evident. There was a balance of responses to each question in the respective clusters, highlighting candidates familiarity with all of the poems in their chosen cluster. As always, the Relationships and Conflict clusters were the favoured two, although there were more responses seen to Character and Voice than in previous years. Place remains the least popular choice, although those candidates who respond to questions 3 or 4 do so with remarkable alacrity and demonstrate superb knowledge of the poems and engagement with the ideas. All questions enabled candidates to demonstrate their abilities and their engagement; even those who might be considered to be more suited to foundation tier performed well and were able to access their chosen question at their own level. As one member of the senior team commented: Candidates continue to respond to poetry with sensitivity, critical awareness, honesty and candour. It offers them something about the world as experienced by others and something about the world they are experiencing for themselves. As with previous years, the best responses often tend to be the more concise and imaginative; students do not have to write reams and reams in order to access the highest descriptors. Also, lengthy quotations are not necessarily the best way of referencing the text; the more skillful use of embedded references was much in evidence this year, with students being much more selective and precise in their referencing. There were some, thankfully quite isolated, examples of students appearing to be regurgitating ideas from class discussion or revision notes with no particular thought about linking these ideas to the actual question they were responding to. It is important to stress to students that they are being marked for their ability to produce a response to the task itself. It was often these students who did better in Section B where they were required to produce an independent response to an unseen poem. Section A Character and Voice This was a very popular choice this year. There were, on balance, more responses to Question 1, with candidates writing some powerful material about what the Duke represents and how his power can be seen as corrupting and corrosive. There were some who believed that the Duke was in mourning for his dead wife, and inevitably these were not as successful. Both Ozymandias and The River God were the firm favourites for comparison and also useful choices, as there are natural links to be made. However, there were some wonderful selections of other poems to compare: Les Grands Seigneurs in particular enabled some students to write about the similarities in power-balance in the respective relationships in both poems. It was felt by some of the senior team that there were some missed opportunities for candidates to focus on the form and structure of My Last Duchess and how it is being used by Browning as a conscious construct. However at the other end of the spectrum, there were some remarkably insightful analyses of the ways in which the Duke s skill in speech is used to represent his arrogance. 3 of 6
There was a real divide in the responses to Question 2. Although this has in the past been referred to as a foundation poem in this cluster, there were some breathtaking responses to this poem and this task. The most popular comparative choices (and highly successful in most cases) were Casehistory: Alison and Les Grands Seigneurs, with candidates comparing the speakers relationship with their own dream worlds and the effects of losing them. Place The responses in this section tended to, as in previous years, come from more able candidates. Question 3 drew some powerful comparisons between A Vision and London, for example; the level of empathy and engagement with the ways the poets were using places to explore political and ideological concepts was very impressive. For Question 4, Storm in the Black Forest and Spellbound drew some strong comparisons with Below the Green Corrie. Some of the most successful comparisons were between the personification of nature in Corrie with extract from The Prelude or The Moment, as these focused not only on the presentation of the natural world but on the attitudes and ideas inherent in the poems. Conflict Responses to both questions highlighted the importance of candidates selecting the right poem to compare in order to be able to answer the question. For example, those who selected Out of the Blue or next to of course god America I to compare with Mametz Wood tended to find that it was more problematic to construct a meaningful response to the task. However, the fact that there were arguably two foci for Question 5 places and conflict enabled examiners to award candidates for the skills they demonstrated. There were also some fascinating interpretations of places : for example using Poppies as a comparative poem enabled some students to deal with the place as emotional rather than geographical. Comparisons with Belfast Confetti also worked extremely well for this question. Candidates who responded to Question 6 produced some outstanding responses to the presentation of fear in Bayonet Charge, demonstrating a superb level of empathy with the ideas in the poem. Where some candidates didn t do so well, this was largely due to their misunderstanding of the soldier s feelings in the poem and the belief that he feels a sense of patriotism. However, those candidates who grasped the essential point of the poem made wonderful comparisons, in particular with next to of course god America I and The Charge of the Light Brigade. Relationships Question 7 prompted some very accomplished responses, using a wide variety of poems including Brothers, Harmonium, In Paris With You and The Farmer s Bride in particular. Because the task did not specify the type of relationship, students could explore connections between poems that had familial relationships at their core as well as those that focused on romantic relationships. Of all the questions on this year s paper, Question 7 raised the issue of what happens when a student attempts to repeat pre-prepared material. This was noticed by several members of the senior team, and is worth bearing in mind for next year; students will be best-served by answering the question being asked, as it is designed to enable them and to draw out their own ideas. Those who seemed to be answering a different task, albeit using Manhunt as their focus, did not perform as well as those students who actually answered the question. 4 of 6
Question 8 was perhaps a less-popular choice, although the students who compared Sister Maude with Brothers or Nettles or The Manhunt in particular were able to focus on the idea of trust. There were a small handful of very insightful comparisons with In Paris With You, where the effect of lack of trust on the respective relationships, and the damage that this can inflict, was explored in detail. Section B The poem Symptoms proved to be an accessible poem and all candidates understood it on at least one level; many offered interesting alternative impressions, including diverse responses and many different readings, some very dark - that this was an exploration of an abusive relationship in which all self worth had been undermined - to responses exploring this as a celebration of love conquering all. Some of the most successful responses dealt with two or three aspects of the poem in detail: the crack of light, or the title, or the pulse rate for the Guinness Book of Records, for example. The poem clearly gave candidates wide enough scope for original readings, well supported with short quotations and clear focus on language devices and structure. Lower band candidates talked about the use of listing and repetition while those reaching higher bands tended to pick out the crack of light and closing door as having symbolic significance, exploring both the positive and negative aspects of being in love, linked to the hope or loss of hope. Many candidates saw this poem as an exploration of the mixed emotions involved in being in love. They clearly engaged with the poem and once again proved that they have all the skills to handle unseen material in a creative, original and fascinating manner. Some candidates saw the crack of light as living in denial about a failing relationship and hoping it could improve, while the closing door signified the inevitable failure of the relationship. The poem proved just how deep candidates at this level can go. For some candidates, the poem offered an opportunity to describe / discuss their own experiences with love, and perhaps this needs to be borne in mind when preparing students for this paper in the future: although very interesting to read, unfortunately these accounts cannot be given marks. General Points AO4 is not assessed on this paper. Candidates who are spending time on contextual factors outside of the poems themselves are using up time that would be better spent on dealing with the ideas and presentation of the poems. The candidates who produce the most successful comparisons, do so when they have selected a second poem that has a strong link in terms of ideas. Rooting a comparison in AO2 alone is a shaky foundation for a comparative essay. Also, bear in mind that comparative markers at the start of paragraphs do not, on their own, constitute comparison. Comparison is a higher-order skill, therefore those students who produce the more successful comparisons are those who are holding the poems, or an aspect of them, together and developing some meaningful comparisons between them. This year, it was noticeable that candidates often highlighted one word or phrase and analysed this to gain marks for AO2, rather than talking in generalised terms about the use of metaphor or 5 of 6
alliteration: for instance picking out porcelain to convey fragility in the relationship or rudder to signify a loss of direction. This was also true of the unseen where candidates zoomed into one word and explained its impact in the poem such as symptoms to suggest a disorder or illness or light to suggest hope or sharp pain to express the emotional pain involved in being in love. This was also the case in Question 6 where candidates concentrated on the word suddenly and its impact on the reader in expressing the fear and shock the voice in the poem is experiencing. Mark Ranges and Award of Grades Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics page of the AQA Website. Converting Marks into UMS marks Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below. UMS conversion calculator 6 of 6