At a glance
Individual · two and a half hours in the examination period, plus the seminar performance that precedes it · closed book, with the texts’ titles and characters provided · all four strands
What is on it
| Part | Roughly | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| A. Sight passage | 30% | A short text you have never seen: comprehension, inference, and one paragraph on how it works |
| B. Short answers on the studied texts | 25% | Precise recall and interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, the novel, and the short stories |
| C. Media question | 15% | An unseen media text, read with the five questions |
| D. Essay | 30% | One argument about a studied text, planned and written in the room |
What it rewards
- Evidence you actually remember. Not quotations word-perfect — moments, and what happens in them. Two passages per text, known well, is worth more than a hundred half-remembered lines.
- Answering the question asked. Underline the verb: explain, compare, evaluate. Each asks for a different shape.
- Planning the essay for five minutes before writing. Every year, the strongest essays in this room are the ones with a visible plan in the margin.
- Reading the sight passage twice before answering anything.
How to prepare
- Two passages per text, chosen now, known cold. Know what happens, who is there, and what it shows.
- Redo the analytical paragraphs you wrote in the autumn — not reread, redo, from the passage.
- Practise the sight passage under time, twice: once in the review period and once at home.
- Rebuild your essay outline template so that it is automatic.
- Bring your questions to the review classes. There are four of them, and this page is what is on the paper.
In the room
Budget by the weightings above and wear a watch. Do the essay while you are fresh if you know your argument; do the sight passage first if you do not. Answer every question — a partial answer earns partial marks and a blank earns none.
How this is assessed
Against the same expectations as everything else. Per How Marks Work, this examination is part of the final 30% alongside The Seminar, so that neither one afternoon nor one discussion decides the grade alone.
Curriculum connection
B1.1
read a variety of student- and teacher-selected texts from diverse cultures and historical periods, identifying specific purposes for reading (e.g., compare the diction and imagery used in a contemporary poem and a poem on the same theme from a different historical period; develop a character sketch based on a brief biography of a historical figure they admire to prepare for a short role-play presentation; use an electronic database to locate information from various sources about religious or cultural practices of an ethnic group different from their own)
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B1.3
identify the most important ideas and supporting details in texts, including increasingly complex texts (e.g., flag key passages that reveal character in a text; highlight or make notes about ideas or details that support the author’s thesis; prepare a series of tableaux to represent key events in a story; determine what essential information is conveyed by the captions in a graphic text)
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C1.2
generate, expand, explore, and focus ideas for potential writing tasks, using a variety of strategies and print, electronic, and other resources, as appropriate (e.g., free write or consult a writing journal to evolve or focus a topic for a narrative; identify and rank focus questions for further investigation; brainstorm in a small group to create a list of potential topics and questions for enquiry; conduct an electronic search for information on an author for a class project; summarize and paraphrase information and ideas in point-form notes; use formal debate strategies to explore ideas prior to research)
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D1.1
explain how media texts, including increasingly complex texts, are created to suit particular purposes and audiences (e.g., magazines include content and advertisements to appeal to specific demographic groups; trailers or posters for actionadventure movies feature scenes and artefacts that appeal to a predominantly male audience)
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A1.1
identify the purpose of a variety of listening tasks and set goals for specific tasks (e.g., listen to a teacher read a prose selection aloud in order to identify how the rhythm of the sentences enhances the mood; clarify and extend the ideas of others in a class discussion; synthesize information from a guest speaker’s presentation)
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B1.8
identify and analyse the perspectives and/or biases evident in texts, including increasingly complex texts, and comment on any questions they may raise about beliefs, values, identity, and power (e.g., determine the fairness of depictions of comic characters in a Shakespeare play, of the antagonist or villain in a novel, of poverty and poor people in a newspaper article)
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C2.6
revise drafts to improve the content, organization, clarity, and style of their written work, using a variety of teacher-modelled strategies (e.g., reinforce a mood or feeling by sharpening the focus of the imagery and other rhetorical devices in a poem or short story; identify and remove redundancies and clarify or expand supporting details; rearrange ideas to improve parallel structure in a comparison and contrast essay)
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D1.5
identify the perspectives and/or biases evident in media texts, including increasingly complex texts, and comment on any questions they may raise about beliefs, values, identity, and power (e.g., explain the perspectives evident in the covers of a selection of novels featured in the school’s English program; comment on the point of view evident in a television news story, identifying other possible points of view; analyse the text and images in a major department store’s website to identify groups and occupations that are represented and those that are nowhere evident)
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