Reading the question

Reading the Question

In the lesson we took a look at English Literature Unit 3 June 2010’s exam paper, and focused on what the question is asking you do - as well as identify the key assessment objective (AO2, AO3 AND AO4).

We looked at a section A question for The Pardoners Tale;

• “In spite of the fact that both the Pardoner himself and the Tale are sinister, they are also comic.” Consider The Pardoner’s Tale in the light of this comment.

The AO2 focuses on the terms; "sinister" and "comic". Basically these two terms are the hint for what kind of A02 analysis you should be doing.

The phrase "Consider" and “In spite” focuses on AO3 in the sense that when you see these style of words you should recognise that it’s for you to start an argument. The “In spite” part hints that there are both sinister and comic elements in the Pardoner and Tale. The “consider” or another synonym of it suggests other interpretations of the comment.

Finally the A04 is a bit tricky, but from looking at past exam papers we deduced that it is usually a term that could have different meanings across a time period. For example the terms “comic” and “sinister” have a different meaning to Chaucer’s contemporary audience, compared to a post modern. For example sinister for Chaucer revolved around God, sin, Death and Afterlife; in fact all of these notions link to religion – thus hence we can deduce that “sinister” was a lot to do with religion. However, Carter who is surrounded by a post modern society could value sinister in criminals. Hence the element of “sinister” varies in different time periods.

This analysis is common to every question. You can do the same for all of them, so I recommend analysing two each for section A, and two for section B. I realise this blog is short, but this activity will help you be more specific when answering questions. The only way to be specific and detailed when answering questions is by first understanding what the question is exactly asking you to do. Eventually understanding what the question is asking us will become nature, with lots of practise.