Transcript English Literature A Level at Huntington School

English/English Language
Revision
Christmas 2012
Huntington School
"Success nourishes them; they can because
they think they can."
Virgil
The English Language exam is on the morning of the
10th of January
Outline of the Exam
2 hours and 15 minutes
- 15 minutes reading time (you can use this flexibly
- 1 hour answering the Reading section
- 1 hour answering the Writing section
Section A: Reading
This section will need you to exhibit your PEE skills (Point,
Evidence, Explain).
Get your timing right for each question – and leave enough
time for the questions with the highest number of marks
Section B: Writing
This section will have two questions – the shorter writing task
(16 marks, 25 minutes) will be piece of writing where you will
have to inform and explain. The longer writing task (24 marks,
35 minutes) will ask that you argue and persuade on a given
topic. The questions always ask you to write about a topic that
you will know something about – e.g. your school; hobbies;
your local area; political & social issues (like education, role
models, the medias, technology etc.)
You must organise your writing by planning: carefully consider
paragraphing and your use of punctuation (these have a
crucial impact on your grade). You will have practised and
revised key writing techniques, such as rhetorical questions,
similes and metaphors – more practise is required!
The ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Revision
The human brain is a wonderfully complex thing (a teenage
brain is even more so!). The brain is made up of billions of
interconnected brain cells. When you learn something new or
try to remember a fact, you create a link between these
cells. The more you revise it, the stronger this link becomes.
It then becomes faster to recall it. Our students have shown
that many struggle with timings in the exam – with repeated
practice your child will get quicker and more confident!
By revising they’ll better manage their stress and this comfort
will ensure they perform more effectively. The habit of
revision also requires comfort and pleasure. To form the
revision habit they need to find a consistent time and place to
revise. They should ‘chunk’ the information into manageable
sections, in slots of time of about 20 to 30 minutes. They
should factor in small comfort breaks, with little rewards to
keep them going (if they use technology get the balance
right!)
Reading and writing skills are a complex process. They won’t
learn by simply reading their revision booklet. They need to
write down their notes; use post it notes, record themselves
on podcasts, leave post it notes or posters around the room
etc. You can help too! In a short car ride you could question
your child about what writing techniques they will use, with
examples; ask them to argue on given subjects (a teen
specialism!); or explain a topic they know well to you.
English Exam Revision Strategies and Links
Create an advent-style revision programme! Little and often is best
They should Read, read and read some more! These include : reading
newspaper articles, Sunday supplement magazines, sports journalism,
travel writing, quality online blogs and websites e.g. guardian.co.uk,
bbc.co.uk, Hadley Freeman, Charlie Brooker, Polly Toynbee, Lonely Planet,
TES English, BBC Bytesize and Geoff Barton. They can identify the purpose,
audience, language and tone of the piece they are reading; highlighting
and selecting key quotations as their evidence
Visit the AQA website for examples of past papers and mark schemes as
well as the advice and support materials that are available in the public
domain. www.aqa.org.uk/
Each student has been given extensive revision booklets. Encourage them
to take very opportunity they take to read through them, discuss them
with you, make notes or design A3 posters to synthesize the key ideas and
tips; have these posters, or post it note points visible in the house
Quiz your child on aspects of their exam! A detailed knowledge of the
specific question types, timings etc. is very important – it can be tricky, but
they have past papers to use and they can create their own questions!
Look at the English and Media blog for help and support materials:
http://huntemf.wordpress.com/ . Also, we have links to the faculty Twitter
feed which will share links and reply to questions - @HuntingtonEMF
Use on line applications such as Popplet, Piktograph and Prezi to make
revision mind maps/summaries. Visit http://quizlet.com/ to make their
own revision quizzes; visit http://getrevising.co.uk/ for a host of resources
to create a revision programme etc.