GCSE English Lit

[Palagrin]

AS is between GCSE and A level, isn't it? 

 

I'm guessing the above isn't all you did during the year, so can you tell us how current courses work?  What else have you read? (in part or in full!).

Correct - ASes are the exams at the end of year 12 and A2s are the exams at the end of Year 13. Together they combine to form a full A level.

 

 

That is, in fact, the entire rundown of what we had to study in Year 12. This year (13), we're studying Great Expectations, one of the Canterbury Tales and an American Poet for our exam and Turn of the Screw, The Woman in Black and Victorian Ghost stories for our coursework.

[Athena]

Your exams sound very confusing, so many different levels of exams you have to take.. .

 

We just have primary school (4-12) and secondary school (12-16/17/18 depending on level). Secondary school has many tests throughout the years, and the final exams in the higher years (before the final exams at the end of the last year, there are big exams now and then that also count for your grade).

[willoyd]

I agree with other comments here - too much emphasis on romantic or 19th century fiction may turn teenagers off reading. I didn't read Jane Austen or Bronte sisters till I was in my 30's. Any earlier and I wouldn't have enjoyed them.

 

It can cut both ways. I studied Emma for my first year at A-Level (amongst others), which led me to read quite a few other Austen novels, as well as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. My love of 19th century novels definitely began with the books studied at school.

 

But I do agree there needs to be a good breadth, and there shouldn't be too many of these.  There's plenty of other  great literature too.  But the GCSE list does just state 'at least one', so it can't exactly be overegging the pudding, surely?!

[bebesyy]

I passed my GCSE's last year and we studied (for the exam) The History Boys and Lord of the Flies for our final exam, but in the run up and previous exams we looked at Of Mice and Men (coursework was done on that) and MacBeth (coursework too). I'm sure there was more to the exam but I've forgotten it in the horror of A-Levels!

 

I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird - but that wasn't for the course, that was for my own enjoyment and it's only as I read it at the same time that I associate it with my exam!

 

I did compulsory English Literature and Language, whereas most of the rest of the year got to choose one or the other and most did Language, which saved the English department a lot of money on books I guess...