Advice for IGCSE English Literature
Hi there! So, I recently finished my final English Literature examination and I wanted to share some tips and resources! Hope you guys find them useful :)
Please note that not all of the tips provided below may suit you but I suggest trying some of them to see if they work :)
During the exam
1. Remember that you’re supposed to provide an ANALYSIS and not a summary for an answer
2. ADDRESS the question and only the question — it’s easy to drift away from it and ramble so watch out for that
3. Identify the KEY TERMS in the question and which sections of the poem/story/play you are going to use — for my mock examination, this was the question I received for the poetry section in Paper 1:
How does Hopkins vividly convey thoughts and feelings about the bird in The Caged Skylark?
the key terms here are “how” and “vividly convey” so focus on that when answering the question
4. Ensure that you have a sustained personal response throughout the paper — avoid making statements like “his/her work is quite brilliant” and try to focus more on the effect the author intended to evoke with a particular phrase/quotation and comment on how said phrase/quotation would affect the reader
5. WHY? — don’t just state that the writer has used imagery. Talk about WHY they used it in that particular moment in the piece and their intentions
6. ALWAYS mention the:
themes
tone: gloomy? lighthearted?
structure: this is especially important for poems
literary devices: imagery, repetition etc
7. You can also score more marks by commenting on parallels — it shows that you have a good critical understanding of the story and that you’re able to show individuality and insight!
8. Further to this, you can also mention contrasts in scenes and their impact on the overall effect of the piece
9. Don’t use lengthy quotations, examiners detest this!
10. Time — You’ll have two tasks in each paper so devote 45 minutes for each one and stick to this plan! It becomes really easy to add some extra points but it ultimately affects the quality of your second answer so avoid that at all costs! BALANCE your time!
Some websites I found useful:
1. https://www.enotes.com/ — I suggest typing the title of your story and “enotes” along with it for immediate results
2. http://sittingbee.com/ — like enotes, just type the title of the story and “sitting bee” along with it in the search bar
3. https://poemanalysis.com/educational-syllabus/cambridge-igcse-literature-english-0475-2020-21/
4. https://www.litcharts.com/
5. https://www.ibdocuments.com/LitCharts/ — this site contains litcharts guides which you can download free of charge!! it saves you a lot of money and hassle so I highly recommend it!
6. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/
7. https://igcse.school.blog/category/literature/
8. https://igcserevision.wordpress.com/english/english-literature-0486/
Some extra tips:
1. I highly recommend going through as many notes or analyses online as you can! They really help you get different interpretations of the text from a variety of perspectives which widens your overall understanding. However, it’s important to ensure that you’re not too reliant on them as it restricts you from providing an informed personal response in your paper
2. Read on characters, especially for paper 2 because sometimes the questions are based on the character and their significance within the story
3. GET FEEDBACK FROM YOUR TEACHERS! — This is so important because when doing past papers and trying to mark them yourself, you’ll find that the mark schemes just provide a rubric for reference. So, try to do some past papers and get them marked by your teacher for some detailed feedback and so that you know which strategy is working for you and what you need to work on
4. Go through some example candidate responses — Cambridge provides multiple pdfs filled with different candidate responses and you can even see the examiner’s detailed comments on the common mistakes the candidate made and how they could have improved their answer! You can find some at this link: https://learning.cambridgeinternational.org/classroom/course/view.php?id=3198
5. Annotate your texts and focus on aspects of language, structure and form used to convey ideas or experiences — I usually avoid annotating since I don’t find it particularly helpful, but for literature, I focus on the important bits of the story/poem/play and note down a few points on the significance of that particular moment. It really helped making my revision for my final examination a LOT more easier since I could just skip to the parts where I had made the annotations and reinforce those concepts in my mind!
That’s all I have for now! I really hope this was helpful to anybody struggling with literature. If anyone has any other questions or more tips feel free to reblog or send me an ask/message! :)
