Sample answers Literature in English 9695/51-53

These three sample answers are for 9695 AS/AL Literature in English Paper 5. They are intended to give an idea of the range of response and the requirements at the top, middle and middle/bottom of the mark range. They are not necessarily ideal or model answers, but are chosen as being representative answers on model texts.

UCLES 2010

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Example 1 Paying close attention to language and tone, consider
Discuss Dickens’s presentation of schools and ideas about education in Hard Times.

The Dickens essay is an option (a) essay and presents a competently organised response to the task. Relevant knowledge has been selected and shaped to the task with a sound overview offered in the opening paragraph on which the candidate builds with close reference to the text, focusing on Gradgrind himself with an apposite quotation and a neat link to the ‘factories of Coketown’. To develop the views offered the candidate discusses Bitzer in contrast to Louisa and sees the effect of the use of the ‘fire’ and the concept of ‘wonder’, thus showing sound understanding of Dickens’s methods and how meaning is created for the reader. The second part of the essay in focusing on ‘fancy’ and Sleary’s circus is a less obvious choice of material for this task but is successfully adapted to the task by concentrating on Sissy and her inability to adapt to the Gradgrind system. The concluding paragraph, in touching on the role of Mrs Gradgrind, shows a sound knowledge of the whole text and effectively if somewhat repetitively sums up the essay, emphasising its relevance to the task set by the question. Overall this is a Band 3 essay, with intelligent if straightforward ideas, brought together in a simple but relevant argument, which