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English Literature flashcards

32 cards covering every topic of the syllabus (English Literature B, for first teaching 2025 (AS 7716; code matches this site's overview record)). Study one topic or mix them all, turn each card, and mark yourself honestly.

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Topic 1: Literary genres

How is AQA English Literature B Paper 1 (Literary genres) set out?: 2 hours 30 minutes, closed book, 75 marks, 40% of the A-level, on one option (Tragedy or Comedy): Section A a Shakespeare passage, Section B a Shakespeare essay, Section C an essay linking two further texts. 25 marks each.
What are the five assessment objectives in AQA English Literature?: AO1 an informed, accurate, well-expressed personal response; AO2 how meanings are shaped in texts; AO3 the significance of contexts; AO4 connections across texts; AO5 different interpretations.
What is a tragic hero?: A protagonist of high standing whose downfall arises from their own choices or flaw as well as circumstance, arousing the audience's pity and fear.
Hamartia, hubris and catharsis: what does each mean?: Hamartia: the tragic flaw or error of judgement. Hubris: excessive pride that defies limits. Catharsis: the release of pity and fear the audience feels at the end.
What does a genre-led answer do that a text-led answer does not?: It debates how the text uses, subverts or complicates the genre's conventions (does the ending really achieve catharsis?) rather than summarising plot and features.
What does the Section C linking essay require?: An essay connecting two further texts within the genre option, from a choice of two questions. One text must be drama and one must be written before 1900.
Which conventions belong to the Aspects of Comedy option?: Comic resolution, misunderstanding or mistaken identity, social correction, and the restoration of order by the end.
What is the comic resolution, and why question it?: The ending that restores order, often through marriage. Strong answers ask whether it is fully satisfying or leaves some characters excluded or uneasy.
What is the role of disguise and mistaken identity in comedy?: They create misunderstanding and confusion that drive the plot and allow the text to play with identity, gender and status before order is restored.
Why does Paper 1 need a memorised quotation bank?: It is closed book, unlike Paper 2, so quotations for the Shakespeare play and the further texts must be learned in advance.

Topic 2: Texts and genres

How is AQA English Literature B Paper 2 (Texts and genres) set out?: Open book, 75 marks, 40% of the A-level, on one option: Section A an unseen passage (25), Section B an essay on one set text (25), Section C a connective essay on two set texts (25).
Name some elements of crime writing listed for Option 2A.: Settings for criminal action; crimes, criminals and motives; detection and investigation; restoration of moral order; guilt, remorse and confession; the detective-hero and nemesis; criminal, legal and police language.
Name some set texts for Option 2A Elements of crime writing.: They include Oliver Twist, Hamlet, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Brighton Rock, Atonement, When Will There Be Good News?, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and a poetry selection of Crabbe, Browning and Wilde.
What is the pre-1900 rule for Option 2A?: The three set texts are one post-2000 prose text, one poetry text and one further text, and the poetry text must be pre-1900.
Why does the specification say "elements" rather than "genre"?: Many set texts pre-date crime writing as a recognised genre, so ask which elements a text shows and how strongly, rather than whether it belongs to the genre.
How does guilt work in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?: After killing the albatross the Mariner suffers isolation and torment ("Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink"), and must retell his tale as a form of confession.
Which Option 2A text is new for 2027, and what are the post-2000 prose choices?: Colin Walsh's Kala is first assessed in 2027. The post-2000 prose texts are When Will There Be Good News?, Atonement and, from 2027, Kala.
Which texts can you use in Paper 2 Section C?: Two texts that you have not used in Section B. Across Sections B and C you write about all three of your texts: one poetry, one post-2000 prose and one further text.
Name some elements of political and social protest writing listed for Option 2B.: Settings for power struggles; the pursuit of power and rebellion; corruption and control; individual against collective experience; gender politics and social class; structures that heighten or resolve tension.
Name some set texts for Option 2B.: They include Hard Times, Henry IV Part I, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Handmaid's Tale, The Kite Runner and Harvest.
What is the pre-1900 rule for Option 2B?: The three texts must include a post-2000 prose text and a poetry text, and any one of the three may be the pre-1900 text, not necessarily the poetry.
What does Blake's "mind-forg'd manacles" suggest in London?: That oppression is not only imposed by institutions but internalised in people's minds, a protest against the control that limits city life.
What makes a Section C answer genuinely connective?: It tracks one specific element (such as the structure of a power struggle) across both texts in one argument, using each to illuminate the other, not two mini-essays.
How should you revise for an open-book paper?: Build a mental map of each text: which sections deal with which elements, so you can locate material quickly. Word-perfect recall matters less.
Which Option 2B texts count as post-2000 prose?: Harvest, Brotherless Night and The Kite Runner. The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is not post-2000, so it can only be the further text.
Which edition of A Doll's House must Option 2B students use?: The Bloomsbury Methuen Drama edition translated by Michael Meyer, which AQA treats as Ibsen's own words for assessment.

Topic 3: Theory and independence

What do you submit for the 7717 non-exam assessment?: Two essays of 1,250–1,500 words on two different texts, one poetry and one prose, each linked to a different section of the AQA Critical anthology. It is 20% of the A-level.
What are the sections of the AQA Critical anthology?: Narrative theory, feminist theory, Marxist theory, eco-critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary value and the canon.
What is a re-creative response?: One essay may rewrite or extend part of a text (a new voice, a missing scene) to offer a critical reading of it, with a commentary linking the choices to the text and the anthology lens.
Which texts may not be used for the NEA?: Any text on the A-level exam set-text lists, even if your centre does not study it for the exam.
Feminist and Marxist readings: what does each foreground?: Feminist: gender, power and voice. Marxist: class, economics and social structure.
What do eco-critical and post-colonial readings foreground?: Eco-critical: nature, the environment and the non-human. Post-colonial: empire, race and cultural power.

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Written for AQA A-level English Literature B (7716/7717), (English Literature B, for first teaching 2025 (AS 7716; code matches this site's overview record)).

Cards by Marlbridge Academic Team. This deck has not yet been reviewed as a whole by a subject teacher. Report an error.

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