Paper 1 Literary Genres (7717): Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination, and do not reference any specific set text — apply the method below to your own studied texts and genre option. They are not reproduced past-paper questions. Examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board, since genuine board material is the only reliable guide to exact phrasing and mark scheme wording for your specific examination series.

Related: Paper 1 Literary Genres revision notes

Question 4 below models an additional way Paper 1’s linking-essay question (Q3 in the real exam) can be framed — around a shared technique rather than a shared thematic convention — so that practising both angles builds a genuinely flexible genre-argument skill rather than one rehearsed comparison shape.

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1. Using a passage of your choice from your studied Shakespeare play, explore how the extract engages with the conventions of your chosen genre option (tragedy or comedy). [25]

Remember Paper 1’s first question is always passage-based and Shakespeare-specific — the other questions below draw on your further studied texts within the same genre option.

2. Explore how your studied Shakespeare play as a whole uses or departs from the conventions of your chosen genre. [25]

3. Compare how two of your further studied texts within your genre option present a shared genre convention (e.g. the fall of a tragic hero, or a comic resolution through misunderstanding). [25]

4. (Alternative Q3-style question) Compare how two of your further studied texts within your genre option use a shared technique (e.g. dramatic irony, an unreliable narrator, structural symmetry) to achieve a genre effect. [25]

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Applying this to whichever genre option you study

Every question above is deliberately phrased to work for either Aspects of Tragedy or Aspects of Comedy — practise substituting your own genre’s key conventions into the general method. For Tragedy, that typically means engaging with the tragic hero, hamartia (the fatal flaw), hubris, catharsis, and the inevitability of downfall. For Comedy, it typically means engaging with comic resolution, misunderstanding or mistaken identity, social correction, and the restoration of order. A genre-led answer is strongest when it treats these as contested critical ideas — does your text’s ending really achieve full catharsis, or complicate it? Does the resolution in your comic text feel genuinely satisfying, or does it leave loose ends that undercut the “social correction” reading? — rather than simply confirming that the convention is present.

Answers (worked approach — marks depend on your studied texts and genre option)

1. A top-band answer opens with close analysis of the extract’s language, structure and dramatic method [10], explicitly connects this to a named genre convention, debating whether the extract conforms to, subverts or complicates it [10], and where relevant briefly signals how the extract’s genre engagement fits the play as a whole [5].

2. A strong essay sustains a genre-focused argument across the whole play rather than summarising the plot [10], selects well-chosen evidence from multiple points in the play to support that argument [8], and engages in genuine critical debate about the genre — using a critical viewpoint to test or challenge, not just support, the argument [7].

3. The best comparative essays organise by point of comparison rather than text-by-text [8], analyse how each text specifically uses or subverts the shared convention [10], and reach a developed judgement about what the comparison reveals about the genre itself [7].

4. As with Q3, the strongest essays organise by point of comparison, not text-by-text [8], but here the focus is technique rather than convention directly — a top-band response explains precisely how the technique is deployed in each text (not just that it’s present) and connects that technique back to a genre effect (creating dramatic tension typical of tragedy, or comic misunderstanding typical of comedy) [10], reaching a developed judgement about what the comparison of technique reveals about how the genre works [7].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Writing a general essay in Q1 instead of grounding the answer in close analysis of the given passage.
• Feature-spotting genre conventions without debating what they contribute or how they’re used differently across texts.
• Q3 answers structured text-by-text instead of point-by-point comparison.
• Treating “genre” as a checklist to confirm, rather than a contested critical idea to explore.
• On Q4-style questions, naming a technique without explaining how it produces a specific genre effect in each text.
• Confusing the two genre options and mixing conventions from Tragedy into a Comedy answer, or vice versa, particularly when discussing critical viewpoints.

Why the genre-led approach matters for revision

Because AQA English Literature B is genre-led rather than text-led, revision should be organised around the genre’s key debates and conventions — the tragic hero, hamartia, catharsis for tragedy; comic resolution, misunderstanding, social correction for comedy — with each of your studied texts treated as evidence for or against those debates, not as a self-contained topic. A useful revision method is to build a single grid with your genre’s key conventions down one side and your studied texts across the top, filling in how each text uses, subverts or complicates each convention. This makes it far easier to answer any of Q1-Q4’s variations, since the underlying preparation — genre debate supported by cross-text evidence — transfers directly regardless of exactly how the question is phrased on the day.