Section Two - Critical Essay
The second half of the Critical Reading exam requires you to write a critical essay on a text you have studied in class.
You will not have a copy of the text in front of you in the exam, nor will you have access to any notes or essay plans.
This component is worth 20% of your overall grade.
The Critical Essay
In the exam you will turn to the section appropriate to the text you have studied (prose, poetry, drama, film and television or language).
Before they get started, some candidates like to:
- sketch out a brief essay plan
- write down quotations that they plan to use
Some candidates just prefer to launch into writing the essay.
You only have 45 minutes – so be realistic about what can be achieved in this time.
How to structure a Critical Essay
- introduction - refer to author, title, task, techniques
- summary of text - concise, focusing on the bits of the poem/story/play/film relevant to your question
- main paragraphs - 4/5 paragraphs where you analyse and evaluate the writer’s use of literary techniques, whilst linking to the question
- conclusion
How to prepare
You should try to avoid guessing which essay questions might come up in the exam. This approach might leave you exposed if a question that you haven’t planned for comes up on the day. However, during the course of the year you will have comprehensively studied your essay text – you should know this piece very well.
For example, if you have studied a play or a novel/short story you should be familiar with aspects of:
- The way a writer creates a fictional character through aspects such as personality and motivation.
- The surroundings in which a text occurs such as time and place.
- Central, unifying idea(s) that run through a text.
- plot
- narrative
- structure
- language
You might also have examined:
- effective openings and endings
- a key incident
- a A decisive moment at which a change occurs.
Realistically, the exam questions should be open enough for you to manipulate to suit your text and what you know about it.
To prepare for the exam, you might want to try timed paragraphs (7-8 mins) before piecing everything together in a timed/no notes essay.