Lit Poetry Exam Question on Relationships

For those of you that weren’t here for Tuesday’s lesson, below is the question we did (under exam conditions) on the poems we’ve studied over the past few weeks. We spent 10 minutes planning and then an hour writing.

 

Compare how relationships are presented in ‘Mother any distance greater than a single span’ by Simon Armitage with one poem by Carol Ann Duffy and two poems from the Pre-1914 poetry bank.

You should compare:

• what the relationships are
• how the poets use form, structure and language to present the relationship

Past Duffy/Armitage/Pre-1914 Literature Exam Questions

Your essay writing skills will improve the more you practice. You can use the past questions below to plan answers, write parts of essays (e.g. introductions) and even write whole essays. I will be happy to mark and give you feedback on any extra essays you do independently. It will sometimes be worthwhile writing full essays but planning an answer and writing parts of essays is a really useful exercise.

There are 3 different ways the questions will be structured:

1. You will be given one named poem and you have to pick 3 others (usually one from the other key poet – Duffy or Armitage – and two pre-1914 poems)
2. You will be given two lists from which you pick two poems from each list. This is usually a little bit easier than the above as they’ve done a bit of the work of selecting poems for you.
3. You will be given a question broken up into two halves. These are effective two different questions for which you only have to compare two in each section which is obviously easier to manage. Do not fall into the trap of only answering one question – give half an hour to each section and treat them like two mini-essays.

1) Compare how death or the threat of death is presented in the poems you have studied. Choose two poems from List A and two from List B.

List A                                                                           List B

Havisham (Duffy)                                                   On my first Sonne. (Jonson)

Education for Leisure (Duffy)                          The Laboratory (Browning)

Hitcher (Armitage)                                              The Man He Killed. (Hardy)

November (Armitage) .                                      My Last Duchess. (Browning)

2) Compare how women are presented in four of the poems you have studied. To do this, compare Mother, any distance by Simon Armitage and three other poems, one by Carol Ann Duffy and two from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank. Compare:

              –  the women in the poems

              –  how they are presented

3) Answer both parts (a) and (b).

 (a) Compare how the poets make the reader feel sympathy for the speaker in On my first Sonne by Ben Jonson and the speaker in one poem by Carol Ann Duffy

and then

(b) Compare how the reader is made to feel disturbed by the speaker’s words and actions in one poem by Simon Armitage and one poem from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank.

4) Compare how the poets present attitudes to people in Hitcher by Simon Armitage with one poem by Carol Ann Duffy and two poems from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank. Compare:

              –  what the attitudes to people are

              –  how the poets present these attitudes by the ways they write 

 

Miss Knowles’ Step by Step Guide to Writing about 4 Poems

Step 1: What is the question asking you?

Underline the key word(s) in the question. Remember that you need to compare and that you are being asked to comment on the writers’ use of linguistic and structural devices  so you need to get in the habit of underlining these words.

You must also underline the KEY WORD(S) that is unique to this question – so you know what it is you are being asked to compare e.g. ‘Compare how Duffy presents a killer’s attitude…’ Here you are being asked to compare killers’ attitudes.

Step 2: Select your poems

Read the named poem to see how it relates to the question. Which 3 other poems are you going to select?  Take time to think through which other poems will be most useful to you – don’t just select the ones you know best because you think you can say more about them.

Step 3: Plan

You should spend ten minutes planning using the key word to compare/contrast the poems you have selected. You might also want to plan out the structure of your essay – focusing on ONE key feature per paragraph.

Step 4: Write your introduction

DO NOT write ‘In this essay I am going to’ or in any way draw attention to the process of writing the essay e.g. ‘I have chosen to…’ Your introduction needs to be short and focused. If you are comparing killers’ attitudes, what are the killers’ attitudes in the poems you have selected? What similarities and differences are there in their attitudes? You DO NOT need to use evidence in your introduction.

The best introductions will clearly outline your line of argument which will be developed in the main body of your essay.

Step 5: Main body

• Use key words throughout – that means in EVERY SINGLE paragraph. You must be explicitly answering the question in EVERY SINGLE paragraph. Do not make irrelevant points because you want to show off to the examiner.
• You should have one focus for comparison in each paragraph e.g. a linguistic or structural feature. You need to develop your comments about these using P.E.E.E. For the last part, consider the impact of the language used on the reader. You might think about the connotations of particular words. As a general rule, the point should be short, the quotation short and your analysis/comment the longest part. It’s much better to compare a single detail/feature/device in depth rather than listing a range of features.
• You should comment on the poet’s intentions (the characters are not real) and therefore you should use the poets’ names. Do not confuse the speaker/character with the poet.
• If you are aiming for an A/A* you need to consider/explore alternative interpretations.  

Step 6: Conclusion

Don’t just sum up what you’ve said – this is an opportunity to explicitly demonstrate your personal response to the poems. Is there an image which has been particularly striking?