If you are an English Literature student, you will probably know you will have some closed-book assessment as part of your course. This is for A-Level and GCSE. But don’t panic: just because you won’t have your trusty, reliable set text in front of you doesn’t mean you need to stress out. There are ways of helping you prepare that will help you with being successful.
Know Your Literature Text
Whatever your set text is, it is important to know it. If it’s a novel, you need to know key events, where they happen, what the main points of different chapters are. If it’s a play, know the scenes and acts, for example. One way you can help yourself is by re-reading the text in plenty of time – not rushing it the night before the exam!
Quotations!
Having some useful quotations on hand is brilliant for closed-book examinations. You can’t be expected to remember stacks – besides, some won’t be useful. Try to revise short quotations, ones that can be applied to different types of questions, about characters or themes. So – be selective with your quotation choice and you’ll have a good stash ready for the examinations.
Use What’s There
Some Literature questions will focus on an extract from the text; then, you’ll be expected to branch out into the wider text. Look at what’s there and what you are given – and think about how you can link this extract to other chapters, scenes or acts in the text.
Show, Don’t Tell
What you don’t want to do is ‘re-tell’ the story. Examiners want to see how amazing your knowledge of the text is. So, show them. ‘Show’ that you understand the pressures on a character through how they are treated, what they say, perhaps how this links in with the context at the time. Your exam is a great opportunity for you to show your examiner that you really know your text.
There You Are – Some Tips To Help You With Closed-book Examinations
Whatever your text and whatever the requirements of your exam, you need to approach closed-book calmly. You won’t have the book in front of you, but sometimes this can be a hindrance anyway. Make the most of what you know and wow your examiner.
Bad grades can be the bane of the hardworking pupil. Sometimes, they materialise as if from nowhere, despite you putting in all the hours to clinch yourself a result you can be proud of.
Pupils have had a rough time of it for a while now when it comes to grades, and if you’re among them, it’s important to know you’re not alone. Everyone has a few bumps in the road when it comes to their education, and the classmates of yours who look like they have everything figured out could simply be saving face these days. No one finds school a breeze, even if they claim otherwise.
So, how can you deal with a bad grade? Well, with the right perspective, it may be that you can turn things around sooner than you might think. Keep reading for tips that could help you!
Embrace Failure
Receiving a mark below your target can be an incredibly demoralising ordeal. Sometimes, the frustration can stem from the fact that the result can’t possibly make sense. You put the work in, so what happened?
Well, on rare occasions these matters can sometimes come down to bad luck, plain and simple. Perhaps problems in your personal life were a distracting presence when it came time to sit down and get to work? It could be that the material that was ‘unlikely to show up in the exam’ actually showed up, but you didn’t revise for it as much as other potential topics. Or it might just be that today wasn’t your day.
When it comes to bad grades, it’s important to embrace the disappointment at first and let all those negative feelings wash over you. Don’t suppress them. Perhaps you may have enough on your plate already, so a good cry or some time out could be a great thing to just help work through those feelings and expel that energy from your system. Disappointment means that you care, and that’s positive in itself, as it can also be the spark that lights the fuse of all your further motivation to succeed.
Remember, success doesn’t taste anywhere near as sweet without some failure sprinkled in somewhere. Sift through the debris of your emotions, then build yourself back up again.
Consult Your Teachers After Bad Grades
Your teachers aren’t just adults in suits who like to boss a bunch of kids around. They’re also incredibly useful guides in education and life in general. They’re your own Master Yoda, Gandalf, or Albus Dumbledore, depending on what fiction resonates most with you…
As they’re fountains of knowledge, it’s integral that you consult with your teacher as to what could have gone wrong. By now they likely know your strengths and weaknesses in your learning, or it might be that they have an insight on the trickery of the test you took. They should at least have some answers, and to turn things around here, it’s obviously answers that you need!
Ask them for a chat after class, school, or send them an email so that you can have a written record of all their advice that they share from their reply. Clue your parents in on matters too, if you think that might help, and they may be able to jog your memory during your resit revision sessions. In the end, it’s important to remember that you have a committed support network around you, and it would be a shame to waste it.
Look At Your Positive Feedback
Contrary to popular belief, one exam result, good or bad, is not representative of your entire academic education or sense of self-worth. You have sat many tests up to that one moment, and no doubt handed in things like great coursework or brilliant homework. They all matter, and they’re all achievements.
When you’ve experienced bad grades, refer to your previous successes. Positive teacher comments, awards you may have won, or even just work you’re personally proud of can all give you a bit of a morale boost. So what if things didn’t go right this time? Look back, and you should see a pattern of all your positive achievements that count for a lot more than a single bad grade.
Failure can make you feel worthless, and in those moments it’s important to get back in touch with the things that prove otherwise. Even if your bad grade is in Science and your strength is in sport, you’ll still have something you can hold onto and be proud of. That’s completely valid!
Attack The Resits
The most important learning opportunities come from life, and not necessarily the classroom alone. Something like failure can teach you that life is sometimes working against you, and it’s down to you to bend it to your will. Once you have that in mind, you might just feel emboldened to push on.
Dust yourself down and get back into the learning spirit as soon as you feel poised to do so. You can take any important exam as many times as you need to whether you’re sixteen or sixty, so even if you fail again, again, and again, sooner or later success will rear its head your way if you keep attacking the resits with everything you’ve got. You’re never down and out unless you choose to be, and you shouldn’t!
You get to decide what your future is, and success comes in many forms. Additionally, there’s always alternate paths you can take that will lead you to the same destination. You might have missed out on your university place this year, but who’s to say that you can’t take it up next year? Maybe a different university would have been a better fit for you all along?
The credits on your life don’t roll when you fail once, twice, or twenty times – in fact, failure is just the beginning of the long and wonderful journey that is life. Resit to your heart’s content, and eventually, you will be exactly where you want to be.
As we approach the date which would have marked the start of my A-Level study leave, the impact of covid-19 on education is more apparent to me than ever. In a pandemic-free world, exam anticipation would now be at its crescendo. Every surface of my house would be covered in pastel coloured flashcards, I’d celebrate the final day of school by wearing fancy dress (and playing a prank or two) and I would be counting down the minutes until I left the exam hall for the last time and felt my stress evaporate.
These customs are a way of taking stock of your achievements and gaining closure before moving on to future pursuits. The cancellation of public exams deprived us of this sense of resolution and the chance to demonstrate our capabilities. Because I didn’t go to school for the last two days before it closed, I had already had my last ever day of school without realising it. I was shattered by the realisation that I hadn’t got to say goodbye to the peers and teachers whom I’d known for a decade. Like many students, I was in limbo – and exams are meant to be some of the most predictable cornerstones of our lives. Whether it be SATS, GCSEs, A-levels, BTECs, university finals or vocational qualifications, we all have to take tests throughout our lives. With exams being cancelled for the first time since the Second World War due to covid-19, that certainty no longer exists.
Covid-19 Exam Limbo and Support
In lieu of concrete information, students have agonised over the potential disadvantage caused to us by the new system for awarding qualifications and over our prospects of getting into college or university. Education providers have found it challenging to respond to these concerns and to adapt to the changing circumstances because they too are in the dark about what the future holds. Oxford Open Learning is no exception, but is doing its utmost to support students and to address their queries as quickly as possible.
Of course, it is not just students who are struggling. I know that my anxieties surrounding exam results and university prospects, whilst valid, are comparatively minor. I recognise also that many people do not have the privilege of using this time for personal or academic enrichment and so I am very privileged to have been able to do so. This experience poses a unique challenge to all of us, and there is no right or wrong way of coping with it. All any of us can do is stay safe, be kind to ourselves and each other and look ahead to brighter times. I for one, will be seizing the first possible opportunity to put my flashcards to use.
