Modern times: Literature from 1945 to the present day: creating your own questions
Below you will find instructions on how to use the accompanying resources to create your own exam practice questions. This example shows you how to use the 'Modern times: Literature from 1945 to the present day' resource package to set questions for Paper 2B, Section A, for this component of A-level English Literature A.
Paper 2B, Section A
If you have used the relevant questions from the specimen assessment materials or want to set a question on a different aspect of the text and 'Modern times: Literature from 1945 to the present day', you can use these documents in the following way:
Look at how the relevant questions from the specimen assessment materials are constructed, for example:
'Examine the view that A Streetcar Named Desire fails because the relationship between Stella and Stanley is 'inconceivable'.'
The question stem (Examine the view that…) can remain unchanged. You will need, however, to construct a different 'view' depending upon the aspect of Modern times in the text you want the students to explore.Read the specimen questions to help you construct a different 'view' to debate. Other sources can be used to construct a view:
- Look for aspects of Modern times which occur in the text but don't forget that the absence of aspects in a text is equally valid for debate.
- Look at the list of aspects of Modern times in the specification and make up a critical view around one of these
- Research critical views on this text around which to structure a debate
- Research critical views on another text about 'Modern Times' (non-set texts included) and adapt the quote in a more general sense so that students can consider how far this can be said to be true of the text they have studied
- This resource is part of the Modern times - Literature from 1945 to the present day resource package.