Love through the ages: 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 Love through the ages: resource package to set questions for Paper 1, Section A, for the Love through the ages component for A-level English Literature A.

Love through the ages: Paper 1, Section A

If you have used the relevant question from the Sample Assessment Materials and want to set a question on a different passage, you can use these documents in the following way:

1. Look at how the relevant question from the Sample Assessment Materials is constructed:

[Extract from The Winter's Tale, I. ii. 264-318]

'Paradoxically, texts often present jealousy as springing from the very deepest kind of love.'

In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Leontes' feelings for Hermione in this extract and elsewhere in the play.

The question stem can remain unchanged i.e. 'In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents…in this extract and elsewhere in the play.'

2. You will need to choose a different passage from the text depending upon the aspect(s) of love you want the students to explore.

• read the specimen question commentary to help you choose a different passage for analysis: consider the different possible aspects of love, the various characters who might be involved and the action in the play which might provide the best passages.

3. You will need to construct a different 'view' to debate. Look for aspects of love which occur in the text but don't forget that the absence of aspects in a text is equally valid for debate. Other sources can be used to construct a view:

• Look at the list of aspects of love 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 'love' (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 Love through the ages resource package.