For many students sitting their GCSE, or IGCSE, English Literature examinations, remembering quotations is a key requirement of the course. It might be your greatest weakness, your Achilles Heel. Perhaps it fills you with dread, remembering whether Romeo or Juliet said a very important line, or just what the significance of the Inspector’s parting line is in An Inspector Calls. Some examination courses are open book, meaning you can take a text in with you (phew, you might think – that’s a relief!), but others are closed book, meaning you have to try and remember quotations as best as you can. But fear not – there are ways to make your life a little bit easier.
One piece of advice is to build up a list of relevant quotations as you are reading, or revising, a text. Maybe think about characters and themes – after all, these are often the focus of English Literature questions. In all honesty, it is easier to do this as you go through, rather than rushing and doing it as a last-minute revision task.
Thinking about choosing quotations that can be applied to different questions with a range of focuses is a savvy approach. For example, let’s say you are writing about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In Chapter 1, Stevenson describes Mr Utterson as ‘cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse… with ‘… a rugged countenance.’ Now here, you could focus on his character – but maybe you could also tie it in with a key theme in the novella. In the poem ‘Disabled’, by Wilfred Owen, the simile ‘… saddening like a hymn’ could be used for different types of questions. Arthur Birling’s comment that the Titanic is ‘… absolutely unsinkable…’ links in quite nicely with a character question or, more widely, about a theme.
Another useful skill is to try and remember quotations that aren’t too long – perhaps you can think about a way of remembering them? Be selective, too. There is little point in remembering a very long quotation and going to great lengths to write it down in an exam, if only one or two words are relevant.
Don’t panic if you can’t quite recall the exact position of a quotation – i.e., which chapter, act or stanza it is in. You can make a reference to where something is, even if you are not totally sure. So, you could write ‘Near to the end of the novel…’ – and this will gain you some credit, even if you can’t quite locate the exact words.
Quotations are important in your English Literature examinations. You need to use them to back up your points – but if you prepare and revise carefully, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
If you are an English Literature A level student, at this time of year, with examinations just around the corner, you are probably frantically thinking of ways to remember everything you have learned so far. You will have novels full of notes, with Post-Its throughout; highlighters will have been busy, too, and I expect you have scribblings alongside important quotations in poems, and in any other texts you have studied. But there are other things you can do to improve your learning – enrichment is the way to go!
We all love being read to, don’t we? If you are struggling to engage with a poem, see if you can access a reading online, or perhaps a video of something being performed. Not only does this give you a different immersion experience, but it allows you to hear something that you are probably very familiar with. This is a useful way of helping you revise a text.
It’s movie time! Okay, so school isn’t out just yet – but that doesn’t mean you can’t watch a movie to help you with your A-Level revision. This is particularly useful for Shakespeare, where you may well be writing about one of the Bard’s plays in terms of how it impacts on an audience, and how it works as a piece of drama. After all, plays are written to be performed. So, whether this is the tragedy of King Lear or the silliness of Twelfth Night, watching an adaptation of a play can be valuable revision. Just make sure it isn’t going to confuse you!
A-Level study isn’t all about writing countless essays. Yes, this is important, of course, but so is helping you with your approach to revision. Maybe do a mind map or produce some character studies. Coloured pens can help with identifying key features and important quotations. If you are a visual learner, this can be a particularly useful way of helping you with your revision.
As an English Literature student, you will know that context is important: when a text was written, how it was received, what social and historical issues were prevalent at the time. Find ways of making this fun and memorable – you could look at YouTube videos, use Spark Notes or Google writers and their lives, for example. There are plenty other such platforms, websites and search engines available to you if you want to go elsewhere, too. If you can get a firm grasp on a what was happening when a text was written, it will help you to go in the right direction.
I hope this is useful. A-Levels are tough, but all the hard work will be worth it. Anything you can do to make the revision journey easier will help.
So many of us, when we hear the word exams (in addition to sharing that all too familiar feeling of anxiety), picture blank sheets of paper waiting on rows of single desks lining an echoey hall, the sound of a clock ticking loudly at the front. Whilst this has been the established format for as long as there have been exams, all may be set to change…
Covid and the global pandemic have changed many things but, when it comes to education, it has completely revolutionised the systems used by schools, colleges and universities for communicating with students, delivering learning and assessing achievement. And, whilst students may have returned to classrooms up and down the country, many of the changes implemented look set to stick around and change the way that learning looks for good. So, when it comes to exams, the traditional exam halls and paper tests may become a thing of the past.
There are a number of examination boards – including two of the biggies, AQA and OCR – running trials of digital assessments in a range of subjects, with candidates taking assessments solely online. The aim is that online assessment will be a way to ensure improved fairness in the awarding of grades and, possibly, offer faster and more accurate marking. Whilst some assessments have been available online since 2017, the suggestion is that online assessments will be standard from as early as 2025. In addition, boards are considering the use of ‘smart assessments’ that will adapt, question by question, to the student’s ability as demonstrated in their responses, thus eliminating the need for any tiered papers and allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in their own way in the allocated time.
Furthermore, many university students are calling for digital assessments to remain in place without the return to traditional in-person exams. The advantages of digital learning have included mental health benefits for many students who have reported less anxiety around assessments and discussions surrounding different approaches to learning recognise the many strengths of an approach that incorporates the technologies currently available. Hybrid or blended learning looks set to become the norm.
However, whilst the benefits of learning and being assessed in this way have been acknowledged, those involved in the decision making appreciate that there are many factors at play and issues relating to equality and the systems used must be considered carefully. Whilst it is clear that assessment boards will continue to investigate and invest in the technologies required for online assessment, the need for the roll-out to be done properly and regulated appropriately is at the forefront of any changes that are likely to happen.
‘Photographic memory’ conjures up – fittingly enough – the image of a person who can retrieve, at will, information or facts as though they were looking at a photograph. For many people, especially students, such a talent offers the potential to achieve incredible academic feats. But as it turns out, memory is much more complex than the concept of a ‘photographic memory’ would lead us to believe.
Anecdotally, we’ve probably all heard of someone with a ‘photographic memory.’ Perhaps you have a friend who rarely revises before exams but continually comes out with outstanding grades. Their ability is probably put down to them being ‘lucky,’ or them having a ‘photographic memory’ which enables them to retrieve any information they wish at will. In popular culture and history, there’s also evidence that some individuals possess extraordinary memories. For instance, in 2006, Akira Haraguchi, a retired Japanese engineer, recited 100,000 digits of pi from memory at a public event in Kisarazu.
One explanation for such impressive feats of memory is that individuals possess eidetic memories rather than photographic ones. Eidetikers can reconstruct an image that they’ve seen with extreme accuracy, with an ‘impression’ of the image remaining visible to them for anything between thirty seconds and several minutes. The gold standard for assessing whether someone has an eidetic memory is the Photo elicitation method, where a person stares at an image for up to thirty seconds. The evaluator removes the image, and the individual is then asked to describe it in minute detail.
Eidetic memory, though rare, is a genuine phenomenon. The aforementioned Akira Haraguchi credits an eidetic memory, alongside his mnemonic system, with his success. Eidetic memory is also much more common in children, with an estimated 2-10% of children possessing this ability, but it typically fades during adolescence.
Most of us have strong visual memories, but inter-connections and associations also improve our memory. I bet you can’t remember every meal you’ve had for the last seven days, but you might remember a dinner out you had on holiday seven years ago. How is this so? Your memory of dinner from seven years ago has so many other associations: the people you were with, the restaurant’s décor, the conversations you had, your other memories of that day. These interconnected memories make it much easier for you to relive and retrieve your memory of that dinner.
Former QI host, Stephen Fry, credits his curiosity with his extraordinary memory. It’s easy to see why. Think of something you’re interested in, be it football, song lyrics, art, or World War II – chances are you’re much better at recalling obscure and detailed facts about your favourite topic.
Although scientists have only identified one hundred people in the world as having genuinely extraordinary memories, some remarkable real-life examples prove that super-human memory can and does exist.
Neuroscientist and memory researcher James McGaugh first identified a condition called ‘highly superior autobiographical memory’ (or HSAM) in the early 2000s, after a young woman named Jill Price reached out to him and his team at The University of California, Irvine. This woman claimed that she could remember every incident of her life since the age of twelve. Much to McGaugh and his team’s amazement, her claim proved correct. Following Jill’s story, several other HSAM’s came forward.
One similarity that unites HSAM’s is that their memories are all very self-centred, with subjects also scoring highly on ‘fantasy proneness’ and ‘absorption,’ the ability to immerse all their sense in any activity they partake in. Beyond this, researchers have failed to find any striking anatomical variations that could explain these astonishing individuals.
Whilst it’s easy to become envious of those who possess such incredible memories, it’s wise to remember that only a tiny percentage of the world’s population possess them. Even with those who do, it’s perfectly possible that they’ve developed it because of a particular behaviour or event in their past, rather than it being an innate ability.
Evidence of some memory techniques can be found as far back as 500 BC, with our ancestors creating and using them to sharpen their own recollection abilities. The Method of Loci, also known as ‘The Memory Palace,’ was utilised in Ancient Greece, for example. To use the method, you think of a familiar setting or journey – such as the walk from your home to the gym or the shops – and place facts, items, or dates along the way – ‘collecting’ them as you complete the journey in your mind. In 2011, journalist Joshua Foer wrote Moon Walking With Einstein, exploring how many ordinary people utilise mnemonic systems to become extraordinary, with some finding themselves competing in the US Memory Championship.
Whilst there’s no doubt there are a few individuals out there with unique memories, we shouldn’t let the idea of ‘photographic memories’ themselves make us feel inadequate. Photographic memory – like much of memory itself – has mostly been proven to be a fictitious concept.
Goal setting is an important aspect of any journey. Whether it is setting goals relating to your career or something a little more personal, the process of fixing your eyes on the prize is often the first step in making your dream a reality. It is powerful to note that goals are something more solid than ambition alone. So, if this is true, how should you set goals to help you see real results?
A goal is more than just a wish or a desire, but reflecting on what you desire or wish for is a great way to identify your goal! Try to think of your goal as the ‘be’ and question yourself in relation to this. What do you want your life to be like? What would the results of your hard work be? What would you like to be different? From there, you can identify your plan of action and accompanying ‘to do list’ that will need ticking off in order for you to achieve.
Ensuring that your goal has a set time frame is vital and will become the driving force behind you achieving it. Without this, everything can shift and that dream is likely to drift away. Some people speak of their five year plans but it is likely that within that plan there are specific targets that they are looking to hit along the way. Look at what you want to achieve in the longer term, then set your shorter term goals in response to this. But more on time in a moment…
Goals come in many shapes and sizes but take one of three forms; a positive goal that you are looking to achieve, a negative goal where you are looking to avoid or move away from something or a goal that is bigger than yourself such as impacting your community or environment. Whatever shape yours takes, spend some time refining it to ensure it is…
Good goals are ones where we can be held accountable because it will tell us whether what we are doing is helping us to achieve it. Therefore, it is necessary to make certain that goal is;
Specific – What exactly is it that you want to achieve? Can you identify the who, what, when, where, or why?
Measurable – How will you know when you have achieved it? What results will you see that will let you know that you are making progress?
Actionable – What steps require taking and are you able to take them? Do you require additional resources or support?
Relevant – Why is this goal important to you? What will keep you focused when the tasks at hand become hard?
Timely – What is the deadline, when will you review your progress and how will you break down the time between now and then to get the job done?
Once your goal has this level of detail, you will hopefully feel fully invested in realising your vision! Live with the goal every day by placing it somewhere prominent where you will be reminded of it often and share it with your family and friends. Take time to review your progress and, for every action you take or decision you make, ask yourself, how is this helping me see the success I’m aiming for?
During the first two decades of our lives, our young brains are in full learning mode. For most of us, studying in the classroom is second nature, and we easily slot into this routine from a very young age, often before we step through the doors of a nursery or kindergarten.
As adult learners, we are much more likely to suffer from learning anxiety, as the habit of daily studying, along with the pressure of tests and examinations, are no longer part of our daily lives. This can also be exacerbated by our adult lived experiences, our views, stances and opinions on the world, and other learned fears such as failure or feeling incapable.
As we grow older, we are more likely to experience this fear of failure, which can heighten our anxiety, especially if our experience of education in the past was not always positive. Anxiety can affect our cognitive functions, and therefore can take the form of lapses in concentration, being unable to retain information, inability to make decisions, overthinking things, remembering only negative learning incidences, and a strong desire to run away from it all; thus leading to a catch twenty-two situation, where we become anxious about failure, and the anxiety itself can lead us to fail.
So what steps can we take to avoid or overcome adult learning anxiety, in order for us to breeze through our courses with ease and confidence? The answer is based on a humanist approach called ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’.
At the very basic level, we need to get enough rest, eat well, and feel secure and safe in our learning environment, whether we are learning from home or in the classroom. We also need to feel we have friends or family around us who care, and that we can turn to them if needed. Once we have these in place, we are more likely to feel less anxious and therefore have a much better chance of successfully achieving our learning goals.
Studying online means creating a space at home that is comfortable, yet free of distractions as much as possible. By the very nature of remote learning, we may feel a little isolated, as we don’t have other peers around us to discuss and share our feelings and concerns about the work, which can promote anxiety. Don’t be afraid to contact your tutor for guidance and feedback if you hit any barriers, or you want clarification of any kind. Your tutors are there to help you in any way they can, and will do everything possible to help you achieve your goals, and disperse any anxieties about the subject you may have.
Once all the positive props have been successfully put in place to enable us to give our best performance, there is one last thing also worth remembering; there is no substantial evidence to prove that younger people are more successful in learning than that of adults. In fact there is some evidence that adult learners are more likely to succeed than younger learners, as we are more likely to take responsibility for our learning, seek help and guidance when we don’t understand, use our past experiences to help us put our current learning into context, evaluate and modify our work and create goals and strategies to achieve them. Therefore, surely we can conclude that if we set our working environment up in a way that makes us feel secure, comfortable and emotionally supported, we have every reason to feel confident we can step forward and achieve almost any educational goal that we set ourselves.
To find out more about Jilly, you can visit her website by clicking here
Essays – love them or hate them, anyone who has gone through the British education system knows about them. The internet is awash with tips and tricks for learning a good essay, and it sometimes feels (especially in the Humanities) that there is no more important skill. But do we ever stop to think about where the essay comes from?
The term ‘essay’ was coined by Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592). A member of the French nobility, Montaigne famously retreated into a tower at his chateau after the death of his father and began to dedicate his time to writing short works on just about every topic you can imagine – cannibals, thumbs, solitude, why fathers love their children, and much else besides. Montaigne’s writings, deeply confessional in tone, caused a literary sensation when the first two books were published in 1580 with the title ‘Essais‘. The word ‘essai’ (or ‘essay’) for Montaigne, similar to ‘assay’ in English today, had a meaning closer to ‘an attempt’. Ironically, Montaigne’s essays share little in common with the secondary school student’s essay today: being explicitly subjective and prone to unfocused digressions.
Montaigne’s term caught on quickly regardless – especially amongst British philosophers. Francis Bacon was one of the earliest to lift Montaigne’s approach, with his ‘Essays’ being published in 1597. There then followed over the next few hundred years a recurring love affair between British intellectuals and the essay format – notable examples including John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) and David Hume’s Essays Moral and Political (1741). The culmination of this trend, and a crucial moment in the identification of essay-writing with formal education, came when the University of Cambridge – where assessment had largely been verbal – introduced the unseen written examination in this style in 1791.
Today, the essay undeniably rules the roost when it comes to our modern education system’s preferred mode of assessment. And yet, there is not as much consensus with regards to the essay as you might think. Although essays remain the norm in the form of traditional exams, the recent turn away from coursework for GCSEs and A-level under the current UK Government has nonetheless decreased the number of long-form, independent essays students have to produce. There are also those academics who question the suitability of the essay as such a universal assessment form from numerous perspectives. For example, some say it fails to prepare you for the world of work, others that it benefits certain forms of students.
Whatever the disputes though, it seems the essay is here to stay – for now.
Increasingly we are experiencing the world in bitesize chunks. Social media allows us access to many things but often in very small doses. We might be able to find the answer to anything and everything but we are less and less likely to place those answers within any meaningful context. We ‘live in fragments’. Our horizons are not being broadened but narrowed because we often ‘only connect’ with like minded people. Within our safe echo chambers we debate, question and challenge less. And we blame more.
The same might be said of education – in both the teaching and the learning. The curriculum has been segmented into distinct subjects and each subject into distinct chunks of content or distinct skills. Mark schemes are in grid form, suggesting that each element of assessment is separate to the next. You can be awarded marks for x even if you can’t do y. Inevitably, and perfectly understandably given the cultural value placed on examination results, teachers teach to the examinations and to the mark schemes and this only serves to compound the fragmentation of learning. If students are taught disconnected content then their domain of knowledge will be disconnected; the learning will be superficial. The students might be able to pass an exam but they will not retain the knowledge in the longer term. In one ear for a bit but out the other for much longer.
Given this situation and in order to make knowledge stick, it is essential that students (and their teachers) work to make connections. It’s up to you to find the relationships between seemingly disconnected bits of information. This is often about finding links: links between a current topic or text and one you have studied previously; links within a topic or text; making predictions based on prior knowledge, linking the work within the learning place to the real world. If you keep your focus on similarity and difference you’ll find that you are making connections all the time and retrieving and revisiting prior learning and the whole teaching and learning process will begin to feel more coherent and cohesive.
The highly prized skills of analysis and evaluation are really just about making meaningful connections but to make those connections does take time and effort. So, find the time to think about links and ‘live in fragments no longer’.
What is a multi-hyphen life?
It is a book written by Emma Gannon about the future of careers in the coming age. A key idea in the book is that we are moving into a multi-disciplinary age. This means that in their lifetimes, young people will constantly have to learn new skills and adapt at an increasingly rapid pace. This may sound like hell to some and paradise to others, depending on your attitude to discovery and learning.
In the UK, we have one of the most expensive higher education systems in the world and that doesn’t seem set to change in the near future. Worse still, with an increasing world population, a shift to automation, as well as the outsourcing of skills, the market is tough to say the least. Students can put themselves into considerable debt, and in many subjects receive an outdated education as universities struggle to keep pace with the growth of information.
In response to this, many private institutions such as Google, as well as top-tier universities, have created Massive Open Online Courses. These are sometimes free and normally cheap. They cover the most industry-relevant and up-to-date materials. The problem is that someone who studied a MOOC by Google will normally be second choice when compared to someone who studied at Oxford or Harvard.
This situation needs to change, however. If young professionals are to be expected to requalify on a regular basis in order to keep pace with the economy, learning must be democratised. As with every revolution, the status quo does not cede power easily, and universities are working hard to justify their high fees with blended learning and adaptable courses. The disruptive effects of tech are everywhere, however, from AirBnB, to Zoom conferences. The general rule of thumb is: if there is a quicker, cheaper and easier way to structure an old practise, it’s just a matter of time.
So it is very likely that if you are nearer to the beginning than the end of your career, you will be required to massively upskill or even learn a new discipline.
In order to keep up, people are going to have to become increasingly gritty. To learn more about grit, check out this article on Angela Duckworth’s groundbreaking research.
My recommendation would be to continuously play with ideas and keep up the side-hustles! These small things are like seeds and can grow over time, presenting you with new options and ideas.
Findings from The PISA ( Programme for International Student Assessment ) suggest that British teenage girls rank alarmingly highly for their fear of failure. Of the 79 nations surveyed, our country’s 15-year old girls ranked as the fifth most afraid of failure, behind only Taipei, Macau, Singapore and Brunei. But why are our teenage girls so afraid of failure? Here, I explore 6 possible reasons:
The pressure to perform in GCSE examinations heighten students’ anxieties about so many factors on which they perceive their results to hinge on; these include future job prospects and earning an income to provide for themselves and others. Being seen as successful often means a full-time well-paid job and high-flying status, rather than a happy balance between pursuing a passion, an income and enjoyment of life.
Social media and online advertising are rife with those boasting of high-flying careers, a happy marriage to a handsome, successful partner and the perfect picture poster family. Why would a teenager not feel the pressure to conform?
Similarly, there is a constant bombardment of social media posts from friends about their successes, holidays, promotions and material purchases. This added to the pressure to look and feel perfect by being exposed to heavily filtered images portraying an unattainable perfect body image.
Children are not immune to family issues. There are real and potential stresses, such as the divorce of parents, that affect youngsters even in primary school. Family breakdown has a detrimental impact on children’s personal life and exam results, according to a study from family lawyers’ association, Resolution. Their research found that 65% of children of divorced parents thought their GCSE results had been adversely affected.
According to Mental Health Foundation’s 2018 study, 36% of women who felt high levels of stress related this to their comfort with their appearance and body image, compared to 23% of men. Young women feel the need to look good, often developing the impression that this is intrinsically linked to the image of success.
It’s not hard to see that the odds are stacked against women in many sectors. According to ONS data, the gender pay gap stands at 8.9% amongst full-time employees. Women often lag some way behind their male counterparts from the start of their career, and this only increases the pressure to achieve.
How can the fear of failure be addressed, then? Well, it was considerably lower in European countries Germany and the Netherlands. Could it be that the 15-year strong leadership of Chancellor Merkel gives reassurance to women that it’s possible to break the glass ceiling?
It would appear that Dutch women have a far greater work / life balance – many Dutch women work part-time. Could a societal change in the perspective of what constitutes success and happiness for women create the real change for our youngsters? Times are changing, and perhaps so should the huge expectations and pressure we put on our young people to succeed.
Details of the UK findings can be found here: https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/PISA2018_CN_GBR.pdf