Tennyson - The AS Exam

The AS exam text is the Everyman  'Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Selected Poems' edited by Michael Baron. Here is the Amazon preview of the anthology with a list of the 20 selected poems : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tennyson-Everymans-Poetry-EVERYMAN-POETRY/dp/0460878026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364534542&sr=8-1

For a video on Tennyson, see this blog page on 'The Charge of the Light Brigade': http://stmarysa2english.blogspot.co.uk/p/tennyson.html. 

The Exam - 2 Hours
For the AS exam you are expected to have studied all 20 poems in the anthology. You will be given a clean text to use in the exam. You answer TWO questions - a compulsory one from Section A and a choice of two on Tennyson from Section B.

In section A (45 marks) you will be given a short extract of Victorian Literature (such as a work of criticism, diary, letter, biography, cultural commentary) and you analyse that extract, using your Wider Reading in Victorian Literature to illuminate that analysis. Your Wider Reading mentioned should include poetry, prose and drama.

In Section B (45 marks) you choose between two questions. One will be on a particular poem and its relation to the anthology. One will give you a particular view on Tennyson's poetry to discuss. Here are some past exam questions (although not on Tennyson, as this is a new text for this summer).

2. “John Clare offers the reader the voices of those who are usually silent or ignored.” To what extent do you agree with this view of Clare’s poetry?
In your answer you should either refer to two or three poems in detail or range more widely through the whole selection. 

3. ‘Remind yourself of ‘The Flitting’.
To what extent do you agree with the view that this poem is the key to the whole selection? 

For the Assessment Objectives and Mark Scheme, see the June 2012 exam: 
http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-LTA1A-W-MS-JUN12.PDF


Clearly, your choice will depend on the poems you know best. If the poem given is one you know well, it's probably best to choose that question. If not, then better to choose the more general question so you can choose to refer to two or three poems you do know well.

Poems this revision guide focuses on are 'The Charge of the Light Brigade',  'The Lady of Shallott' and 'Crossing the Bar'.