Mark Scheme (AQA GCSE English Literature)

The mark scheme in English Literature can seem daunting, and difficult to understand. This is because there is no “correct answer” for any essay: the exam board does not provide points that need to be included in any essay, and instead, examiners have to use the mark scheme to place an answer into a level.

It is therefore essential to understand the mark scheme really well yourself: if you understand exactly what you are being assessed on, you understand how to improve. Below you will find sections on:

• Translating the mark scheme
• Understanding the different levels
• How to get a Level 6
• Student-friendly mark scheme
• Tick list for success

Here is a simple version of the AQA mark scheme for the poetry anthology question, and below, a student-friendly translation of the mark scheme with expert advice and guidance, broken down into the different assessment objectives.

AO1

What it says: “Maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response”

What it means: Write a clear essay with a central argument based on your own opinions. All parts of the essay must directly answer the question

Commentary: 

• Examiners want to see what they call a “coherent” response: an answer that relates to a central argument in every part of the essay
• This is why it is vital to plan your answer first
• It is also vital that you analyse both poems in terms of the question set
• This argument should always link directly to the question, so include the key words of the question in your thesis and your topic sentences
• Examiners want to see your opinions, not the opinions of an imagined ’reader’

Tick list: 

• Have I included a thesis statement in my introduction?
• Does my thesis statement refer to both poems?
• Does my thesis statement include a central argument based on my own opinions?
• Does my thesis statement include key words from the question?
• Have I included topic sentences for all of my paragraphs?
• Do all of my paragraphs directly answer the question?
• Have I included a conclusion that sums up my argument and links to my thesis?

What it says: “Use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations”

What it means: Select quotations and references from both the given poem and one poem of your choice. These must be accurate, and provide the evidence for the points you make in your argument

Commentary: 

• Examiners reward highest marks to students who relate the ideas and themes of both poems in terms of the exam question
• Examiners are looking for students to find thematic “connections” between the two poems
• To link poems in your analysis, use phrases like: “Poet X also explores ideas about Y”, “Similarly, in Poem Z”, “Poet A also seeks to highlight Idea B in their poem when…””
• References do not need to be direct quotations
• Examiners are equally happy when students just “pinpoint specific moments” in poems

• You do not get more marks for more quotations

• All references just need to be accurate and provide evidence for your points and overall argument

• All references must be relevant to the points of your essay
• Examiners dislike when students include irrelevant quotations

Tick list: 

• Have I chosen two or three quotations from the given poem?
• Have I linked ideas and themes from the given poem to ideas and themes from my chosen poem?
• Have I chosen at least three other references from my second poem?
• Do all of my references directly support my argument?
• Does each reference I have included support the points made in my topic sentences?

AO2

What it says: “Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects”

What it means: Use analysis of the two poets’ choices to support your argument. This evidence can be the language used in the poems, or any other deliberate choice made by the poets

Commentary:

• Examiners want students to move away from word-level analysis to whole-text analysis based on a poet’s ideas and message
• This means not just focusing your analysis on the language or poetic techniques in the poems, or quotations you have memorised
• Instead, think about the ideas they are trying to present:
• What themes are they exploring? Are they challenging or criticising certain viewpoints?
• This analysis should move from how the poets use language, structure and form, to why they do it
• What are the poets using their poems to say? What are their overall messages?

Tick list:

• Does my analysis provide evidence for the points in my argument?
• Have I moved from close word-level analysis to whole-text analysis?
• Have I included analysis of the poets’ overarching ideas and messages?

What it says: “[...] using relevant subject terminology where appropriate”

What it means: Include terminology on poets’ techniques only when techniques are explained fully and relevant to your argument

Commentary:

• Examiners don’t like what they call “technique-spotting”
• This is where a student uses (sometimes very sophisticated) vocabulary to name the literary techniques poets use without explaining them
• Equally, they don’t reward analysis that just names a word class (“the noun X”; “the verb Y”)
• They think this is “unnecessary and unhelpful”
• A poet’s techniques should only be analysed if they provide further evidence to support your argument
• Examiners want students to move from what technique a poet uses to how and why they are using them

Tick list: 

• Have I removed any unnecessary technique spotting?
• Have I removed any unnecessary naming of word classes?
• Have I explained a poet’s use of techniques in terms of their overall message?

AO3

What it says: “Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written”

What it means: Explore the ideas and perspectives of the two poems that give further insight to the poets’ choices

Commentary:

• Context is not historical or biographical information that has nothing to do with the ideas presented in a poem
• Instead, context should be seen as the ideas and perspectives that a poet is exploring in their poem
• These ideas and perspectives (society’s ideas about love, relationships, the nature of power or warfare) help us understand why the poets present their poems in the way they do
• Why do a poem’s characters behave the way they do?
• Why is the poem set in this particular place?
• Why is this theme significant in the poem?
• Examiners want to see context linked to the themes and ideas of the two poems
• Context can be “implicit”
• This means no direct exploration of Edwardian attitudes to love or contemporary thinking about the horrors of war
• Rather, an exploration of universal attitudes to love, or the negative effects of war, is rewarded by examiners
• All context should also be linked to your overall argument

Tick list:

• Have I removed any irrelevant contextual information?
• Is all my context linked to the ideas and perspectives presented in the poetry anthology as a whole?
• Is all my contextual exploration linked to the theme of the question?
• Does all my context provide additional insight to my main argument?

The mark scheme for English Literature has six levels, with Level 1 at the bottom, and Level 6 at the top. Examiners do not receive a list of points that need to be included for a student’s essay to achieve Level 3, say, or Level 5. Instead, the mark scheme contains different “descriptors” for each level:

• “Descriptors” are the:
• Features that a response is expected to have to achieve each level
• This means: How well a student has responded to the question (the overall quality of the answer)
• Skills a student is expected to show to achieve each level
• This means: The specific skills needed to explore and analyse a text
• For example, the “descriptors” for a Level 1 response are:
• An attempt to answer the question (quality of answer)
• A narrative or descriptive approach (quality of answer)
• Simple analysis of the writer’s methods and context (skills shown)

• In contrast, examiners expect a lot more for a Level 6 response. The “descriptors” for Level 6 include:
• Responding to the full task with a well-structured argument (quality of answer)
• A critical, exploratory and conceptualised approach (quality of answer)
• Insightful analysis of the writer’s methods (skills shown)
• Integrated and exploratory approach to context (skills shown)

Essentially, when examiners are putting student essays into a particular level, they are just deciding how well the student has displayed the expected features and skills of each assessment objective. So if you understand each AO, and what is required for each AO, you will know how to improve.

If you want to achieve a Grade 9, you should be aiming for a Level 6 response. Below you will see a table that explains how to move from a Level 5 response to Level 6.

Question:

Part of essay	Level 5	Level 6	Reason
Introduction	In London, William Blake presents ideas about power and control through the use of dramatic monologue to personally criticise the institutions that oppressed the people of London during his time. Robert Browning uses his poem, My Last Duchess, to criticise the control powerful people - who often inherited their power - had over women.	In London, William Blake is concerned with how human power can be used to control and oppress both people and the natural world, whereas Robert Browning in My Last Duchess presents power through the individual character of the Duke, who uses his position of authority to control women. Both poets do this to criticise inherited or institutional power over ordinary people.	The Level 6 introduction is in the form of a thesis statement, which presents an overarching argument that encompasses ideas in both poems and crucially, already begins to compare and contrast them. The Level 5 response, while sophisticated, treats the two poems as separate entities.
Topic sentence	William Blake in London presents powerful institutions oppressing women, which leads to unintended violence.	Both William Blake and Robert Browning present the control institutions or figures hold over women as leading to violence (either committed against, or by these women) to highlight the disastrous effects of female oppression in their respective societies.	The Level 6 response is more specific: it explains more clearly that the violence experienced is a direct effect of the oppression (or control) of women. The Level 6 topic sentence also refers to both poems and the poets’ shared ideas, and includes the direct words of the question (“control”) which the Level 5 response does not.
Analysis of writer’s methods	Blake shows the effect of women’s oppression in the violence that is a consequence of the desperate situation young women found themselves in 19th-century London: having to become sex workers to feed and clothe their children. The “youthful harlot” is presented by Blake as both “curs[ing]” and “blast[ing]” her “new-born infant”, showing a shocking and violent reaction to a new-born baby: the ultimate symbol of innocence. This is perhaps reflective of Blake’s message that in a system that punishes the poor, it is only the innocent who suffer.	Both Blake and Browning hint at the destructive and violent consequences of the oppression of women through the use of (voiceless) female characters in their poems. While Blake’s “youthful harlot” takes out her desperation on her own “new-born infant” (a symbol of perfect innocence) by blasting it with curses, Browning implies a more direct violence against women through the sinister presentation of his persona, the Duke, who seems to wield ultimate control over his wife: the ability to take her life if he so chooses.	Although it is not a requirement of a Level 6 response, here both poems are contrasted in terms of the topic sentence above. Crucially, the connections drawn are based on the poets’ ideas, or overarching messages, rather than comparing them based on poetic techniques, form or structure. The Level 5 response could easily become a Level 6 response if it makes valid connections between the ideas presented and Browning’s presentation of the same theme.
Context	William Blake was a Romantic poet and so would have been opposed to the dominance of institutions, or monarchical systems, over the ‘ordinary’ people of the 19th-century.	Blake’s presentation of a seemingly immoral “harlot” presents readers with a moral dilemma: it is clear that her behaviour towards her infant is wrong, but - given the oppression and control the institutions of power have over her (and thus her limited freedom) - perhaps Blake is asking the reader to apportion blame instead to the systemic failures of a society that leads women to be in such desperate, impoverished, situations.	The context in the Level 6 response is interwoven into the  analysis and linked directly to theme and question (power and control). The ideas explored around women and morality certainly constitutes implicit context here, as it focuses on perspectives and ideas, rather than the bolt-on historical information in the Level 5 response. The Level 5 response is less focused on the question as a result.

The GCSE mark scheme can be confusing as it is written for examiners, not students. Below is a translated mark scheme that breaks the assessment objectives into concise, clear instructions.

Assessment Objective	Number  of marks	Meaning
AO1	12	Write a clear essay with a central argument based on your own opinions All parts of the essay must directly answer the question Select quotations and references from both the given poem and one other of your choice Quotations must be accurate, and provide evidence for the points you make in your argument
AO2	12	Use analysis of the two poets’ choices to support your argument Evidence can be analysis of the language in the poems, as well as any other deliberate choice made by the poets Include terminology on poets’ techniques only when techniques are explained fully and relevant to your argument
AO3	6	Explore the ideas and perspectives of the two poems that give further insight into the poets’ choices

Marking your own essays can be difficult. However, if you use the tick list below, you can see which features and skills you have, and haven’t, included in your answer. If you can say ‘yes’ to all of the questions below, your essay should be heading towards the highest level.

AO1

• Have I included a thesis statement in my introduction?
• Does my thesis statement refer to both poems?
• Does my thesis statement include a central argument based on my own opinions?
• Does my thesis statement include key words from the question?
• Have I included topic sentences for all of my paragraphs?
• Do all of my paragraphs directly answer the question?
• Have I included a conclusion that sums up my argument and links to my thesis?
• Have I chosen two or three quotations from the given poem?
• Have I linked ideas and themes from the given poem to ideas and themes from my chosen poem?
• Have I chosen at least three other references from my second poem?
• Do all of my references directly support my argument?
• Does each reference I have included support the points made in my topic sentences?

AO2

• Does my analysis provide evidence for the points in my argument?
• Have I moved from close word-level analysis to whole-text analysis?
• Have I included analysis of the poets’ overarching ideas and messages?
• Have I removed any unnecessary technique spotting?
• Have I removed any unnecessary naming of word classes?
• Have I explained a poet’s use of techniques in terms of their overall message?

AO3

• Have I removed any irrelevant contextual information?
• Is all my context linked to the ideas and perspectives presented in the poetry anthology as a whole?
• Is all my contextual exploration linked to the theme of the question?
• Does all my context provide additional insight to my main argument?