Literature in English (0475/0992)

r/IGCSE Resources
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Tips and resources by ivias:

A few tips I wish I had known before I started preparing for Lit IGCSE:

● For each short story and poem, write down a minimum of 4 main points which
you can develop. This way you can always answer the question in the exam.
You just have to alter the points slightly to adjust the questions.

● Practice past papers, get it checked with your teacher, incorporate feedback
and rewrite the essay. Rewriting it is very important for improvement.
● Sometimes you can basically rubbish your way through a point as long as you
have evidence to back it up. If you're having trouble expanding on your point, I
always find it easy to play an association game. This helps me understand the
symbolism and certain points which I had missed out before.

I had a lot of trouble with literature and these resources and these tips helped
me out a lot, I hope it helps you too.

- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/
1wL_PIsenJqeNyw5YFZG_q_IvQNaLh0gk?usp=sharing (note: Link
added to resource folder as shortcut)

- furthermore: this google drive contains the compilation of all the resources
i used throughout my literature course. These contain some external
resources and a lot of my practice essays. You can look through them
since they might help you. There is also an analysis for almost every poem
and short story even if they might not be too good. If you open some pdfs
in adobe acrobat you can see the annotations and the analysis.

Another link for poems: https://poetryprof.com/

English Literature Essay Tips - Book and Play

Essay Structure - by Nilo
• Start with an introduction. This is where you outline all the ideas you will be
referring to and an overarching statement on why this topic is presented (i.e. the
author's purpose).
• Next, aim for 3-5 body paragraphs. These will contain all your ideas,
development, analysis, context and reference to author's purpose
• Finally, aim to finish off with a conclusion which summarizes the whole essay
giving more detail to your ideas along with a concluding statement that ties
everything together. You could also talk about how relevant it is to the current day
and age.

Paragraph Structure
A rigid paragraph structure is never a great thing. Your ideas should have some
fluidity within them so you can develop parts as you need to so it doesn't appear
clunky. However, a general paragraph should comment on the following things.
• What is done? (i.e. your idea)
• Where is this done? (i.e. your evidence)
• How is it done? (i.e. your analysis)
• What is the effect? (i.e. different perspectives reader could have)
• Why is it done? (i.e. author's purpose)

Key Ideas to Look At

• Clear point with scope (i.e. something you can use to branch into different
aspects)
• Each point should refer to many quotes (aim for 3-5 quotes per paragraph)
• Offer alternative interpretations of language, structure but also the impact it has
on different readers, such as a contemporary audience vs a modern audience.
• Look at the reason why the author does this not just how they do that
• Don't add context for the sake of context. It has to be meaningful and have some
impact on your analysis
• Do not separate the extract and whole text -> Refer to the extract within a point
not as a point on its own
• Look at some of the larger ideas within the text
• Look at the placement of an event (Why is that event there? Does it directly
contrast anything?)
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