Tips from Study23!

Study23! :

My biggest tip is to know the book off by heart so read it a good few times. Practice analysation skills in time (useful for poetry and the extract). Learn key quotes for each character and theme and wherever you can quote. Like you may be saying something like ‘We know Lennie is strong but he’s always been seen as weak and vulnerable’ or something when you can quite easily write it as ‘We know Lennie is ‘strong as a bull’ and despite his threatening physical description he has always had an essence of innocence noticed by others, ‘He’s jes like a kid’.’ Then you can deeper into analysis on some quotes. Say you could develop that by saying ‘By making a comparison to a ‘bull’ John Steinbeck is using zoomorphism to present Lennie with animalistic qualities. Perhaps this was intended to imply that although Lennie may act kind and child like he has the potential to turn into a beast who could hurt you in an instant, as we sadly see later with one of the puppies and even more drastically, Curley’s wife’

For the extract just practice a lot in timed conditions. Aim to do separate exam like this:

20 mins Extract

40 mins Essay

Hour poetry

Extract take 1-2 mins highlight it and make quick notes. Then track through it. So let’s say the questions is how is Slim presented here read through it and highlight every time it implies something else about him. Then literally write like a sentence or two for each new thing, coverage is most important. Like say first line you’ll go ‘At the beginning the characters do …. when Slim ‘…..’, implying that he ….. He then does ….. by … which suggests to us that he…. The word ‘…’ in this quote further supports this as it connotes to … In the second passage he…’ and go through the extract quoting and saying when the impression changes.

With the essay try and know as many quotes as you can and put them in (similar to what I said in first post’. Go into depth every now and then since you won’t have enough time to do loads. Don’t do a big intro, literally just a sentence introducing your answe like ‘I think George is the character who deserves most sympathy as he has the most responsibility and connections with others.’ Then go straight into your main points. Aim for like 3-4 when you plan it out, for example with George 1) He has take care of Lennie which is sort of a burden for him (context the dust bowl and Great Depression means it was difficult enough) 2) He had to kill Lennie 3) He loses his dream (context American dream).