English Literature O Level 1986

[msjoey505]

Hello, does anyone remember the set texts from the AEB exam board syllabus? I can remember Rogue Male and Henry IV Part 1 but not the third text.

Thanks.

I did WJEC exams. I remember studying Macbeth, Of Mice & Men, Under Milk Wood, Billy Liar, Death of a Salesman, The Snow Goose and various DH Lawrence and Wilfred Owens poems.

At some point (probably A level) I remember the entire class staging a protest about having to study the execrable Road to Wigan Pier, I think that got changed to Down and Out in Paris and London (which wasn't much better).

@Saisong - WJEC loved Touchstone 5 for its poetry O levels. They used it for about 10 years. I still have a copy somewhere.

1987:
Henry IV part 1
The Science Fiction Omnibus
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
The Cone Gatherers

I did O levels in 1986 - don’t know which board - it was Pride & Prejudice, War Poetry and Midsummer Nights Dream for me. A level in 1988 was Gerard Manley Hopkins (the worst!!), Measure for Measure and The Great Gatsby

1983

cant remember much …
macbeth
Wilfred Owen
Ted Hughes

I did A level too - 1985 and I think we did othello ( still have the book with my notes in) Wordsworth’s the prelude ( again book with notes) and Chaucers Wife of Bath.

Can't remember the exam board but To Kill a Mockingbird, Richard III, absolutely no recollection of poetry at all, and another book that was totally eclipsed by my love for TKAM.

I'm not sure I've been much help!

1985:

Poems. Um, DH Lawrence and some other people. I only remember the gentians one.

Henry IV Part 2.

The Go-Between (really liked this one).

I did GCSE in 1988 (first year), but our set books all had a few years of names on the stickers inside the front cover.

We had Macbeth, Willis Hall's The Long and the Short and the Tall (in which I learnt the word "bint"), Animal Farm and Far From the Madding Crowd (because Hardy is compulsory when you're at school in Dorchester.) Poetry - I think some war poetry and some Hardy poetry. I'm a bit vague about what poetry I read for school, and what poetry I just read, but I do remember a Hardy poem about the plants in the greenhouse dying, and we also did Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which I think is Owen, without checking.

I did o level in 1985, Chaucer - prologue to the Canterbury tales (didn't take them on board at all), this was supposedly poetry.

Cider with Rosie, and As you Like it. Liked both

Without looking at a certificate I've no idea what board!
But Macbeth. Keats. And others..

Ah bitter chill it was, the owl for all his feathers was a-cold.

1979 O level and 1981 A level so a bit confused as to which was which but reading pp I think O level must have been
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Hardy
Henry IV Part 1
Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est and WWI poets
A level
Chaucer Canterbury Tales
Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard
Henry V
Can't remember any novels or the other Shakespeare

Just remembered more A level
Coleridge's opium addled Kubla Khan
Ted Hughes

1982

Othello
Jane Eyre
Brave New World

I've no idea about 1987 but your post has made me realised I remember practically nothing of my O levels in 1987. I remember studying John Betjeman and Jane Eyre but no idea if they were the exam texts or not. I can remember A levels really clearly for all subjects but all O levels are a blur (except I could still draw the ox bow lake diagram for geography).

I remember Macbeth, also Great Expectations.

Larkin, Betjeman, and Hughes?

Midsummer nights dream?
Lord of the Flies?
To kill a mockingbird?

1986, not sure which board
Romeo and Juliet
Susan Hill.-I'm the king of the castle
Ww1 poetry

That O Level exam is far easier than today’s GCSE papers.

WJEC 1984. I remember The Merchant of Venice, and Paradise Lost and A Town Like Alice. I think there was some W H Auden and Tennyson.

Interesting to see the range of texts studied. Some seem unbelievably hard for O Level (Chaucer in Middle English!) while others are a light read that I didn't know were ever set texts (Rogue Male, A Town Like Alice)

I did English Lit O Level in 1981 and A level in 1983. Don't think I remember all the texts.

O level (possibly mixed up with books studied earlier in secondary school):
Kes
Mayor of Casterbridge
The Long, The Short and The Tall
Animal Farm
Graham Greene 21 short stories
Ted Hughes poetry
Of Mice and Men

A Level:
Hamlet
Richard II
Return of the Native
Upon Appleton House (Andrew Marvell)
The Go Between

O levels are a blur - took them in 1986 but I only really recall Richard II and possibly An Inspector Calls.
A Levels in 1988 I remember being staggered at the jump in the expectation of our comprehension. We did Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Tom Jones, Pride and Prejudice, The Pardoner’s tale, Keats, , Coleridge and Wordsworth. To this day I loathe The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

@cariadlet lucky you doing The Go Between. It’s one of my favourite books.

Ooh I remember now we did the Go Between - really tragic! I recall having to do an essay about the importance of letters to the story or some such!

I did my O levels that year and I'm fairly sure our Shakespeare was The Merchant of Venice.

1980 and we had Where Angels Fear to Tread, JuliusCaesar, Twelfth Night and a selection of love poetry. I got a B and went on to A level which was horrific! King Lear, Wife of Bath, Paradise Lost...

London board in 1984

Had a weird mix, picked by my English teacher. The other classes had much more straight forward selections.

Twelfth Night, and then a collection of short stories, and an anthology of ballads! I would have loved a decent novel, instead we had to learn 10 different shirt stories back to front and inside out.