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 o level in 1984 - Rogue male, School for Scandal, contemporary poetry and Diary of a super tramp (wh Davies). I got a D and retook in 1985 and read Henry IV part 1, science fiction anthology, war poems and can't remember the other one.

I was last year of O Levels in 1987. English lit texts were Julius Caesar, Great Expectations, and poems that included Cristabel, The Deserted Village and Grays Elergy.

Weird. My early 80s O level papers were nothing like the one in that Guardian piece. They were all essay questions. Merchant of Venice and Cider with Rosie I remember, then Ted Hughes and other 20th century poets. The Royal Hunt of the Sun, which I loved, and could probably still quote from, given the right essay question and a working pen. There must have been others. Definitely no Chaucer, thank fuck.

How so?

0 Level A Level Sneaky AS in
Great Expectations Hamlet American Studies

Dorain Gray The Tempest also using
1984 Wordsworth Grapes of Wrath
Catcher in the Rye, Prologues & Canterbury Tales- Chaucer
WW1 Poets The Rainbow- Lawrence
The Caretaker- Pinter
Grapes of Wrath

Oh, I've just come across this thread. I did Eng lit AEB O level in 1985, not sure if it changed the following year.

We did
Rogue Male
Poems from Rhyme and Reason including 'Dulce et decorum' etc, 'Ozymandius', Wilfrid Owen, John Donne etc
The play was 'Strife' - we voted not to do Shakespeare but I think that option was 'The Merchant of Venice'.

Sound like there were a lot of texts to choose from!

Can't remember the board, but in 1987 I did Macbeth (loved), Jane Eyre (ugh), a poetry anthology, and an anthology of 20th Century short stories which included Conrad, Lawrence, Mansfield, Greene and Saki, and was honestly a joy to read.

1982 for me.
I remember Henry iv part 1, anthology of short stories including James Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald and similar. Also, A knights Tale (Chaucer), Keats springs to mind plus My family and other animals...
We also were taught a couple of wrong (Macbeth for one) texts which meant a very busy Easter holidays reading the correct Shakespeare (Henry iv) and My family and other animals (which I loved).

I did the Cambridge Board in 1977 like a previous poster. Definitely did Under Milk Wood, Romeo and Juliet, The Mayor of Casterbridge. May have done others but I really can't remember.

A level was horriffic, Paradise Lost (ok), Songs of Innocence and Experience (quite liked that) Chaucer (forget which one but OK), Macbeth (just about bearable), Redgauntlet (unreadable), Middlemarch (which I never did manage to read to the end), one of the Henry IV plays (hated it).

Not surprising I failed.

I did A Passage to India.

Was AEB the board with yellow papers? We did a mishmash of exam boards at school, including AEB, and I remember one had yellow papers.

Eng Lit O Level 1987 - last year of Os

Macbeth
Great Expectations
An Inspector Calls
War Poetry

Almost identical to what DS did for GCSE this year, but with a different Dickens ( Christmas Carol).

Yes I think AEB were the yellow paper ones

Did the London board have pink ones?

I sat WJEC in 1986, I found some question papers not so long ago but maybe they were my A Level papers from ‘88. Will try to find them tomorrow if I remember (English Lit, French - which included unseen French poetry! And German, also with literature. Ugh!)
As for O level we did
Macbeth
war poetry - mostly Owen but also Sassoon
An Inspector Calls
possibly Animal Farm?

Sort of peach colour

GMH - I saw this morning morning’s minion 🤣

Chaucer- let flee a fart. Tee hee quod she

I think I’ve still got some of mine somewhere. Peach colour and A5 sized

The Knight's Tale very pure...so we all read the translation of The Miller's Tale avidly! Poker up the bottom if I remember correctly...which I may not!
You all have such good memories. I honestly can't remember the colour of the papers...

I think Absolom in the Miller’s Tale “kissed her naked arse”

Great fun

Did mine in 1987. Also Rogue Male and Henry IV Part I.

We definitely studied Cone Gatherers in Eng Lit but can't remember if it was for the exam. And also Philip Larkin poetry.

Happy days!!

Feel like I want to reread Rogue Male now! Seem to recall Cone Gatherers was quite disturbing.