Anyone else's kid not expecting a Lady Macbeth question in todays English lit exam

[Jennywren8]

He revised kingship mainly as thought that would come up, arrrghh

I think the expectation was Kingship as my daughter thought the same. She said Lady MacBeth was a surprise to her teachers as it's been done so many times. Did he manage to answer it Ok?

Sorry no, my dd was very pleased it was Lady Macbeth as that's what she had worked on the most

Nope not expecting it either but dd pleasantly surprised!

DD was very happy about it, one of the topics she had prepped (as recommended by her teachers).

DS thought it could be either but seemed pleased it was Lady Macbeth.
Was also pleased with the Economic questions on supply and demand so I'm hoping the next month is equally as pleasing!

Ouch. No, DD was told to revise Lady Macbeth because it always comes up! Left her last minute Jekyll and Hyde revision cards at home though so didn’t remember any of those quotes. Doh! Good luck to all with the exams ahead x

Ditto, mine was pleased with both questions, which is good as they don't find English Lit all that easy like I did.

Yes my dd was expecting Kingship as well.

My child did Romeo and Juliet and definitely did not expect Lady Macbeth 😂

I wonder if there is any prior discussion between exam boards about which question they have chosen! I don't mean that they'd agree between them that one might ask Kingship and another Lady Macbeth, but I wonder if in the months after the decision has been made, if any of them ever get together with the other boards and discuss what choices they made. I don't know how great the crossover between choices of books/plays is, but it seems that there are a lot available on several boards for sure.

My DD seemed happy that it was about Lady Macbeth and felt she had plenty to say!

I heard that the reason people thought that kingship was going to come up was cos it was on tiktok

That's what my y11 told me. Which is why it wasn't going to be that. The exam boards monitor social media. If it had been that, the paper would have been pulled.

Ds was also pleasantly surprised it was Lady Macbeth, as that was the locked paper used for the mock exam.
I wonder about the piling the paper if it's on TikTok. Maybe there was a leaked paper or something and it was pulled. It seems ateange to do Lady Macbeth twice in a row

😄

DS thought guilt might come up but they also studied Lady Macbeth in detail recently. There has been no mention of kingship. Social media is a dangerous place if it is leading kids to study specific things for their exams which could cause them to fail.

Christ are they still doing that? I had a lady Macbeth question in 2000!

Aqa wasn't Lady Macbeth last year

I remember a (foreign language) text I did for A level which featured 2 main characters. The exam paper had alternated a focus on each of them since the text was on the syllabus. The year I sat the exam they repeated the character focus from the year before which threw us all! But I guess inevitable they would do that at some point to avoid predictability.

I work for an exam board & they don’t just pull a paper last minute because of rumours on tik tok! Unless there was a security breach.

That was what I meant.

I'll advise ds2 to study all possible topics for Macbeth next year. I fear it won't be Lady Macbeth next year then, shame as it's easy to bring in/ relate back loads of stuff to her.

The 'expectation' of kingship was purely being rumoured on tiktok.

Keep them off social media and get them to revise the texts thoroughly for the next paper.

They will have been taught how to track the character and/or theme and analyse methods which present them all throughout the texts.

It's ridiculous to focus on one idea and bank on it coming up.

For AQA, the last lit paper has the poetry cluster (between the modern text and unseen poetry). There will be one named poem (of 15) to compare to one free choice. It really can be any. No good revising only one because you've seen it mentioned on the internet.

Advising them to study all possible topics? Whatever next.

For any young person studying Macbeth, I would expect them to be able to answer a question about Lady Macbeth. It's one of the very obvious things that might come up.

It's disturbing that some kids or even teachers in some cases are trying to game the system by second guessing what will come up. Whatever happened to kids studying the texts properly so that they could have a passing go at any one of the main themes or characters?